Fiscal compliance is important; there's no arguing that fact. But program performance is just as important, and crucially, it gets a lot less airtime.
At their core, grant programs are intended to serve the public good. So if you're fiscally compliant but not hitting important milestones or improving the lives of your target population, can you really say your program is successful?
At the Vander Weele Group, our work is guided by a philosophy we call Meaningful Monitoring: a skill set, a mind set, and an approach to subrecipient monitoring that asks not only if a program is compliant, but is it achieving its goals?
Subrecipient monitoring can be an incredible tool for gleaning meaningful insights about how a program is functioning, what the obstacles to success are for grantees and other front-line professionals, and whether the program is helping the people it's supposed to help. There are many ways to make your own monitoring practices more meaningful; here are six ideas to get you started.
