To address the challenges RDAs were facing, Making Cents followed our proven approach to program design and implementation by:

• Conducting an assessment of the needs of the entrepreneurs RDAs were targeting;
• Identifying the appropriate training tools to meet these needs;
• Culturally adapting and translating the training materials into Albanian; and
• Providing capacity building to the staff and trainers of RDAs.

Making Cents designed and delivered a training-of-trainer course, which oriented RDA managers and trainers to Making Cents’ enterprise development curriculum and experiential learning methodologies. This provided much needed capacity building to the staff. It also increased the trainers’ business and entrepreneurship skills, and expanded the trainers’ training knowledge on action-based learning and the Making Cents’ curricula content. Furthermore, Making Cents provided training on how to implement training programs and strategies so that they could be offered in a financially sustainable manner.

Making Cents not only assisted RDAs, but by working with them, Making Cents’ demand-driven products and services had a positive impact on Albanian enterprises as well. After the first year of the project, RDAs found an average increase of 28 percent in annual sales growth at enterprises that participated in this initiative.

With WAEDAT, Making Cents created a cadre of thoroughly trained women who utilized the program and other resources to build sustainable enterprises.  The program centered around three main activities:

• Providing comprehensive business skills training and technical assistance to woman-owned enterprises in selected business sectors;
• Creating a number of leading women entrepreneurs/mentors to encourage other women to enter the formal business sector; and
• Developing a system of referrals to other services and support available to women entrepreneurs.

WAEDAT’s success surpassed all expectations.  The entrepreneurs’ feedback on the program was extremely positive, and the number of participant applications grew quickly through personal referrals. During the first year, 128 clients entered the program and dozens of success stories were documented. WAEDAT’s reputation grew rapidly as a provider of targeted and relevant business services and as a place for women to share and learn from the experiences of others. Local news media provided extensive coverage of WAEDAT clients, and TV programs and newspapers ran regular features and articles.  One featured client even began her own weekly televised cooking show.

Among the most successful activities of the program were the networking and exhibition events. Initially conceived as a way for WAEDAT clients to develop business linkages among themselves, these events quickly became forums for the women to exhibit their products and services to the public. During the events, women develop business linkages, strategic partnerships and marketing alliances. Feedback on product quality, design and production is provided by experts, potential buyers and exporters, and from the women themselves. 

Women entrepreneurs who participate in WAEDAT cite the emphasis on practical training, peer learning, access to sector specialists, and content and logistics that are tailored to women business owner’s needs as unique and valued aspects of the program.

In addition to offering NeighborWorks America curriculum design services, Making Cents supports the organization’s Community Leadership Institute by regularly delivering at the Institute the Youth Financial Literacy course Making Cents designed. Course participants gain a greater awareness on the state of youth financial literacy in the U.S., an enhanced understanding of the impact youth financial literacy levels have on their communities, a working definition of youth financial literacy “success”, knowledge of the core components needed to create financially literate youth, and awareness of methods they can use for engaging youth in financial literacy development. This course equips youth and adult leaders with the knowledge and resources they need to promote and foster the development of youth financial literacy in their communities.

Making Cents trainers have also delivered the Community Leadership Institute’s Promoting Financial Health in the Community course, which equips participants with the knowledge, shared understanding and supportive resources they need to improve financial health in their communities.

In 2008, Plan International contacted Making Cents to assist in the development of a comprehensive youth enterprise development program being piloted in Senegal, Niger and Sierra Leone. The overall objective of the pilot is to increase the access working children and youth have to financial services, business development technical assistance, life-skills development opportunities, and other support services. The project targets 3,000 out-of-school working children and youth, and focuses on girls.

Making Cents provided Plan with market and program assessments, and targeted curriculum and design services at the design phase of the pilot. Making Cents is currently working with Plan to develop the capacity of their national offices and local partner organizations in each country to implement the market research, training and mentoring components of the program. More specifically, Making Cents is building the capacity of local Plan and partner organization staff so they can effectively:

• conduct market research and read market signals to recognize economic opportunities;
• train youth on how to conduct market research and read market signals;
• train youth on how to assess their own capacity building needs; and
• identify links to, and needs for, savings-based financial services.

