By: Luis Gerardo Ramírez Villela
Civil society organizations must enter into specific agreements for the different projects in which they participate and must consider several issues for their drafting.
These agreements are what we call collaboration agreements, which are flexible in terms of their clauses since they allow them to be correctly adapted to each project that is to be carried out, and whose main purpose will be to establish the terms and conditions under which a project will be developed, coordinated and executed with a third party (whether or not it is another association).
In this type of agreement, the main obligations of the partner – the company in charge of the donations and the applicant for the project – must be described, which may be, among others: (i) making the donations for the development of the project, (ii) establishing the design and characteristics of the project together with the organization, (iii) communication and reporting of the project, (iv) validation of the project, and (v) inspection visits and monitoring of the project.
In this respect, the obligations of the organization could vary; however, in general it would consist of the following: (i) provision of services and advice, (ii) establishing the design and characteristics of the program together with the partner, (iii) launching the call and generating the selection process, (iv) publication of results, (v) monitoring the project, (vi) requesting reports from the beneficiary organizations, and (vii) delivery of final reports to the partner.
For the purposes of a collaboration agreement and project management, it is common to have an Operating Committee and a Selection Committee, but committees may be created as necessary for the benefit of the project.
Regarding donations, the organization will allocate the resources assigned by the Selection Committee to the recipient institutions, through the celebration of the corresponding donation contracts with each recipient institution.
It is important to mention that both the organization and the fund must comply with their tax obligations and report the project to the same authorities.
Finally, they must take into account that when preparing this type of agreement, they must be legally advised to verify that the clauses contained therein are not excessive and to define the terms and conditions of the administration of the resources and the corresponding expenses.
