We all are here to work towards a more equitable and just society for all of us. That means addressing the gender, class, caste, religion-based issues. We do start with a good intention. However, we might have felt that we are being stuck with the financial accounts, records, income tax, FCRA. Not only internal management, but also being up to date with the government rules and regulations is part of the job. Over the years, we either spend more time on these issues and less on our actual mission/work; or we as an organization create a complete divide between the project team and finance team, where there is no mutual ground between them about the work. Yes, both cases affect the work for sure.
What would be a way to solve this? Visthar has also struggled with it – no difference. From our experience, we started a course on Financial Management and Social Accountability for Non-Profit & Charitable organizations. This is designed in such a way that the project staff as well as the finance team of any organization can attend the course. The path of the less explored bridge is seen and understood over 5 days. This year the 12th edition of the course was conducted between October 17 to October 21 at Visthar Campus, Bengaluru.
The content comprises of key concepts of financial management, planning and budgeting (short term to long term), gender budgeting, legal requirements, ethics, social accountability, internal audits, project-oriented control systems, income tax and FCRA. All these topics were covered in game, activities-based sessions. The course is mainly facilitated by Francis Salvadore along with Biju John, Roshen Chandran, David Selvaraj and M. Sivakumar, a professional auditor.
12 participants from 5 different organization attended the course from 4 states. The highlight of the course is the shared learning. Our faculty members have learnt new strategies that participants use in their work as well. The interactive and shared learning was indeed very insightful for us, as it was for the participants. We bid adieu with hope and happiness.
