Section 04: During the exit/transition
4.1: Partnership exit/ transition planning considerations
Once a decision has been taken and you are planning for an exit / transition, remember to consider the following elements:
Governance e.g. any approvals needed from your Board
Additional organisational development support to partners in the lead up to exit Programme activities & timelines (that promote sustainability)
HR & how to help partners/staff remain motivated Finance e.g. final transfers & reconciliations etc.
Donor & reporting requirements
Communications (with communities, donors & staff)
Risk management & how to manage any risks associated with the transition.
4.1.1: Designing the exit / transition process
Significant exits (i.e. with long-term partners or multiple country exits) are also organisational change processes.
During an Action Learning Set on exit facilitated by INTRAC, we found that the following approaches are particularly important during an exit or transition:
Don’t panic about principles.
These can be a valuable reference/guidance point but it is important not to get stressed if they have not been developed early on. Instead, use this as an opportunity to involve partners in the process and review what exists around exit, guidelines and values.
Think holistically about capacity strengthening, organisational development and sustainability.
It can be beneficial to frame exit as sustainability planning and consider this early on in the relationship. Sustainability should also be incorporated into ongoing capacity strengthening with partners, but make sure you find a balance between supporting and enabling partners to become independent.
This experience is documented on INTRAC Praxis paper no. 31
Recognise the value of investing in staff care
Do not underestimate the need to look after staff and volunteers within your and partner organisations who are implicated by exit or transition, and factor in additional resources for this.
Lead by example
Staff and trustees need to champion exit. This is essential in motivating others, and ensuring they are well-supported. Leaders also need to make the necessary resources available for embedding learning and building monitoring of, planning for, and learning about exits into mid-term and strategy reviews. This is crucial in order to avoid repeating mistakes.
Investment
It is important to recognise that a good exit or transition strategy might require investment, and allocate the necessary resources.
This blog by Rachel Hayman looks at "The human side of the exit strategy. Staff care and personnel management"
4.1.2: Programme activities
When you’re working on the more detailed partnership exit plans, it can be useful to hold a workshop with partners, to unpack:
Which activities/services will continue in the same way in future (including how much they cost, and how this will be funded)
Which activities/services will continue in a modified form in future
Which activities/services could be handed over to another organisation(s) in future (and identifying potential organisations to approach)
Which activities/services will no longer continue with external support (either because they’ve become self-sustaining or because there’s no capacity to continue them)
4.1.3: Detailed transition plan and timeline
You’ll probably find it helpful to have a detailed transition plan and timeline, to help you keep track of key milestones and so you and your partners can regularly review your progress together along with your exit and transition indicators (see page 12).
You’ll need to decide what information to share with your partners, and if you want to create an internal tracking sheet as some of the details e.g. who is responsible for internal tasks may be irrelevant for the partners.
You can find a template for an internal ‘partner exit checklist’ here, which you can adapt for your own situation.
Here's a link to an "Exit for sustainability checklist" by Valuing Voices
4.1.4: Additional things to consider
If you’re planning to localise an office rather than completely exit from a country, it’s very important to consider the rationale for this, and what added value this will provide to civil society. There’s may be a risk that you will take space and attention away from existing civil society organisations.
A useful tool when considering strategic questions such as these is a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats exercise (SWOT). More information can be found in the Strategic Partnerships toolkit and there is an example available from Mind Tools.
Assuming that you’ve carried out a proper review and decided to go ahead, then other important considerations when planning to localise are:
Business Planning: the new organisation will need a proper Business Plan, that identifies their place in the market, how much turnover they would require, likely sources etc.
Legal considerations: It’s important to factor in the need for legal advice from the country where you’re working, to advise on local registration and governance arrangements, and local labour laws relating to redundancy if this seems likely.
4.2: The exit itself
Have a call/visit with the partner to mark the exit and celebrate all that you’ve achieved together.
Send a formal letter to confirm the partnership has now come to an end, and close your MOU or partnership agreement if you have one.
Provide a reference letter for the partner, for future reference
Check all of the final tasks are complete
4.2.1: What happens if you need to exit in a hurry?
If you’re exiting in a hurry because of integrity issues, because a due diligence process has thrown up concerns or because things have gone wrong…
Keep lines of communication open
Even if things have gone wrong and you need to exit quickly, it pays to keep the channels of communication open and to seek to understand the other organisation(s) perspectives.
Explain why and refer back to evidence for the decision
Being able to explain why you’ve decided to exit, and referring back to the evidence for the decision, will help the partners to understand even if they don’t fully accept your decision.
Actively follow up on potential safeguarding issues
In a worst-case scenario where a partner has had to fold, check what’s happening to any sensitive data e.g. are there any files with children’s names still left in their office. Who is responsible for taking care of that, even if staff are no longer being paid? And how?
Keep your key stakeholders updated
Aim to keep all of your key stakeholders updated regularly e.g. Board members, any other local partners, community members if you have direct contact with them, and your funders. They will all want to understand what’s happened, and why you are leaving. Some details may still be confidential, but share what you can to increase their trust in your organisation and the process.
Example: managing exit during organisational collapse
One of the Directors of a child-focused partner organisation was accused of financial malpractice by a former member of staff. The Board commissioned a forensic audit, but meanwhile INGO were unable to transfer payments until the results were released. Although the audit found no evidence of fraud, the organisation still collapsed as it had lost the confidence of its own staff as well as its donors.
Several INGOs kept the communication lines with the Board open and worked hard to understand the process and their perspective on the issues. They collaborated to ensure that children’s details which were left in the abandoned office would be secured. One of these INGO was receiving project funds from the British Government, so kept their funding manager updated as well as their own management and Board. Although the organisation collapsed, risks were still managed and INGO funds were still accounted for by employing several former staff on a temporary consultancy basis.
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