Accounting for International Development (AfID) is a social enterprise that offers experienced finance professionals the opportunity to use their skills to make a genuine difference as volunteers and to gain rewarding hands-on International Development experience.
Individually tailored assignments, ranging from 2 weeks to 12 months, form part of an ongoing strategy to build the financial management capacity and long-term sustainability of charities and non-profit community organisations across the world.
Their partners, which are a blend of international charities and grassroot community based organisations such as street child centres, hospitals, micro-finance organisations, conservation projects, women’s empowerment programmes and schools, are all doing amazing work to tackle extreme poverty and inequality in their communities but due to their limited resources are unable to access vital accounting and financial management training.
The main focus of all AfID assignments is to develop and enhance the skills, confidence and potential of local people, enabling the organisations to ultimately have the financial management capacity they need to deliver more effective and sustainable programmes to their many beneficiaries. Volunteers could be budgeting with a street child centre in Kampala, coaching a hospital bookkeeper in Kigali or financial reporting for a primary school in Kathmandu.
The advanced technical and professional profile of their volunteers, combined with the specific and universal nature of their objectives, ensures good continuity from one volunteer to the next and means real results can be achieved in a far shorter timeframe than that of traditional voluntary placements. This means volunteering is now a realistic prospect for employed, career minded professionals.
AfID is now supporting over 345 charities and non-profit organisations in almost 37 countries across Africa, Asia and South America. Since their inception in 2009 they have placed over 530 volunteer accountants, taking the total hours of pro-bono financial management coaching to over 108,000 which equates to almost £8 Million worth of professional services.
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