Analysis of Child Health Action for USAID/Benin Opportunity Report

This report provides a critical analysis of the information needed to advise Child Health Action (CHA) on whether to pursue a USAID/Benin programmatic opportunity. It outlines the essential information gathering process, including CHA's office structure, number of employees, organizational capacity, stakeholder relationships, financial position, program offerings, and compliance with statutory requirements. The report explains the relevance of each information category and how it can be obtained, such as reviewing corporate charters, job profiles, project reports, stakeholder interviews, financial records, and activity charts. The goal is to ensure that CHA's decision-making process is informed, leading to sound financial advice and avoiding potential crises. The analysis emphasizes the importance of understanding CHA's ability to meet project objectives, its financial stability, and its alignment with the USAID/Benin program's focus on malaria, family planning, mother and child health, and gender-based violence.

Running head: CHILD HEALTH ACTION 1
CHILD HEALTH ACTION’S INFORMATION OF INTEREST
Student’s name
Institution Affiliation:
City:
Country:
e-mail address:
In order to satisfactorily advice Child Health Action (CHA) on whether to pursue the
USAID/Benin programmatic opportunity, a lot of information has to be gathered and
systematically analyzed to provide for an informed decision-making process. The kind of
information to gather will provide an understanding of what Child Health Action is all about and
how they co-operate with other organizations and entities to achieve their set objectives. This
paper is, therefore, designed to critically outline the kind of information to be gathered, why the
information is relevant to the quest and finally give an explanation of how the information in
question will be obtained. The discussions will be structured in paragraphs that are centered on
one kind of information to familiarize with, its relevance and how to obtain the information.
First and foremost, information on Child Health Action’s office structure and the number
of employees will be required. This will cover the number of offices in the organization, their
departmental divisions, the specific roles of each department, mainly focusing on the number of
officers in each department, and their duties and responsibilities in the organization. This will
provide an outline of the number of employees in the organization and their duties. It will also
work to elaborate the chain of command in the organization. This information is relevant because

CHILD HEALTH ACTION 2
making the application will require a number of employees diverting from their normal duties
and taking up the task that is time-consuming. This will mean that the organization should have
adequate employees to be able to set others aside to work on the application and still remain fully
functional. This kind of information can be obtained from directly talking to the organization’s
Human Resource manager. This can also be done by looking at the corporate charters that
provide basic information of an organization [1] and by examining job profile documents that
contain all the necessary information of the roles present in the organization and who fulfill these
roles [2].
An understanding of Child Health Action’s organizational capacity is also mandatory.
Organizational capacity refers to the ability of an organization to fulfill its objectives [3]. It can
also be referred to as organizational performance. This captures the ability of the organization to
act towards, within and actually actualize their set goals. This kind of information is of particular
interest and it can provide insight on whether the organization can meet the USAID/Benin
project objectives. This will help put into focus the ability of the company to satisfy the USAID
project requirements. This kind of information can be acquired by sampling the organization’s
project reports for complete analysis of their performance with regards to the achievement of
goals. The documents can be acquired from their records department and read through to
establish performance patterns that will be helpful in the final decision-making process.
Thirdly, I would like to familiarize myself with the organization’s context and
relationship with stakeholders. It is the stakeholders that provide most the operating capital for
non-profit organizations [4]. This kind of capital is more than 50% of the total income and
includes fees for services, goods from private sources, investment income and private
contributions [5]. The information on the kind of relationship between the organization and its

CHILD HEALTH ACTION 3
stakeholders is relevant because a good organizational-stakeholder relationship enhances the in-
flow of capital and hence more circulating funds in an organization. This will, as a result, fully
drive the projects and other organizational goals. This kind of information can be obtained from
one-on-one interviews with the major stakeholders of the organization. The list of major
stakeholders can be acquired from the organization’s manager and their addresses and telephone
numbers listed therein.
Apart from getting an insight on the source and supply of an organization’s capital, it is
of importance to evaluate the organization’s financial position. It is to be remembered that the
application to the USAID/Benin programmatic opportunity, apart from consuming a lot of time,
it also attracts preparation and submission costs that are charged to the applicant [6]. Therefore, a
clear understanding of the organization’s financial position is of importance. This is mainly to
avoid too much stretching of the organization’s resources. Also, with the financial position of the
organization in mind, decisions can be made on whether the organization can afford addition
charges that come with applying for the opportunity. This kind of information can be acquired by
carefully going through the organization’s financial records. This will help put into perspective
the nature of expenditure, amount of profit and/or loss made by the organization annually. Also,
external auditors could be used to help prepare an audit report that will help in determining the
viability of the financial statements issued [7] which will in return determine whether they
should be taken seriously and considered before drawing conclusions.
Fifthly, the kind of programmes being offered by the organization is to be taken into
account. This is mainly because the USAID/Benin programme opportunity is mainly centered on
compacting malaria and addressing issues concerned with family planning, mother and child
health and gender-based violence (GBV) [6]. It is important to familiarize myself with the

