Micro-business & Entrepreneur Activation - Phetoho

Since our last report in September we have run two training courses in two of the communities that we operate in. The courses were delivered in the languages of the attendees (SeSotho, Swahili, French, and English!). Every week our Community Reps hold a sales day of clothes, and the 40 newly trained entrepreneurs have been putting their learning into practice over the past two months. The clothes are sold to the entrepreneurs at below market prices. They then sell them on to the customer bases that they are building for their new micro-enterprises, with a profit margin added.

We now work with three established community entrepreneurs who are successfully selling at scale to make a reliable income from their business – we look forward to sharing some of those stories in the future.

Names and numbers of interested community members have come flooding in and are at triple figures. All of them form part of our broad community network, and have become known to us through the community mobilisation model that Future Families adopts to empower families to create their own future. Through this model we keep in at least fortnightly contact with all of the clients that we work with, and regularly monitor individual progress.

We are very excited about the progress of this project and ever grateful for your support, which has enabled this good progress. But we are growing our clothing micro-business project cautiously, so that we can focus on our impact at the same time as building our social enterprise portfolio for our own future sustainability. In this way your support is twofold – you help us reach disempowered individuals, and offer them opportunities to change their own futures, and you support the success of our early social enterprise activities that we believe hold the key to our future sustainability strategy.

We have learned so much from the two courses and 40 entrepreneurs that we have worked with since September, and we want to apply that learning. Here are three learning and growth lessons we have taken from our recent experiences:

1. SUPPORTING AND CONSOLIDATING LEARNING. We have noticed that many entrepreneurs have not grasped good accounting practices to ensure cashflow in their businesses. Our training guidance, if followed, should enable greater purchasing power in the long term. However financial management is a new skill for many of our would-be entrepreneurs, and an area of uncertainty. We already supply accounting books and suggested budget templates to assist them but confidence at using the books is low. To support this tool and encourage its use our Community Reps now plan to hold follow-up training for the entrepreneurs who have fallen behind the progress of others. This should help them get to grips with how to manage their accounts better for the future success of their business.
2. RECRUITING ENTREPRENEURS WITH APPETITE FOR CHALLENGE. We want to add to the pool of three entrepreneurs who are buying and selling in bulk, and actively growing their businesses. In preparation for our courses in the new year we are working to adjust our recruitment process. We have realised that we need to be certain that the community members who attend our training have a clear awareness of the challenges (and opportunities) of running a clothing micro-business, prior to the course. This will help them stick with it when times get tough. 
3. REACHING NEW MARKETS. So that we can continue to maintain stock levels, and in order to reach new markets, we are piloting our first ever Social Media Campaign. The flier below captures details. We are well on our way to reaching our target and expect to extend that target before the campaign comes to a close, as a result of the success! 

Wishing you a restful festive season and an exciting New Year, from all of us at Future Families.

Links:

• Future Families Christmas Newsletter

400... miles cycled (in 4 days!)

20... new community entrepreneurs enrolled for our first training course, to be held Wednesday 10 September

1... heroic proposal from one of our fundraisers 

And some more numbers for you:

4... volunteers sourced and lending their expertise to the Phetoho initiative.

7,479... orphans and vulnerable children: the figures from our 2013/14 Annual Report, for those individuals that the Future Families empowerment and support intervention is now reaching

Thank you!

Thanks to everyone for your support over the past few months. As we hope the numbers above indicate, there's lots of progress to report from the Future Families team. We've attached our Annual Report, for those who would like to know more. Please also take a look at our new website, live since August thanks to a collaboration with informatics students at a local university. Though the structure and main content is in place it remains a work-in-progress. What do you think? We'd love to hear from you with any feedback or suggestions. 

A special thank you to Gavin and Nick who dedicated their epic John O'Groats to Lands End cycle ride to our cause. Unfortunately, due to a bone-breaking fall, their amazing cycle along the length of the UK was cut short just before its half-way point. Happily Gav's sling proved to be a very useful prop when he finally managed to arrive (by train) in Lands End to complete the proposal that he had been plotting for the finale of the great cycle ride. In the process, they raised a fantastic £208 in the process. We hope your legs are fully recovered now guys!

We'd also like to thank Wes for his carpenter's vision and hands-on support with the stockroom refurbishment.

What we're up to now

We look forward to sharing a few photos from the training day soon. The 20 prospective community entrepreneurs will attend a 1/2 day training course at our Mamelodi Community Office and receive a starter pack. This will include a training manual, budget templates for financial managment, and a small bundle of randomly selected clothing for them to use to practice their sales skills and start up their clothing micro-business. The course addresses self-development and self-efficacy themes; includes personal testimonies from successful community entrepreneurs; involves a contribution from a guest motivational speaker; and covers the practical basics of business skills required for a successful Phetoho micro-enterprise.

The community entrepreneurs will be invited to buy from our Community Phetoho satellite in Mamelodi following the training course, and going forwards. This opportunity is extended to trained community entrepreneurs only, to ensure that the concept of buying to sell for profit has been communicated effectively. Our team will monitor their sales records so that the financial management basics of the course are supported and can be applied practically.

This is the first of many courses that we plan to run throughout the 6 communities where we have an existing presence and network.

Our next challenge

We recognise that the sustainable source of our high quality clothes resources is crucial to the success of this endeavour. With our project infrastructure established; an efficient process in place; and our success stories portfolio now growing, our focus on the scaling up of the project must come supported with plentiful resource so that we can continue to reach and train more community entrepreneurs.

With the help of a volunteer with expertise in economic empowerment programmes at community level we are now conducting full market research to expand our partnerships and clothing donor network. We hope this will lead to mutually beneficial partnerships with organisations that wish to see economic empowerment taking place in the communities where this would be so beneficial. We hope that this will broaden our network and opportunities in terms of the clothing source, to include new end-of-line clothing as well as our existing high quality 2nd hand donations. 

We look forward to updating you in a few months with news of how this is going, and - we hope - some stories from the community about how the Phetoho training and resources are making a difference to the empowerment opportunities of our community members. 

Remember! UK 50% Bonus Week - From 1st September 2014 (2pm BST) GlobalGiving UK will bematching all donations up to £600 by 50% until funds last. £5,000 of matching funds available plus additional cash bonuses of £800, £400 and £400 that will be unlocked as soon as the campaign ends on Monday 8th September 2014 (1.59pm BST).

Links:

• The Social Enterprise Journey: where our sustainable future lies
• Our brand new website - what do you think?

• Future Families Annual Report 2013-2014 (PDF)