Quality Audit Tool for Managing Social Performance Overview (From Mission to Action: Management Series for Microfinance Institutions)

This document provides an overview of the Quality Audit Tool (QAT) developed by the Microfinance Centre for Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States to help MFIs review and improve the effectiveness of their management processes for achieving social goals. The QAT is presented as a tool that:

• Is low in cost and can be useful for the managers of MFIs, for organizations that support MFIs towards their social mission and for socially orientated investors in microfinance;
• Brings together perspectives from all levels of an organization, drawing on both objective evidence and qualitative views and insights around management decisions and field operations;
• Can be implemented by internal staff members and external facilitators.

The QAT process is composed of 4 steps:

• Gap analysis, addressed at assessing social performance management;
• In-depth follow-up, to verify the previous step and gather more detailed information;
• Analysis and draft report, to highlights strengths and weaknesses of the organization in each of the dimensions covered in the gap analysis;
• Audit panel, presentation functional to producing a final audit report.