Withdrawal protocol

A social project cannot run forever on donor money. At some point, the funding ends, the organisation withdraws, and the question becomes: does the good it did last, or fade away with it?

The workbook's answer is to plan the ending at the beginning. A withdrawal protocol is a plan, made during a project's design stage, for how the intervention will hand over or wind down, so that its outcomes turn into lasting impact rather than disappearing once the project team leaves.

This is not an afterthought. The Logic Model treats it as part of turning outcomes into real, durable impact, and its costing section gives the withdrawal protocol a dedicated line of funding: the Exit/Takeover Protocol Fund.

Where it sits in the Logic Model (Chapter 4, section 4.3.i): "It is crucial not to mistake project outcomes for project impacts. A clear withdrawal protocol should be envisioned during the planning stage to sustain the project initiative, transforming project outcomes into impactful, lasting changes."

Its costed form, the Exit/Takeover Protocol Fund (section 4.3.3.iv). Following the withdrawal protocol, the project's post-mid-term phase towards exit involves a genuine planning exercise with stakeholders and the beneficiary community. This planning aims to use the assets, capacities, partnerships, networks and influence built during the project to sustain its impact. A concrete Exit/Takeover Plan is developed towards the project's end, involving stakeholders, and formalising co-commitment instruments to institutionalise the processes and systems the project built, all so that impact is sustained beyond the project's own timeline.

Why it must be planned early, not late. A withdrawal protocol decided only once funding is about to end has no time to build the partnerships or train the successor institution a real handover needs. Planning it at the design stage, alongside the impact statement itself, is what lets the Exit/Takeover Plan actually work when the time comes.

No rupee figure attaches to the withdrawal protocol concept itself. Its cost is captured through the separate Exit/Takeover Protocol Fund line item, whose size depends entirely on the individual project's own budget.

Illustrative project; figures are made up.

Netra Prakash Trust raises ₹2.4 crore for a 5-year cataract-surgery project across 6 districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh.

At the design stage, before any surgery is performed, the trust writes its withdrawal protocol: after year 4, its own surgical camps will hand over equipment, patient records and a trained local staff of 8 ophthalmic technicians to the district hospital in each of the 6 districts.

Its budget includes a dedicated Exit/Takeover Protocol Fund of ₹18 lakh, spent in years 4 and 5 on formal handover agreements with each district hospital, refresher training for the technicians who will stay on, and a joint monitoring committee with hospital staff.

Because the protocol was planned from day one, the district hospitals are ready to run the camps themselves when Netra Prakash's own funding ends in year 5. The outcome (patients treated) turns into lasting impact (a functioning local eye-care service), instead of the camps simply shutting down.

Chapter 4 (Understanding Logic Model in Social Programs for Social Impact Assessment), section 4.3.i, requires a withdrawal protocol at the planning stage so outcomes become lasting impact, and section 4.3.3.iv costs it through the Exit/Takeover Protocol Fund. Expect a question asking at which stage a withdrawal protocol should be planned (the design/planning stage, not near project end), or one naming its costed form (the Exit/Takeover Protocol Fund).

• The withdrawal protocol is planned at the design stage, not near the project's end. Planning it late defeats its purpose.
• Its costed form is the Exit/Takeover Protocol Fund, one of four cost categories in Chapter 4's project-sustainability costing section, alongside listing costs, the pre-project implementation fund, and the M&E/knowledge management fund.
• A withdrawal protocol is about sustaining impact after exit, not about ending the project early or cutting it short.
• Do not confuse this with the pre-project implementation fund set aside at a project's start — the withdrawal protocol and its Exit/Takeover Fund sit at the project's end.