Auditing OrgANIZATIONs

Some organizations may want to do an organizational-scale assessment of the extent to which best design and management practices are being followed. The audit tool can be used to conduct a series of project audits and then roll up the results to develop an organizational analysis. Specific steps include:

1) Conduct conservation audits of a representative sample of projects. In the case of smaller organizations, this might include nearly all projects.* For larger organizations, we recommend auditing a representative set of projects, based upon considerations of geographic location, size of geographic scope, nature of project (e.g., place-based vs. thematic), age, and budgetary size (aiming to capture a significant portion of the organization's annual operating budget). For network-type organizations like World Wildlife Fund or The Nature Conservancy, conducting audits within each office and sharing the results across the network could provide a picture of the organization as a whole. Effort should be made to carry out the audits following the common methodology presented in this tool, and ideally supported or guided by a single facilitator who can ensure consistency in interpretation and application of the tool.

*Note that the audit template supports up to five project audits. If an organization seeks to do more than five, additional audit worksheets can be added, but roll-up report will need to be modified to capture the additional audit results. We recommend consulting with the Conservation Audits Working Group prior to modifying the template (audits@conservationmeasures.org).

2) Aggregate or assemble project-level results. To develop an overall sense of the extent to which an organization is adhering to best design and management practice, aggregate the results from across the conservation audits of the representative set of projects. This should highlight where practice is consistently strong, weak, or variable.

3) Complete the "Auditing Organizations" questionnaire in the workbook. Complement the project-scale audits by completing the "Org Assessment" in the workbook.