Value for money

The Bond Effectiveness Programme’s work on value for money aims to help our members:

By engaging proactively with value for money, NGOs have the opportunity to help shape the use of the concept.

Support NGOs, individually and collectively, to measure the effectiveness of their programmes and demonstrate how they represent good value for money.
Share experiences of applying different value for money methodologies: what are the benefits, challenges and lessons
Engage in dialogue with other actors, including DFID, on their interpretation of value for money and how this translates into funding of civil society

Value for money: what it means for UK NGOs

A new Bond paper presents a framework to help UK NGOs navigate the value for money agenda and to identify which approaches and methods are best suited to their needs. It focuses on three key areas:

The systems and processes in place for managing value for money
The approaches NGOs use to compare value for money between activities
The use of evaluations to demonstrate value for money

The paper also outlines the current debate around value for money and offers some suggestions on how to move the value for money agenda forwards across the UK NGO sector. A working draft of the paper was presented by Sara Cottingham from VSO at the High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) at Busan in November 2011.

Download the paper

Download the presentation on value for money from the HLF4

Integrating value for money into the programme cycle

A new Bond resource on how value for money considerations can be integrated into the programme cycle and how an NGO can build a robust and defensible case for how an intervention balances economy, efficiency and effectiveness and delivers the most value for poor and marginalised people.

Download the programme cycle resource

Unless an NGO can monitor costs and measure outcomes it will struggle to engage meaningfully with value for money.

Technical working group on value for money

The technical working group on value for money is made up of representatives from fourteen member organisations. The group meets regularly and provides peer support to group members in using and understanding new approaches to proving and improving value for money. If you are interested in joining the technical working group email ngoeffectiveness@bond.org.uk.

Past events on value for money

Bond organised a workshop on value for money in February and brought together monitoring and evaluation and policy experts in May to work on a common definition of value for money. Presentations and resources from these events are available in the resources page.