Sen for NGO and non-profit project planning
A grant-funded project has to keep three promises at once: the outcomes, the dates and the budget. Sen keeps them in one plan, so a change to one shows up in the others.
These are the eight planning threads the Krong course is built around. The highlighted ones are covered here. What are the planning threads?
The planning problem in the sector
Many NGO projects run on a fixed grant, with a fixed end date and a funder who wants regular reports. Teams are small, partners are spread across countries, and staff often plan alongside several other jobs. Plans tend to live in a proposal, a budget workbook and a reporting template. The three drift apart.
What Sen gives you
| Your need | Where it lives in Sen |
|---|---|
| Outcomes the donor expects | KPI and evaluation tab, linked to the work that delivers them |
| Activities and who does them | Schedule and RACI, with partner organisations as teams |
| Grant budget against the plan | Budget and EVM, plus the monthly cost profile on Cash flow |
| Things that could go wrong | Risk register with contingency by component |
| Funder updates | One-page status report with RAG and what changed |
| Donor-approved changes | Change request register, so a no-cost extension has a record |
A worked pattern
Start with the outcomes the grant promises. Break the work into packages that deliver each outcome. Give every package a duration, a budget line and one accountable team. Add the partners as teams in the RACI. Then use the Resources tab to see when a partner is overloaded, and the Cash flow tab to check that spending follows the funder's disbursement schedule.
Where Sen helps most
- Reporting: the status report is built from the live plan, so a quarterly update takes minutes, not days.
- Reallocation: when a budget line moves, you see what it does to the end date and the risk register.
- Handover: the lessons learned register carries what you learned into the next project's assumptions.
What to know first
Sen keeps your project in your browser. That suits sensitive programmes, because nothing is stored on a server. It also means the plan is not a live shared document. You can share a copy by link or file, and export a plan document, a board deck, a workbook or a task file. If your funder needs a specific format, build the plan in Sen and export it to the workbook.
Questions people ask
Does Sen replace a logframe?
No. A logframe is a funder format. Sen holds the connected plan underneath it, so the outcomes, activities, budget and risks in your logframe come from the same facts.
Can several staff edit one plan?
Not at the same time. Sen keeps the plan in one browser. You can share a copy by link or file, and one person keeps the master.
Is it suitable for small teams?
Yes. A small team gains the most, because Sen does the linking that a larger organisation would give to a PMO.
See it in a real plan
Open Sen and explore the Caldera Freight example. Every figure on this page comes from it. Copy it, change a task, and watch the plan move together.
Open Sen, free About the course