Being familiar with the competency of project defining, implementation and management is vital for a community-based organization in the modern world. In addition to following their routine current tasks, NGOs need to be able to plan for and implement their provisional activities in a customized manner when crises such as the Coronavirus pandemic occur. Utilizing project frameworks and structures is the best method for implementing and managing such tasks, keeping in mind that project management science and competency which is predicated on global standards and experiences can help charity organizations override a crisis.
On the occasion of the International Project Management Day, we interviewed Marjan Rezvani, the manager of the Strategy and Systems Department at MAHAK Charity which has received two gold awards from the International Project Management Association (IPMA) and a score of three in Delta Assessment to discuss the exigency of project planning, implementation, and management in community-based organizations.
She initially mentioned the role of project management competency for charities in achieving their goals and added:” One of the most important merits of project management in a charity is the prospect of precisely defining deliverables, outcomes, and impacts while untying the expenses of deploying such projects from expenses related to other current operations and activities. This approach has a positive effect on transparent, precise, and punctual accountability to stakeholders thus ensuring their growing trust.”
Regarding the distinction of charity organizations with a project management structure, she stated: “Undoubtedly, what distinguishes one charity organization from another is the agility in providing various services to the target group while being able to provide timely justification and related reporting within the framework of a project. In other words, a community-based organization should obtain the financial resources in the shortest possible time and utilize the most prudent method to turn them into required services, especially during times of crisis. If an organization does not have proficiency in the predefined structures of project management, it will certainly not be very successful in undertaking these measures.”
Referring to this issue she added: “as the Coronavirus spread, MAHAK was forced to implement remote work measures toward the provision of services and procuring resources. Moreover, identifying the emerging needs of our target groups led to the designing and planning of new services in our program. Therefore, since March 2020, a series of projects have been defined and implemented in order to cope with the new conditions; ‘Defining the structure and implementation of remote work’ and ‘redesigning the website to facilitate the process of online donation methods’, ‘design and implementation of a digital platform for offering condolences’ are among the most important adopted measures to meet goals and provide resources in the new environment.”
Rezvani mentioned the agility and flexibility of MAHAK during the pandemic hit as a result of deploying project management knowledge and said:” Since 2016, Project Management as a method of management has been cultivated among various levels of the organization according which a part of project-based activities have been planned and implemented.
She added: “Since remotely managing a project team dispersed geographically is one of the project's features, there are plenty of configurations and practical tools in this regard which has assisted us in forming and maintaining the cohesion of workgroups at MAHAK. PM tools including Arena and Trello, and telecommunication and document-sharing platforms including Skype, Dropbox, Google Sheets, and Google Docs are among the most user-friendly tools in this regard.”
She said at the end: “Increasing knowledge in the field of project management and strengthening the organization’s structures and capacities are quite important for NGOs. Accordingly, we put our efforts to gain more experience in this field and share it with other NGOs in order to obtain information and resources with more cohesion and ultimately achieve better operational results through better planning on public donations. We hope to take an effective step toward providing cancer-stricken children and their families throughout Iran with required treatment and support services by continuously improving our systems and methods as we are committed to promote and maintain transparency and accountability to win the trust of the Iranian civil society.”
MNA/PR