Overcoming financial and organisational challenges of Caritas organisations in Europe

1
Overcoming financial and organisational
challenges of Caritas organisations in Europe

• Response by Caritas Europa to financial and
  organisational challenges of its member
  organisations
• Presented by
• Marius Wanders, Keti Tskitishvili, Annamaria
  Vrzackova
• Berlin, 12 April 2007, EOSF/DCV Workshop on
  Financing Caritas Activities in Europe

2
Elements covered by this presentation

• General introduction of Caritas Europa
• The Caritas Europa internal network structures
  and processes
• Presentation of the ESF mechanism
• Presentation of the SODA program
• Presentation of the Management Forum

3
What is Caritas Europa?

• Caritas Europa (CE) is
• One of the 7 world regions of Caritas
  Internationalis
• 162 members active in over 200 countries and
  regions
• Regions Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America
  Caribbean, MONA, North America, Oceania
• 48 member organisations (MOs) active in 44
  European countries ( all countries of Europe),
  including member organisations in each member
  state of the EU
• Covering a large geographical area that includes
  places like Reykjavik (Iceland), Vladivostok
  (Siberia), Yerevan (Armenia) and Las Palmas
  (Canary Islands)

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Role of Caritas Europa towards its MOs

• Liaising with Caritas Internationalis and its
  other regional structures
• Building effective partnerships and alliances at
  the European level with other civil society
  actors
• Being the political voice at the European level
  (EU, Council of Europe, OSCE etc.) on behalf of
  the MOs and based on their grass roots
  experiences
• Fostering exchange, cooperation and coordination
  with regard to activities of the MOs
• Strengthening the network as a whole and building
  the capacities of the individual members of the
  network

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Diversity within the CE network

• Age and history of the organisations
• Resources (human, financial, technical)
• Size of the organisations
• Focus of the activities (domestic/overseas/both)
• Nature of the activities (delivery of social
  services and welfare/political advocacy/both)
• Proportion of Catholics in the country
• Level of direct control and/or management by
  Church authorities
• Language, culture
• Old EU, New EU or non-EU

6
Common challenges within the CE network

• Common challenges faced by many of the so-called
  weaker member organisations (MOs) include the
  following
• Operating within a weak economic context
• Operating within a weak social context
• Operating in a challenging religious context
  (very low proportion of Catholics in the
  population)
• Operating in a poor governance context limited
  realistic options for NGOs or charitable
  foundations
• As a result of all the above, operating in
  challenging financial and organisational
  contexts, especially with regard to
  sustainability and autonomy
• Many MOs focus on their struggle to survive
  rather than on their mission to respond to the
  needs of the poor and needy.

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The response by Caritas Europa

• Priority V of the CE strategic plan 2005-2010
  reads is defined as follows
• Responding to the needs and requests of its
  member organisations, Caritas Europa develops a
  coherent approach towards increasing the sense of
  ownership and the joint commitment within the
  network.
• Included in this approach are
• development and strengthening of all its
  organisations and all its structures,
• promotion of good governance and quality
  management principles,
• building of capacity within member organisations
  and other structures,
• administering a solidarity funding mechanism and
• fostering the intra-European coordination of
  projects and programmes.

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Historic background of the ESF

• ESF was set up in the middle of the 90s,
  following the (re-)appearance of many Caritas MOs
  in former communist-led countries
• ESF Multilateral and solidarity based system of
  financial support for structural expenses
• Meant to supplement bilateral partnerships and
  bilateral funding arrangements
• The system is centrally administered by Caritas
  Europa, but transfers of support funds take place
  on direct and bilateral basis between donor and
  recipient

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Objectives of the ESF system

• Funding support for the costs of core structures
  of MOs unable to finance such costs autonomously
• To be one of the capacity building tools of CE
• To facilitate and encourage MOs on their path
  towards financial self-sustainability
• To foster and encourage solidarity between MOs of
  the European Caritas network
• To foster further bilateral partnerships between
  MOs
• To foster closer liaison between national and
  diocesan Caritas structures in recipient MOs