Making Cents is also establishing an M&E system to measure results.

In collaboration with the Making Cents work, Plan will support and facilitate participatory market research in order to identify the specific financial services needs children and youth of each country have. Plan will also identify, develop and test appropriate approaches, methodologies and financial products to meet these needs. This process will help local development organizations be able to promote community-managed microfinance models with various cohorts of youth, and/or assist microfinance institutions in their efforts to develop financial products and services that specifically meet the financial needs of youth. The provision of such financial products and services to youth will be the backbone of the project since it helps young people acquire the necessary funds for business investment and personal asset building, and because the program aims to improve money management at the individual and household levels. 

Students are now getting their first taste of what entrepreneurs face daily through the Look Out!™ and Start Out!™ curricula as they are being successfully implemented and made available in the schools of the Cattaraugus Allegany region of New York State. They are developing and deepening their understanding of core business concepts, and are gaining the knowledge to apply them in their own lives and communities.

The curricula were designed to promote an understanding of key concepts that are critical to the successful operation of agricultural enterprises. Many of these concepts, though not new, have been neglected due to a subsistence approach to agriculture. These concepts include: farm business cycles, record keeping, business planning purchasing decisions, group membership, basic cash flow, assessing costs and benefits, and savings and credit. 

To facilitate farmer-to-farmer dissemination of the information contained in this curriculum, the curriculum was designed to be easily used and shared. Consequently, exercises for each of the concepts are packaged and fully explained in a workbook which the farmers can use alone or in groups to help fellow farmers understand the lessons contained in the curriculum. 

Expanding the partnership for wider reach 
The Nigerian Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum (NAEC) was designed through a partnership between donor agencies and the public sector. The curriculum is versatile and can be used as a marketing and training tool for a number of other stakeholders. The NAEC partners therefore encourage private sector operators such as banks, agro processors, input suppliers, produce buyers and exporters to engage trained trainers to train their clients or staff. For larger programs, training-of-trainer workshops could be organized to build capacity of additional facilitators to step down the training directly to farmers or other beneficiaries. 

To reverse this trend, Making Cents -- working with Development Alternatives, Inc. on a USAID-funded project -- developed an agriculturally-focused entrepreneurship course for youth in eastern Afghanistan. The resulting Youth Agripreneurship curriculum and associated teacher training course teach future agricultural entrepreneurs how to identify and develop legitimate business opportunities. 

A total of 15 male and female teachers and university student leaders were trained to use the experiential learning methodologies and interactive curriculum during the training-of-trainer course. With their new knowledge, trained teachers and students increased their status in their respective communities and have been able to offer the training (as trainers) through schools and on a for-fee basis. With the project’s focus on girls, a total of 200 young women have been trained (20 girls in Laghman and 180 girls in Jalalabad) as agricultural entrepreneurs and are applying their knowledge to develop sustainable agricultural businesses. In support of the development of these skills, this project also sponsored a business plan competition that was judged by a delegation of Jalalabad bankers and organized by the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI). The trained youth who participated in the business plan competition were able to apply their new business knowledge - emphasizing their new business expertise and unique business ideas.

Prior to the introduction of the Youth Agripreneurship curriculum, rural Afghan youth did not have skills or knowledge needed to seize legitimate business opportunities, and teachers did not have the tools to engage students in effective business training. Many Afghan youth are now actively engaged as productive partners in their community’s economic development through their new agricultural businesses.

Effectively linking training and consulting services to specific value chains requires an understanding of the market and its demands. Making Cents commenced the program design by conducting a comprehensive needs assessment, which involved meeting with project stakeholders throughout the country and conducting a survey of training needs of members in the agricultural sector, including producers and processors.

