On December 11th 2014, 30 people participated in a Results-Based Accountability (RBA) training held at the Landmark Conference Center in Beijing, China. The training was delivered by Brian Smith, Executive Officer of the Local Community Services Association (LCSA) in New South Wales, Australia, and hosted by Beijing’s Vantone Foundation. The participants were members of Vantone Foundation grantee and partner organizations.
Established in 2008, the Beijing Vantone Foundation is a non-public foundation registered with the Beijing Municipal Civil Administration. It is devoted to communication, research, and financial assistance in fields such as environmental protection, energy saving, education, and poverty alleviation. The Foundation’s purpose is to push forward environmental protection and energy conservation, and to promote harmony between man and nature. Its main business endeavor is to promote the construction of ecological communities.
The Vantone Foundation requested the RBA training after the Foundation’s General Secretary Chen Jian
Chen Jian, General Secretary of the Vantone Foundation records population indicators as they are identified in the workshop.
was introduced to RBA at an LCSA event in September 2013. Ms. Chen wanted to find a framework that would unify data collection, measurement, and evaluation across all of Vantone’s grantee organizations. The purpose of the training was to introduce the grantee organizations to Results-Based Accountability in a way that was relevant to the environmental work they are doing. This training was funded by the Vantone Foundation as part of its annual conference.
During the two hour session, Vantone and its grantees were presented with a shortened version of the basic RBA training developed by RBA creator Mark Friedman. Material introduced included translations of the 7 Population and Performance Accountability questions and translations of a customized version of training templates developed at LCSA to help organizations identify program performance measures. Selected RBA materials were translated into Mandarin over several months preceding the session.
Mr. Smith used RBA to identify population quality of life results consistent with the Vantone Foundation mission statement, such as “Healthy Communities.” The group then worked to identify indicators of these conditions including such measures as “good air quality index,” “high participation in community activities,” and “green space percentage.”
Brian Smith (standing) speaks to workshop participants.
Mr. Smith shared that participants warmed to both content and relevance of the presentation and that there was a lot of enthusiasm by the end of the session. Participants appreciated the value of the three RBA performance measurement categories “How much did we do?,” “How well did we do it?,” and “Is anyone better off?,” and expressed an interest in using such measures to establish and demonstrate good performance. According to Mr. Smith, “The Vantone Foundation is now moving to adopt the Results Based Accountability Framework across their programs and will definitely pilot RBA with some of their grantees starting in 2015.”
The training capped almost 3 years of relationship-building between LCSA and a range of organizations in China. LCSA has developed a strong partnership with the Vantone Foundation and is also expanding its connections with significant Chinese non government organizations. “Results Based Accountability is seen as a relevant capacity building approach for Chinese NGOs,” concluded Mr. Smith.
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To learn more about the Vantone Foundation, visit their website at: http://www.vantone.net/en/contents/371/1427.html
To learn more about the work of LCSA, visit: http://www.lcsansw.org.au/
To learn more about the Results-Based Accountability framework, please visit: the Clear Impact websiteand www.ra-guide.org.
For more information, contact:
Brian Smith
Executive Officer, Local Community Services Association
Email: brian@lcsansw.org.au