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Current map of the ESF system
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CE vision of the ESF (1)

• Mid-term vision and objectives (lt 2 years)
• Revitalisation through better awareness of its
  objectives and potential benefits for all
  stakeholders
• Better and more professional processes
• Increased transparency of procedures
• Better and more professional application
  documentation
• Improvement of the transparency, reliability,
  quality and coherence of the applications by
  recipients
• Long term vision and objectives (3-6 years)
• All but a few of the current recipients will be
  sufficiently financially autonomous to leave the
  system some will become donors
• Remaining needs to be covered in long term
  bilateral funding agreements (not requiring
  multilateral system)

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CE vision of the ESF - 2

• ESF could/should evolve to also include a CRM
  (Crisis Response Mechanism)
• Same principles multilateralism and solidarity
• Every MO can be a donor of money or other
  resources (human, technical resources) depending
  on needs dictated by the crisis
• All donors make virtual pledges of the volume
  and nature of support that in case of need
  they can supply
• The crisis-stricken MO will only need to make one
  application to trigger the multilateral support
  system
• Evaluation by a special CE Committee, CE to call
  in some of the virtual pledges
• Such a system will require careful planning and
  full ownership

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Visions expressed by current ESF donors (Tirana,
Oct. 2006)

• ESF should only support a minimum structure and
  only at national level (not the branches,
  dioceses etc in the country). Caritas-Europe must
  formulate the criteria for minimum structure.
• In the case that ESF has more funds the criteria
  could be less strict or more Caritas
  organisations in difficulties could be supported.
• ESF should support also Caritas organisations who
  are in difficulties (e.g. Sweden) for a limited
  period.
• The Caritas organisation must try to introduce
  capacity building activities as a project and
  send a request to donors which want to finance
  such activities.
• ESF should only support Caritas organisation if
  that organisations have a clear plan about the
  phasing out the ESF support.
• External auditing to be supported by the donors

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Visions expressed by current ESF recipients
(Tirana, Oct. 2006)

• ESF Committee members will help recipient MOs to
  develop a strategy for 3-5 years (individual
  consulting for countries)
• Scaling the application (pledge commitment of the
  donors for several years) and sign the agreement
  with CE on pledges
• Clear guidelines with regard to eligibility
  within ESF of CE and CI membership fees
• Improved transparency of the allocation criteria

15
The SODA program since 2001

• Represents Systematic Organisational Development
  Approach
• Aims to promote systematic organisational
  development and strategic planning within Caritas
  Europa members
• Assists member organisations in terms of public
  accountability, transparency, governmental and EU
  requirements, funding requirements,
  organisations internal needs
• Includes
• Strategic planning
• Self-assessment inspired by the EFQM Excellence
  model

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Strategic planning with SODA

• A disciplined effort to produce fundamental
  decisions and action that shape and guide what an
  organisation is, what it does and why it does it.
• Represents a shared vision of what will be
• Provides a framework which will be consistent
  over a specific period of time
• Identifies the predetermined direction toward
  which short term actions will be pointed
• Identifies the context within which the
  organisation accepts or rejects new opportunities
  and assigns its resources to current services

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Self-Assessment role

• Recognises achievements
• Identifies space for further improvement
• Clarifies a linkage of achievements with
  ways/tools/approaches
• Provides a snapshot
• Leads to further improvement plans

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The Management Forum

• Is designed to promote and put into practice good
  governance, quality management and transparency,
  both at the level of the Caritas Europa network
  and at the level of individual Member
  Organisations.
• For Those Managers of CE Member Organizations
  who shape the management practices, management
  instruments, management polices and management
  culture within our network

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The Management Forum

• Develops cooperation and exchange on global
  management issues among MOs Finance, HR,
  Administration, IQM, etc.
• Prioritises management related issues for further
  exchange and reflection
• Identifies ways for responding to common
  challenges within the network
• Reflects and works on Recommended Management and
  Administrative Guidelines (minimum standards)
  within the CE network.