The strategic planning function manages the setting of IDI’s strategic direction and IDI’s five-year planning cycle. It engages IDI’s internal and external stakeholders to articulate IDI’s programmatic and business strategic objectives, monitors progress towards achieving those objectives, and manages the mid-term review. This function identifies and prioritises opportunities for partnership, collaboration and communication with external parties in keeping with IDI’s mission, especially as it relates to ensuring the sustainability of IDI and also produces projections and analyses of critical variables that inform IDI management decision-making.
Tailored training and systematic on-going support (at a client’s organisation or at a distance) are available for those who seek to build their capacity in planning and strategy-related areas. Please e-mail grants@idi.co.ug if you are interested in such training and support.
Resource Generation and Grants Management Team
The IDI resource generation and grants management team is well qualified, highly experienced and bears primary responsibility for supporting the entire grants cycle (for over 80 projects funded by over 20 funding agencies). The cycle runs from opportunity identification, internal assessment and approval of opportunities, project budgeting and the related cost recovery analysis, proposal preparation and submission, negotiations and contracting of successful proposals, through to ensuring compliance with funding terms and conditions throughout the life of a grant/contract. The team works in tandem with the IDI Finance and Administration team to set management and reporting standards for each grant/contract to meet minimum contractual, regulatory and institutional requirements and to ensure that all relevant parties comply with those standards. It is an integral part of the internal controls for funded projects, routinely reviewing and approving major project-related transactions and preparing and submitting funder-specific financial reports. The team also manages a growing list of sub-grants to other organizations.
Tailored training and systematic on-going support (at a client’s organisation or at a distance) is available for those who seek to build their capacity in grants acquisition and management. Please e-mail grants@idi.co.ug if you are interested in such training and support.
Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Team
The IDI M&E team is a multi-skilled, highly qualified and experienced team which manages and conducts M&E at both the institutional level and at the project level (for over 80 projects funded by over 20 funding agencies that contribute to IDI programmatic objectives). The team identifies project-specific M&E needs, develops data collection and reporting templates, and coordinates data collection (electronic or manual) and storage and analysis to support evidence-based reporting which informs project management and stakeholders. The data collected at the project level also feeds into an evolving set of institutional Key Performance Indictors (KPIs); critical program success factors which are based on IDI’s institutional goals and objectives. The team regularly conducts assessments of various projects and programs to facilitate the development of tailor-made interventions and/or to demonstrate their impact. The team also provides technical assistance (TA) and training to build capacity for high quality M&E, reporting and Quality Assurance (QA) amongst IDI staff, its partners, sub-grantees and other interested parties.
Tailored training and systematic on-going support (at a client’s organisation or at a distance) are available for those who seek to build their M&E, reporting and QA capacity. Please e-mail grants@idi.co.ug if you are interested in such training and support.
SIGMER Systems Development Team
The System for Integrated Grants Management, Monitoring, Evaluation and Reporting (SIGMER) is currently used as IDI’s primary resource for financial and programmatic management of its portfolio of over 80 grants. SIGMER was developed by IDI as a module of the larger Navision-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system which automates many of IDI’s financial and administrative functions including its general ledger accounting, fund management, ordering, purchasing and payables, billing and receivables, and human resources management. This makes it possible to directly use data from those support functions in day-to-day grants management and reporting. SIGMER is divided into two major sub-modules: the grants management sub-module tracks financial and administrative data on each individual grant across the grants cycle from opportunity development to close-out, while the M&E sub-module tracks programmatic data for the same grants across the project implementation cycle. An IDI systems team is working full time on further developing SIGMER as a replicable, fully documented tool for managing the full grants cycle in other African organisations. SIGMER licences plus associated training and support will shortly be available to organisations with similar needs to IDI. Please e-mail grants@idi.co.ug for the latest information about SIGMER. Read more: System for Integrated Grants Management, Monitoring and Evaluation Reporting (SIGMER).
