Joint assessment of the Foundation for the Peoples of the South Pacific matching grant

FSP has done a considerable amount of valuable work during the first year of the grant. Senior staff, in particular, display an impressive understanding of what needs to be done, and an uncommon degree of agreement on goals, strategies, and tactics to get it done. Staff seriousness of purpose is palpable -- there is no lip-service quality to their work in changing FSP's management systems and approaches. Further, FSP has genuinely exceeded reasonable expectations in meeting the purposes of this grant. FSP has also been creative in achieving this progress. Both the strategic planning and budget/accounting workshops not only accomplished organizational management goals but also enlisted the energy, enthusiasm, and understanding of field staff. This helped ensure that the changes are agency-wide and not limited to headquarters or to senior staff. As intended, the grant has freed FSP's founder-leaders to work on broader fundraising strategies and has allowed FSP to hire two senior staff people to professionalize the operations of the organization. The Program Officer position proposed in the grant remains unfilled, and this position would probably benefit from more thought about its need and its potential benefit. Particular credit is due to FSP senior staff for the skill they have brought to the difficult task of balancing short- and long- term goals, needs, and priorities. Particularly in a small agency (there are only 4 paid staff in the New York headquarters) it can be tempting to skip the often awkward, often resisted, and sometimes humdrum work of establishing credible, effective management systems. FSP staff have avoided that error, knowing that they could not achieve the critical amalgam of program, finance, and fundraising until the basic management systems were in place. Many of the evaluation's suggestions concern management integration, but these must be viewed with the understanding that this integration will take time. The evaluators were also impressed with how extensive the changes in FSP have been, as they are not just the generational change discussed in the grant proposal. Equally significant to the organization and to the difficulty of the task it is undertaking is the change in the role of headquarters vis-a-vis the role of the field, and the role of field staff now vis-a-vis what it traditionally has been. It is not a surprise that 7 of FSP's 11 paid staff have begun working since this grant was approved. (Author abstract)