CHILD HEALTH ACTION 4
organization’s main areas of concern so as to ensure relevance of the opportunity to the goals of
the organization and also to ensure that the opportunity will be beneficial to the organization in
terms of propagating the organization’s objectives. This kind of information can be obtained
from the activity charts made by the organization that outlines the activities to be undertaken and
their specific objectives. Also, by looking at the activity charts, information on the number of
ongoing projects can be deduced. This, coupled with expenditure reports, can provide insight on
the amount of money required and used by the organization at the moment. This will be of
importance in determining whether it will be wise or not to divert certain amounts of money to
the application.
Lastly, it is of importance to analyze the degree of compliance of the organization with
the necessary statutory requirements. The degree of compliance with the required statutory
obligations will inform on the organization’s ability to meet demands from external entities. This
will, therefore, inform on whether the organization can meet the USAID/Benin’s requirements in
the execution of the opportunity were they to win the award. This kind of information can be
acquired through the acquisition of all mandatory organization’s documents that are a statutory
requirement. These documents include but are not limited to Non-Governmental Organization
constitutions, letters of the organization, operating certificates, memoranda of agreement and
board forms. A comparison of the information in the organization’s documents with those
stipulated by various regulatory bodies and NGO regulation acts can be made and appropriate
inferences drawn from the observed patterns.
Therefore, the decision-making process that is intended to provide concrete advice to
organizations on big financial issues should be made after thorough critical analysis of the
outcome of the decision. This calls for the acquisition of adequate information regarding an

CHILD HEALTH ACTION 5
organization and the issue being debated upon. In the case of Child Health Action (CHA), the
information of interest includes the organization’s office structures, number of employees, its
organizational capacity, financial position, relationship with other stakeholders, the kind of
programmes it offers and lastly, its degree of compliance to statutory requirements. This
information will guide the decision-making process to ensure that the advice deduced at the end
of the process is an informed decision and hence the right kind of advice that will not result in a
devastating financial crisis for the organization in question.

CHILD HEALTH ACTION 6
References
[1]. Investing Answers, “Corporate Charter”. 2018 [Online]. Available:
http://gooleweblight.com/i?u=http://www.investinganswers.com/financial-dictionary/
businesses-corporations/corporate-charters-5548&hl=en-KE. [Accessed Mar 14, 2018]
[2]. Recruiterbox.com, “The 13 Documents you need to start your HR Department”. 2018
[Online]. Available: https://gogleweblight.com/i?u=https://recruiterbox.com/blog/the-13-
documents-you-need-to-start-your-hr-department&hl=en-KE. [Accessed March 14, 2018]
[3]. B. T. Kolar. “Exploring the Dimensions of Organizational Capacity for Local Social
Service Delivery Organizations Using A Multi-Method Approach”. Virginia: Virginia
Technical University, 2011
[4]. S. Shanker, “Nonprofit Finance: A Practical Guide for Controllers, CFOs and Board
Members”. London: Elsevier, 2010
[5]. Grantspace.org, “How are Non-Profits Funded?” 2017 [Online]. Available:
http://grantspace.org/tools/knowledge-base/funding-resources/general/how-are-
nonprofits-funded. [Accessed Mar 14, 2018]
[6]. USAID, “Notice of Funding Opportunity (NFO) Number: 72068018RFA00001:
Integrated Health Services Activity”. Benin: USAID from American People, 2014
[7]. Accounting tools, “Audit Report”. 2017 [Online]. Available:
https://gooleweblight.com/i?u=https://www.accountingtools.com/articles/2017/5/5/audit-
report&hl=en-KE&tg=44&tk=16041775491043128512 . [Accessed Mar 14, 2018]