Be honest – how many times have you had to justify why your organisation needs to do PMEL, or do it more, or better, or whatever?

I was inspired to write this post after the gajillionth time I had to write a client brief explaining the value of a simple PMEL system, for them to share with their Board. So here it is for easier access next time.

It seems that PMEL is only ever valued during reports season, and that’s only because it’s the most reliable way to share evidence with your donors.

It’s part of the extremely stressful reports season, where we’re all scrambling for evidence of what in the hell we did over the last quarter, trying to find photos or quotes we can share for social media, make sure it was all on budget – and oh you need to remind the budget officer to put everything into the donor template, try to remember the conversion rate from USD the days you got your transfers, and make sure they speak to your programme manager. In that scenario (I’m striking a nerve, aren’t I?) PMEL is the way you show your donors what you did. It’s a backup singer if that.

There’s a misunderstanding that system = software. It really doesn’t! So here are some ideas off the top of my head about why a system is good, and proof that a system doesn’t have to big some gradioise thing.

First off, what’s a system? To me it can be anything from a formal software that collects al your data, reports, budgets, and anything else you can think of, to a simple cloud-based storage system. Let’s start with that one first since many of us will have heard of, or have, a folder like this online. I use Dropbox so let’s take that as an example

When you start a project, add the proposal documents and annexes, including budget and ifnancial information, to Dropbox. It’s always accessible there, and you can refer back to it when you’re planning activities to make sure you’re doing what you said you would, and that it’s on budget.

Add important reporting deadlines to a shared calendar. Many of us have this but if you don’t, write out the dates on a piece of paper and stick it up somewhere all the managers and officers can see it.

And that my friends, is as simple as a PMEL system can be.

It allows you to see everything in one piece, get an overview of your activities, locations, and to check you’re matching the results framework too. It’s better organised so if a report is due by the end of June, you can work backwards and plan out when the final budget needs to be done, or when you need inputs from the programme teams.

Add your logframes and indicators to this folder and you’re already better prepared than last time. Keep this updated. Check if your programme teams have a Google Sheet or Excel that they’re using to track progress against indicators. Get access to it!