April is a busy month at Sankalp India Foundation(SIF). This is the time when SIF reviews the work that the organisation has done in the past 1 year and lays out strategy for the year to come. Sankalp operates through teams which focus on different areas of the organisation's work. There is an emergency team, a team for the helpline, a team for thalassemia and so on. The process starts with accumulating all the performance and feedback data for the last year of work. Volunteers are able to request feedback from the stakeholders of their work and get their team's and their own feedback. Using the document enlisting final plan which was prepared last year, the progress made and the feedbacks collected through the year the team's annual report is made. The analysis of the team's annual report is made. The analysis of the team's strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats(SWOT) is also done. The volunteers involved in the team also propose a new plan for the year to come.
These team reports are presented internally to all other volunteers where the reports undergo intense scrutiny. The volunteers seek too understand what worked and what did not. There is an honest and open debate on each aspect of the team. The role of the involved volunteers, the targets, the road-maps - all of it is reviewed. Once this process is over, the final plan is drafted and approved. Why should an organisation which has about 15 individuals who work consistently through the years invest heavily in annual review? The answer is not difficult. SIF is committed to quality and not just outcome. SIF values methods as much as it values the eventual results. SIF is committed to enriching the skills, competency, methodology and the strategy that the teams use and not just find the teams use and not just find the easiest path to success. Feedbacks, compliance and honest review are strengths which SIF has always valued.
We would like to share another positive outcome of this exercise. All through the year volunteers work in individual teams to reach their goals. This sometimes leads to a situation where certain members of the organisation start falling out of context of the work being done by some other team. However, they are very skilled and committed people who might have solutions and ideas which could be invaluable for the teams. Annual review helps the organisation as a whole to come on the same page of what is happening and what should be done.
It's the time of pulling up our socks, sharpening our strategy and preparing for the summer shortage and the year ahead. We need your good wishes - and your honest feedback to find success at this.
Thanks a lot.