This process was followed by building the capacity of the training and consulting service providers. Making Cents led seminars on training methodologies for organizations and consultants who were working to promote the adoption of ISO and HCAAP standards, while also working closely with service providers to strengthen their abilities to provide technical instruction.

To further the development of the agricultural sector as a whole, Making Cents created customized training materials and delivered training to strengthen agribusiness associations and cooperatives working with the project. The cooperatives development training -- which combined aspects of Making Cents’ Cooperative Business Fundamentals™and MicroPlan™ curricula -- included detailed modules on organizational structure, the business cycle, basic record keeping, supply and demand, adding value to products, planning a marketing strategy, purchasing, costing products and services, pricing products and services, negotiating and selling techniques, and selling for a profit. These modules provided comprehensive support for increasing development along Morocco’s agricultural value chains -- from the farmer to the exporter.

CHF contacted Making Cents to assist them in designing a strategy to provide technical assistance to the newly formed cooperatives so that they could transform into viable, market-driven institutions. 

Making Cents consequently developed and implemented the Cooperative Business Fundamentals™ curriculum and training-of-trainers (TOT) course for CHF’s Cooperative Support Officers who provide direct technical assistance to the 13 Rwandan NGOs involved in the CHAMP Program. The intensive TOT course provides the Cooperative Support Officers with the knowledge and tools to change the mentalities of the cooperative members (so they would no longer see themselves as part of an association), and to also assist them in identifying and creating sustainable income-generating activities. 

Making Cents’ Cooperative Business Fundamentals™ curriculum provides participants with a step-by-step approach to work with cooperative members on the formation and running of their cooperative. It walks participants through how to develop an organizational structure to how to plan a business to how to manage finances to how to run general operations. The way Making Cents developed and implemented this course ensures that CHAMP’s income-generating activities are implemented through viable, market-driven cooperatives.

Designed from the perspective of the entrepreneur, this curriculum highlights business challenges that entrepreneurs face and how technology solutions can address those challenges. In addition to the curriculum design and development, Making Cents also designed and developed the official Hewlett Packard Smart Technology for a Smarter Business Training-of-Trainer Course for organizations to become certified in providing this training to business owners.

Technologies Assisting Growth

The HP Smart Technology for a Smarter Business™ curriculum exposes business owners to a range of technology tools that may be helpful to them in running their businesses. The course allows them to use technology (through interactive business simulation modules)  and consider how the features of a given technology are beneficial to them. The curriculum equips entrepreneurs with an understanding of how to make strong decisions on a range of issues surrounding the integration of technology into business. It also informs them of various IT solutions that address different challenges often faced in the areas of operations, management, finances, communication, and marketing.

Using an experiential learning approach, the hands-on modules apply ICT technologies to different business challenges and opportunities through simulation. At the same time, entrepreneurs can self-evaluate and improve their skills in using different ICT technologies.

HP Smart Technology for a Smarter Business™ is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, and Romanian. It is accompanied by a training of trainer course. 

Responding to this need Making Cents designed the Agricultural Enterprise Curriculum™ to promote an understanding of key concepts that are critical to the successful operation of agricultural enterprises. It has modules designed specifically for Producers and Processors. The curriculum:

• enhances understanding and awareness of basic business concepts and market conditions that affect profits and productivity;
• examines the broader context of suppliers, producers, wholesalers, retailers and consumers in which farmers/processors conduct their agricultural operations;
• introduces practical methods and techniques for planning, income projection, risk assessment, monitoring operating costs, debt management, savings and profit maximization;
• highlights the importance of good financial management (including cash flow), record-keeping, market analysis, and negotiation skills; and
• provides participants with the tools to formulate individual action plans to implement what they have learned.

Many of these concepts, though not new, have been neglected due to a subsistence approach to agriculture. 

To facilitate farmer-to-farmer dissemination of the information contained in this curriculum, the curriculum was designed to be easily used and shared. Consequently, exercises for each of the concepts are packaged and fully explained in a workbook which the farmers can use alone or in groups to help fellow farmers understand the lessons contained in the curriculum.  To support USAID’s goal of Nigerian farmers viewing their activities as a business, Making Cents has trained a network of trainers that are on schedule to train 250,000 small-scale Nigerian farmers.

