Membership

PSO and its members

Almost sixty professional, private, non-profit organisations have united in PSO to aid capacity building in developing countries. These Dutch organisations cooperate with social organisations in developing countries on sustainably combating poverty.

PSO and its members support the capacity building of these southern organisations so that they can start to constitute a strong civil society themselves. PSO's principal activities are knowledge exchange, quality improvement and innovation.

Together with its member organisations, PSO develops learning processes and finances programmes. PSO provides services for the secondment of experts to developing countries. The organisation receives a budget from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs for its activities.

PSO membership

The PSO association wishes to grow annually by at least three member organisations. In order to be eligible for membership, a potential member should underwrite the association's points of departure.

This entails, among other things: official documents should prove that the organisation focuses on structurally combating poverty from the perspective of local development processes.

The organisation should be - on the basis of its current membership - demonstrably innovative in its methods, sector and/or with regard to the theme of capacity building. The organisation must at least also meet the following admission criteria described in PSO's articles of association and its rules and regulations:

Admission criteria

The organisation:

• is registered as a private legal entity with the chamber of commerce and has its seat in the Netherlands.
• is non-profit. This must be stated in the organisation's articles of association, the deed of incorporation or a not-for-profit objective laid down in some other way.
• has sufficient expert staff for the various task areas to function, these include: policy development, project assessment, maintaining partner contacts as well as the preparation, monitoring and supervision of capacity building activities at the partner organisations.
• has at least three years of experience in the field of structurally combating poverty and capacity building in the south.
• has a properly functioning, transparent internal administrative organisation and annual accounts approved by a chartered certified accountant.
• has a properly described own policy for themes relevant to the organisation. Has a substantive annual report.
• is prepared and has the capacity to work as a learning organisation through the regular evaluation of its work.
  Membership leads to certain obligations and provides rights.
  Obligations

The organisation:

• shows willingness to cooperate and exchange experiences within the association.
• exerts itself to learn, to innovate and to improve the quality of its work.
• is jointly responsible for meeting the obligations stated in the awarding of the grant letter which PSO agrees with the financiers (in particular the Dutch government).
• pays contribution to the association in accordance with the agreements. 

The organisation:

• has access to PSO activities (such as learning-working paths, collective learning paths, secondment services).
• has voting rights at the Annual General Meeting.
• has the right to participate in PSO work groups (with a vote).

The membership term is unlimited. Membership is terminated in the event of two years of inactivity or if the organisation systematically does not adhere to agreements.

New members' admission procedure:

1. The organisation completes the introduction form and submits this, along with its most recent annual report, to the PSO association (before 1 July).

2. PSO assesses the completed introduction form and selects a maximum of six potential candidate members (1 August). The organisations that are not selected are notified by PSO in August.

3. PSO asks the potential candidate members to submit additional information on their recent experiences with capacity building at partner organisations. This concerns three examples on the basis of which an assessment is made whether the organisation does indeed meet the admission criteria. If this is not the case, then the organisation is informed in August/early September.

4. The candidate members are invited to a meeting with PSO's director. After this round of talks, the definitive selection of the three candidate members is made (September).

5. The three selected organisations' candidature is submitted to PSO's Board of Governors (September) for the determination of membership.

6. If the Board of Governors agrees with the candidacy, the organisations are introduced to the Annual General Meeting (October).

7. This is followed by an introduction process which further explains the association's workings.

It is no longer possible to register for 2009 membership.