Accountability
Accountability in every project
What we publish, how we source it, and what we hold back until it can be evidenced.
A smaller number that can be evidenced is worth more than a larger one that cannot. These are the rules this website follows.
A claim names its source
Where a figure comes from one of the Foundation’s project reports, the page says which report and which pages. Examination results name the National Examinations Council of Tanzania.
Proposed is not delivered
Every project carries a status. A hostel under construction says so. A partnership request says so. A concept-note target is never shown as an achievement, and a requested budget is never shown as money raised.
Historical is dated
Material from The Village Heart, published in 2016, is labelled with its year wherever it appears — including well specifications, prices, team lists and statistics. A decade-old figure is never presented as a current one.
Outputs and outcomes are kept apart
An 80-bed hostel is an output. Improved attendance is an outcome. “Girls feel safer” is neither — it is experience. Mixing the three makes a small project look like a large one.
Before and after is not proof of cause
Results that changed after a hostel opened are published as reported figures for those years. The Foundation’s reports quote several different improvement percentages for the same comparison; because those conflict and the candidate numbers also changed, no percentage is published here.
Results are published even when they are mixed
At Kisiju Secondary School the 2026 distribution improved in some divisions and worsened in others. Both directions are shown. A chart that only ever points upward is not evidence.
Children are not marketing assets
Where a report names a child, quotes them, or describes their disability, family circumstances or vulnerability, that detail is not republished without documented consent. Student voices appear anonymised — “a Form Three student” — so the experience is preserved and the identity is not.
Unverified numbers stay unpublished
Where two ARF documents disagree, neither figure is adopted until the Foundation confirms which is correct. Several headline figures are currently in that position, and the site does not quietly pick the larger one.
From The Village Heart · 2016
Accountability has been part of the method from the beginning
The Foundation's 2016 publication describes an approach to supporters that already had accountability built into it. This is reproduced as a historical description of practice, not as a statement about current financial controls.
- Targeted giving
- Supporters funded named wells and named schools rather than a general pool, so a contribution could be traced to a place.
- Sponsors visited
- Supporters were encouraged to travel to Tanzania and see the work, and several did.
- The village had a stake
- Well committees were formed before drilling began, and villagers contributed labour and materials.
- Projects were followed up
- The Foundation returned to the communities it had worked in rather than treating a handover as an ending.
What this site does not claim
The Foundation is not described here as independently audited, certified, or as passing on a fixed percentage of every donation to projects. Those are specific, checkable claims, and this site makes them only where there is documentation to support them.
Several figures that appear in ARF's own reports are not published on this site because two reports disagree, or because the method behind a number is not stated. They are being reconciled with the Foundation rather than resolved by picking one.