Becoming an Expert with Google University
By clever design our SAP Social Sabbatical program manager has placed 12 volunteers in roles that are not quite our individual areas of expertise, yet collectively the experience could be found among the 12…even more clever is that the assignment may be designed to stretch the volunteers. All 12 SAP volunteers are here in Tanzania, because we all have experiences to contribute, and we are all high performing, resourceful, overachievers who will figure it out one way or the other!
I have been around business plans, financial plans, and strategies for more than half of my 30 year career in big enterprise companies. I can read and interpret balance sheets, forecast, budgets, financial reports, etc… yet, finance is not my sweet spot and creation of these financial reports has always been some other more capable person’s job. Yet, here I am in Tanzania helping an NGO with their financials and identifying new sources of income. To make it even more fun, my two team colleagues are also not financial gurus. Another ‘funny’ point is that there are two other teams working on marketing, branding and communications… an area they are not experienced in, yet it is my sweet spot! The clever system is working, since I’ve been able to help them.
High Expectations from The Experts
From the first time we met our client over Skype, they have been calling us ‘The Experts’ and have high expectations that we will help reduce their current risk of being practically 100% donor funded, of which 97% is restricted funding.
For the past five weeks since I was informed of my assignment, I’ve been educating myself through Google. It is amazing what you can find on the Internet! My big enterprise background, and my life of giving and volunteering on various charities and church has provided a nice foundation, but I’ve had to learn all about NGO financials, endowment funds, accounting and legal practices for NGOs in Tanzania. A quick Google search returns with pages of resources — from definitions, to tips, to handbooks, to templates, to local resources, and more. However, applying my experiences to an NGO located in Tanzania, has its challenges.
…I’ve had to learn all about NGO financials, endowment funds, accounting and legal practices for NGOs in Tanzania…
It has been a week and half since we began working with our client, and as hard as we are with ourselves, we have been living up to our ‘expert’ title. Our business experience and newly found NGO financial knowledge is more than what they have, we have been introducing out of the box ideas and helping them see alternatives they had not considered before.
Not only have we learned financials, but we have learned about the Maasai life, their livestock and how their cows are part of who they are, about starting small village banks, about women rights to own and manage livestock, about rescuing Maasai girls and giving them an education. Everyone we’ve spoken to is giving it all to their mission, they speak from their heart and their intentions are so pure.
We are holding on to our heavy weight title of ‘The Experts’ and hope not to disappoint, but instead we wish to give this organization a roadmap that will help them gain financial sustainability so that they can continue serving their mission with the Maasai women and girls.
