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CDF's mission is to provide free transport to most rural cancer patients regardless of distance, time, location or cost and to maintain existing state-of-the-art ambulance transport platforms

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CDF's mission is to provide free transport to most rural cancer patients regardless of distance, time, location or cost and to maintain existing state-of-the-art ambulance transport platforms. In this report, we try to help the CDF achieve its mission. To do this, I will introduce a new system: the Balanced Scorecard. First, let me brief the Board and executive committee on what a Balanced Scorecard is and how it will help the CDF achieve its mission. Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a system used to develop the performance evaluation of enterprises. This method was first introduced by Kaplan and Norton in the early 1990s. It makes up for some shortcomings of traditional performance evaluation, such as too much emphasis on financial parameters, resulting in the neglect of other perspectives. Compared with the traditional performance evaluation system, BSC evaluates the performance of an organization from four perspectives: finance, customer, internal process, learning and growth, which is a major innovation of BSC (Rabbani, Arefeh, et al., 2014). Figure 1 shows how a balanced scorecard is used for research. Figure 1 Now, as a major performance evaluation system, balanced Scorecard is widely used by companies and organizations. Rabbani, Arefeh, et al.(2014) state that according to the survey, of the more than 1,000 organizations that regularly use the Balanced Scorecard, 80 percent have improved their business performance and 66 percent have increased their profits. The CDF's financial position has been greatly challenged by the COVID-19. However, it’s not enough to focus on finance alone for achieving CDF’s mission. Therefore, BSC is the best choice to help CDF achieve its mission in different aspects. Next, let's introduce the balanced Scorecard we designed for CDF. CDF's Missiom Provide free transport to most rural cancer patients regardless of distance, time, location or cost and to maintain existing state-ofthe-art ambulance transport platforms. I need to explain what lead and lag indicators are, and this concept will be used frequently below. Dyreborg(2009) explains that lead indicators reflect the performance of key work processes, cultures and behaviors. Lag indicators are retrospective measures of events which are determined as outcomes. In other words, lead indicators measure of the factors that drive outcomes and lag indicators measures that help managers monitor progress towards objectives. Generally improving lead indicators improves lag indicators over time. From the financial perspective, our first objective is to increase trading income to maintain the operation of CDF, for which we design two performance measures. The CDF's overall profit comes mainly from a variety of events, the cost of which is directly under the control of the CDF in the activities. In the long run, lowering the average cost of events can increase CDF trade income. Therefore, average event cost is the lead indicator and trade income is the lag indicator Due to the COVID-19, the number of CDF events has decreased, and so has donor income. The second objective is to increase the online donations. The number of clicks on donation websites can be monitored by administrators, and the number of clicks directly affects the amount of online donations. Therefore, the number of clicks on donation websites is a lead indicator, while the amount of online donations is a lag indicator. From an internal process perspective, we have two objectives: to improve CDF response efficiency and transport efficiency. For the first objective, the number of ambulances available directly affects how long patients wait. More ambulances available means more efficiency when patients need to be transported in large numbers, so the number of ambulances available is a lead indicator and patient waiting time is a lag indicator. For the second objective, the number of patients transported per day is determined by the CDF, more daily transportations mean more efficient transportation by the CDF, so the number of patients transported per day is the lead indicator, and daily transportation efficiency is the lag indicator. The third perspective is the patient. To better fulfill the CDF's mission, we proposed two objectives: to improve patient satisfaction and to expand the number of patients served. In order to improve patient satisfaction, we should improve the care value for patients in the transportation process, so that patient satisfaction will increase. To achieve this objective, patient perceived care value is the lead indicator, and patient satisfaction is the lag indicator. CDF’s services operate on an initial engagement sign-up basis, so to increase the number of new patients served, initial engagement need to be fulfilled with more patients. The percentage of initial engagement completed is a lead indicator, and the number of new patients served is a lag indicator. The final perspective is learning and growth. Our first objective is to improve the medical skills of volunteers, so we need to spend time training the medical skills of volunteers, and the medical professional level of volunteers will follow the training. In this process, the training time spent is the lead indicator, and the level of medical expertise of volunteers is the lag indicator. Our second goal is to improve volunteer satisfaction, and for this we need to improve volunteer facilities. Good facilities mean it is easier for volunteers to help patients at work, and volunteer satisfaction goes up. Therefore, improving volunteer facilities is the lead indicator, while volunteer satisfaction is the lag indicator. ACC/ACF 3200 Group Assignment Due date: Friday 24th of September at 10a.m. Cyril Dharmawardana Foundation (CDF) Charity “Compassion” is at the essence of CDF Charity, an Australian-based not-for- profit organisation that has the vision to provide non-emergency patient transportation facilities for cancer and other terminally ill patients at the time of their treatment. Currently, the service is available to under privileged patients in Southern and North Central regions in Sri Lanka. 