Site Visit Guidelines 

These guidelines contain excerpts from those suggested by the Asha India group. The original document was prepared by Mahesh from Asha India who has performed several site visits for Asha. These are very important to maintain the quality of Asha supported projects. 

Suggested Preparation 

Before the site visit for monitoring and evaluation the following should be done. 

  1. Documents with the original project proposal as well as any modified project proposals should be reviewed. 
  2. The organization should be studied carefully. 
  3. It will be good if the volunteer can spend some time going through past correspondence. 
  4. The site visit volunteers should try and talk to the Asha volunteer handling the project to figure out any project specific details they want you to check. 

Guidelines for carrying out Monitoring and Evaluation of a project

  1. What is the motivation of the organization? Why are they working? 
  2. Organizations can be classified in two categories - those that are working in areas that have funds available and those that acquire funds for the areas they want to work on. Which area does this organization belong to? 
  3. What is the backgound and commitment of people involved in the organization? Have they given sufficient thought to their work before preparing the proposal? Are they going to continue working on the issue even after Asha’s support for the project is over? 
  4. What is the relationship between local people and the organization in organization's area of work? 
  5. What is the extent of involvement of local people in organization's work? 
  6. What opinion do the people of the area have about the organization? 
  7. Do the local people contribute their time, effort or money towards the organization's activities? Does the organization have a social support base in the area? 
  8. What is the administrative structure of the organization and how democratic is its functioning? How is the relationship between the main volunteers of the organization (or people who run the organization) and the grassroots level volunteers? 
  9. How many women hold key positions or play important role in decision making within the organization's hierarchy? 
  10. Are the grass roots volunteers local or from outside? 
  11. Do the main volunteers perform only administrative duties or actually spend time at the grassroots? 
  12. If the organization runs a school what is the socio-economic background of the children. 
  13. What is the girl boy ratio? 
  14. What is the teacher student ratio? 
  15. Do the children continue their education after graduating from the school of the organization or drop out? If they drop out, how many of them do that and for what reasons? 
  16. Does the organization give a thought to what will happen to the children after they leave it's school? 
  17. What is the distance of other schools (Govt. or private) from the school of the organization and how do they run? Why do the children prefer the school run by the organization? 
  18. If it is a Non-Formal Education (NFE) center being run by the organization how many of the children attending this program of the organization go to other formal schools in the area? (This question should be asked to the children and not the teachers or the volunteers of the organization.) 
  19. Which are the other funding agencies giving money to the organization and for what programs? Ensure that the organization is not receiving all the money for the same program from two different sources. 
  20. How much of the infrastructure and other resources, like vehicles, are being used by the organization and how much of it lies underutilized? 
  21. Accounts related information. What is the salary/honorarium that the teachers get? Does it conform with the figures in the account books?
  22. What is the amount being spent on the children for snacks/food, clothes, etc., according to the budget and whether it conforms with the real situation? 
  23. Questions should also be asked of grassroots volunteers and local people outside the organization when the main volunteers (or people who run the organization) are not present to get a true picture of the state of affairs. 
  24. If the organization is running many centers and it may not be possible for you to visit all of them, visits should be made of centers randomly selected by you rather than letting the organization show you centers of their choice. Organizations are known to run their sample centers which would prefer to show to you.