Monitoring & Evaluation (MEAL) System in Excel for NGOs

Zero percent on an M&E dashboard tells the board a program failed, when often the real story is that nobody reported.

Two rules fix most of this. A missing value is not a zero: show it as not assessed and go and get the data. And judge each indicator by its own direction. A "lower is better" indicator, such as dropout or waiting time, reads upside down if you simply divide actual by target. Others are a range, a yes or no, or a milestone.

Here is what that looks like in our Monitoring & Evaluation OS for Excel and Google Sheets, using the synthetic demo portfolio of 4 projects and 13 indicators. An indicator with no value for the period shows NOT ASSESSED instead of 0%. One with an open critical data-quality finding is put on DATA QUALITY HOLD. A result counts as evidence-ready only after a team member has verified the linked evidence, and each report shows READY or NOT READY with the reason. A blank copy comes with it for your own programs.

Your board sees which numbers are missing, which are weak, and which they can rely on.

It isn't survey software, and it tracks reported progress against targets. It doesn't prove a program caused the change.