16 Ambulances are operating and half of the fleet was donated by the Royal Flying Doctor Service, Australia. CDF Charity needs to get the approval from the Ministry of Health (Sri Lanka) prior to sending ambulances to Sri Lanka. This project is aimed at contributing to the strategic effectiveness of CDF Charity. As explained below, you have been tasked with preparing a report for the Board of Directors/Executive Committee of CDF Charity. The following information will be a useful basis of your report as they provide you with the foundational knowledge of the organisation. o CDF Charity Website: https://www.cdfcharity.org/ pay particular attention to the ‘about’ tab you will find the vision and under the ‘story’ tab you will find the activities undertaken by CDF Charity. o CDF Charity’s financial statements (2019-2020) - See Moodle o CDF Charity’s presentation pack- (Confidential internal document) o A link to YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXFiDHVdqjDBl1qPqs 1949A o A link to CDF Charity Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/cyrildharmawardanafoundation • These documents can be accessed through the group assignment tab on Moodle. • The confidential internal document above needs to be treated with the same professionalism and confidentiality as expected of a professional accountant. No documents are to be shared or uploaded to any site under any circumstance. • The aim of this project is to use your knowledge of management accounting to assist CDF Charity in the development of their performance management system. Projects that are of high quality, produce useful and relevant strategic advice, make a unique contribution and assist in the communication of relevant and creative ideas will be shared with CDF Charity in the aim of assisting their organization to enhance their performance management. Individuals and groups whose work is shared will receive formal acknowledgement from the CE and/or CDF Charity on their high achievement of the provision of strategic advice. 1 Challenge: The current global pandemic has compounded existing pressures and difficulties that not-forprofit organizations face when trying to attract donors and remain financially stable. Income is essential for their survival and this is a particularly challenging time as the economy has been significantly interrupted over the last 15 months. As such, it has never been more important to effectively communicate to stakeholders their achievements and successes. In addition to this, CDF Charity have communicated to us the challenges they are facing on relying on many small donations and the need to secure some larger donations or sponsorship and shortage of volunteers to work for the charity. See the presentation pack to identify the further challengers they are facing at the moment. As third year accounting students at Monash Business School, you have the opportunity to help CDF Charity. You can do this by analyzing their business and developing for them a performance measurement system (balanced scorecard) that can communicate their key nonfinancial and financial performance metrics to their stakeholders in an effective and sophisticated way. This will help CDF Charity to successfully communicate their performance and achievements to external parties, both in terms of financial performance which are indicators important to their viability, and non-financial indicators critical to their core purpose. They aim to use this information to publish on their website and when communicating with various stakeholders and potentially refer to when applying for and reporting on grants, fundraising and for the purposes of attracting larger donations and sponsors. Details of Task: This is a task for a group of two to three students (subject to the tutor’s discretion). Students enrolled in the same tutorial will form groups between Week 1 and Week 3 of semester. No assignment submitted by an individual will be accepted. It is expected that each member of the group contributes more or less equally to the completion of the assignment. The group may elect a group leader who may coordinate the preparation of the assignment. Each group leader should email the completed and signed team contract to the tutor before the 14th of August 2021, 5.00 p.m. (Week 3). A copy of the team contact is available on Moodle. It is good practice to record in a diary all the events and actions (such as dates and time spent on meetings, library searches, internet searches, etc.). The assignment should be well written and edited and NOT a collection of separate sections each written by individual students. Where there is lack of contribution or non-cooperative individual(s), the matter will need to be highlighted by the majority of the group no later than three weeks in advance of submission of the group assignment. It is expected that disputes will be resolved by the group members in the first instance. If unresolvable, then notification of the issue needs to be highlighted to the Chief Examiner (Prabanga Thoradeniya) as soon as possible. 2 Part A Using the information provided by CDF Charity, produce a report for the Board of Directors/Executive Committee that will help them towards their goal of effectively communicating their performance to external stakeholders. In this report you are asked to: Design a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for CDF Charity. This BSC should draw from their strategic and financial documents and other available information on the website and elsewhere. In your report clearly complete each of the requirements below: a. Briefly describe to the Board why and how a BSC can help CDF Charity achieve their Mission and Vision (include relevant references to the BSC literature). b. In designing the BSC for CDF Charity, indicate 4 or 5 relevant scorecard Perspectives. In each Perspective indicate two main objectives for each and at least two associated performance measures for each objective (therefore, each perspective should have at least 4 performance measures). In this process also think about the division of lag (output measures) and lead (predictive measures/drivers of performance) indicators while devising your scorecard. This BSC should be presented as a creative visual illustration (1 page). c. Following this, provide a written description of the BSC that you have developed for the Board of Directors including a justification for each of your chosen performance measures and specify whether they are lag or lead measures (ensure you provide a very brief definition of lag and lead for the benefit of board members). d. Provide a visual illustration of a strategy map based on your BSC (1 page). e. Organizations often find it challenging to effectively communicate their performance and impact to the public and their stakeholders. We can see that CDF Charity already adopt some effective ways to communicate what they do through their videos. Think about the measures that you developed in your scorecard and provide two examples of ways in which the non-financial measures you have developed can be presented in an effective and creative way to stakeholders to convey organizational performance. Word range for Part A: 1,800 – 2,000 words (this word count excludes the BSC and strategy map illustrations). Word count also excludes the cover page, table of contents and reference section. 