Hinds, KS; Mackenzie-Davey, K; (2013) From accounting to learning in the third sector: the barriers for funders. Presented at: 8th CMS Conference 2013, Manchester.

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Abstract

Traditionally, the funding relationship has been characterized by funders calling agencies to account for the efficiency with which they manage funds. More recently, charitable foundations have called for improvements to the quality of evidence coming from their portfolios and an increase in their use of evidence before funding (e.g. NESTA 2012). This move from an accounting to a learning relationship has proved challenging for funders. Scholars have written about the disappointment of those advocating for greater accountability at the lack of transferable learning generated by accounting processes (Yang 2012, Graefe and Levesque 2010, O’Dwyer and Unerman 2008), despite the reformist promise of continuous improvement leading to change and innovation (Dubnick 2011, Yang 2012). In this paper, we argue that there are three barriers to this move towards an evidence based culture. First, a learning culture requires acknowledgement of failure which risks damage to reputation; secondly, like any change it involves disruption of existing administrative practice; and finally accounting and learning have a shared language that confuses as terms, such as evaluation, have different meanings in the two contexts.

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