Accountability Reports

The final step of any grant is for you to provide the Foundation with an Accountability Report. This is due 12 months after your grant is given (or earlier), and can be filled in on-line at https://wcf.fluxx.io.

If you wish to apply for another grant, we require your Accountability Report to be submitted to us before we will accept another grant application from you.

At WCF, Accountability Reports concentrate on Outcomes as well Outputs and Financial Accountability.

Financial Accountability means showing that you spent the funds the way that you said you would. We ask that you sign a statement to say that the funds were spent appropriately — we do not generally require bank statements, invoices or receipts to illustrate expenditure, although you may provide these if you wish.

Outputs are “the things you did”, e.g. holding youth programme, planting māra kai / vegetable gardens, restoring a heritage building, or supporting someone with a debilitating illness. We like to see photos or press clippings about these, if available.

Outcomes describe the benefit that the community gained through the things you did. These are why we provide funding! Outcomes may include youth gaining friendships and skills through attending a youth programme; healthier whānau and families due to eating fresh veggies; greater pride and “ownership” in local heritage; or improving the life prospects of people with a debilitating illness. To illustrate these sorts of outcomes, you might like to include a story or feedback from someone impacted by the project/programme, or results from surveys and stats.

In the Accountability Report, we ask the following questions:

 

1. What did you spend your grant on? (usually related to Outputs)
2. Tell us how Whanganui Community Foundation funding contributed to the outcomes of your project or service (for example benefits to the group)
3. Community Benefit:
   1. How did the community benefit from the grant? (concentrate on Outcomes)
   2. How do you know? (with reference to surveys, feedback, research or other statistics if possible)
   3. Did you learn anything new from the surveys/feedback/research/statistics?

 

We love to see photos and/or media articles showing your project/programme in action, and these can be attached online.

Common Pitfalls

1. Mistaking Outcomes for Outputs.
   • We are less interested in exactly how many programmes you ran, and more interested in the impact that these had on the participants and the wider community.
      
2. Not including information from surveys or other impact measurement into your Accountability Report.
   • Honestly, we’re interested!
   • If you can show from an entry survey that 90% of youth starting the course had self esteem issues, and an exit survey showed that this figure had dropped to 25%, then you have a good news story to tell, and this strengthens your case for future funding.
      
3. Giving too much detail about your finances.
   • Please don't give us page after page of bank statements with lines highlighted, or similar types of information.
   • We may randomly request more financial information from some grantees, but otherwise, just sign the form to confirm that the funds were spent appropriately.
   • If you do want to include a copy of a paid invoice for something that we funded, that is fine, but our aim is to save you time.