3 Part B CDF Charity is clearly an organization that is aiming to have a positive impact on society through improving the lives of under privileged, cancer and other terminally ill patients. In this section of your report please include a discussion for the Board of Directors on sophisticated ways to measure and report on their wider social performance (in doing this, try to suggest ways that they may attempt to measure their impact which is external to their organization). In addition to this, suggest how they could use this information to their benefit, such as through generating future income sources and ways to grow their impact. (Just to clarify, this section is not asking for another BSC, rather it is looking for ways/tools etc. that will help capture and report on the organizations impact on society). Word range for Part B: 600 – 800 words. Notes: • • There is one opportunity to ask for more information or clarification from CDF Charity to assist your project. There will be a link on Moodle to post any questions for the management at CDF Charity. These questions need to be posted prior to Friday 3rd of September, 2021 on Moodle and the Chief Examiner of the unit (Prabanga Thoradeniya) will forward all relevant questions to the organization for answering. Answers to students’ questions will be posted on Moodle shortly after this time. This is an opportunity to ask any specific questions that cannot be answered by a detailed review of the materials provided. These questions should assist groups with providing relevant output. You are highly encouraged to do some research on BSC and not-for-profit and social performance measures, however, be careful to use this research to inform your own thoughts and group work and not to plagiarize the work of others. • Be sure to reference appropriately throughout your report. If you are not sure you may like to refer to: https://www.monash.edu/rlo/home. • It is important that you provide original visual illustrations within your report. It is not acceptable to copy and paste any Google images etc. into your report as this will demonstrate that you have not understood the context of the organization and its operating environment. Remember this project is asking you to act as strategic advisers to an external client, your professional reputation is an important component of your work. • All projects will be run through Turnitin software that will indicate the same or similar pieces of work. 4 • You need to format your project in the form of a Business Report. For report formatting refer to : https://www.monash.edu/rlo/assignmentsamples/business-and-economics/business-and-economics-report-writing • The Chief Examiner, Prabanga Thoradeniya would like to share the highest quality projects with the Board of Directors and Management of CDF Charity. Prabanga will confirm with you directly to seek permission prior to sharing any student work. Word limit: Maximum of 2,800 words for Part A and Part B of the assignment as specified above. Please note that you have been given the appropriate word ranges for each section of this report. Penalties will apply if reports go over the word limits (there is no 10% leniency etc.). Please stick to the ranges provided, these have been set to allow you sufficient word count to complete the assessment appropriately. Every submission needs to write their final word count on the cover page of their report (less the BSC and strategy map illustrations, cover page, table of contents and reference section). Failure to do so will result in a penalty as indicated in the marking guide. The following guide provides an indication of how your report will be marked: Part A BSC discussion: consideration will be given to the fluency of the argument for BSC for CDF Charity and the extent to which it is convincing, consistent and well-written and how it will help to achieve their vision and mission Identification of the relevant perspectives and indication of two relevant main objectives for each perspective Development of at least two relevant associated performance measures for each main objective (min 16 in total) Illustration of BSC – the illustration is clear, comprehensive and creative Description of the BSC including justification for each performance measure Excellent Good Weak Not Satisfactory 8 5 3 0 12 8 4 0 8 5 3 0 8 5 3 0 16 10 6 0 5 Illustration of a strategy map – quality and creativity Non-financial measures: consideration will be given to the quality and creativity of the examples generated in the ways in which to convey nonfinancial measures Part B Social Performance and Impact Consideration will be given to the quality of the discussion on ways to measure and report social impact & the ways this information can be used by CDF Charity. Other Requirements General report appearance including a cohesive report representing group work (not sections completed by individuals), spelling etc., inclusion of reference list and adherence to word limit. Word limit shown on first page of report. 5 3 1 0 8 5 3 0 20 12 8 0 5 3 1 0 Mark out of 90: Mark out of 25: Comments (optional): Copyright Warning: All materials produced for teaching this course of study, including all lectures and any supplementary materials are protected by copyright. You are permitted to use these materials only for your personal study and research. Use of the materials for any other purposes, including sale of lecture notes, without the express permission of the copyright owner, may infringe copyright. The copyright owner may act against you for infringement. 6 CDF Mission CDF mission is to sustain the existing state of the art Ambulance transportation platform provided free of charge to terminally ill in the most rural & remote areas regardless of distance, time & cost CDF Vision CDF vision is to further develop the existing CDF Ambulance platform to serve every underprivileged terminally ill patient in Sri Lanka, offering them a glimmer of hope, providing comfort and dignity in their long and exhausting journey to recovery or for those who are desperate for a pain free end before their last breath. CDF Org Structure Trustee Board Executive Committee Advisory Committee Volunteers Process for Major Decisions & > 10k decisions Ideas from Ideas from Supporters – both Supporters – both ...