Designed from the perspective of the entrepreneur, this curriculum highlights business challenges that entrepreneurs face and how technology solutions can address those challenges. In addition to the curriculum design and development, Making Cents also designed and developed the official Hewlett Packard Smart Technology for a Smarter Business Training-of-Trainer Course for organizations to become certified in providing this training to business owners.

Technologies Assisting Growth

The HP Smart Technology for a Smarter Business™ curriculum exposes business owners to a range of technology tools that may be helpful to them in running their businesses. The course allows them to use technology (through interactive business simulation modules)  and consider how the features of a given technology are beneficial to them. The curriculum equips entrepreneurs with an understanding of how to make strong decisions on a range of issues surrounding the integration of technology into business. It also informs them of various IT solutions that address different challenges often faced in the areas of operations, management, finances, communication, and marketing.

The success of this program is based on the world-wide demand. HP Smart Technology for a Smarter Business is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, and Romanian and accompanied by a training of trainer course.

Making Cents was selected as the leading entrepreneurship content developer and designer for the Make Mine a Million Dollar Business online educational website. Make Mine a Million Dollar Business is a program of the U.S. based not-for-profit organization, Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, and founding partner, OPEN from American Express®. The program provides a combination of funding, mentoring, marketing, and technology tools that women entrepreneurs need to help grow their businesses from micro to millions. Count Me In launched the dynamic movement to inspire and support one million women entrepreneurs to reach annual revenues of $1 million.

Fiona Macaulay, president of Making Cents, presented at the Count Me In launch event. View video.

Making Cents’ enterprise and entrepreneurship content provides a one-stop online resource for women entrepreneurs wishing to find relevant content items in the form of script, video, and interactive tools. Like all of Making Cents’ tools and resources, this website is dynamic, and provides demand-driven resources that are relevant and applicable to women entrepreneurs in North America.

Making Cents developed a livelihoods curriculum and training for out-of-school youth in cocoa communities in Ghana. The curriculum creates a better understanding of the role of cocoa in the training participants’ communities, the value chain of cocoa (from the farm to the consumer), and non-farming business opportunities related to cocoa.

Since 2000, Making Cents has provided the Barbados Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports with technical assistance and training support to expand the entrepreneurship programming that had existed only within the YES Juniors Program to cover all schools throughout Barbados. Specifically, Making Cents tailored our entrepreneurship curricula, which provides a series of experiential learning methodology-based modules, for the specific needs of Barbadian students who are in primary and secondary school. The curricula are action-oriented and encourage students to be critical thinkers, ask pertinent questions, interact in groups, and learn to work collaboratively.

The success of YES is in the hands of the teachers who implement it.  Making Cents therefore developed an intensive training-of-trainers course that provided teachers with:

• Business Skills Development – Making Cents equips teachers with the basic business knowledge they need to succeed in an entrepreneurial training classroom.
• Improved Facilitation Skills – Making Cents provided teachers with training on the theory and techniques of experiential learning, the foundation of Making Cents’ curricula.
• Training on the Curriculum - Making Cents built the technical understanding and capabilities teachers needed to feel confident using the product with their students. We also assisted the teachers in developing entrepreneurship programs in their schools using the curriculum.

The Ministry has continued to expand the YES program and is making the Making Cents curricula an integrated and required part of the national curriculum for all primary and secondary schools. Following Making Cents’ experiential learning model, YES has added other program components like student stores, individual bank accounts funded by student store profits, and site visits to local businesses. These activities make abstract industry terms, such as retail, service, manufacturing, come to life.

For Barbados, the Ministry’s partnership with Making Cents has created a YES program that is directly addressing social tensions related to youth unemployment.  It has increased the confidence of young people, while developing in them an awareness of entrepreneurship. The program is also helping them to develop the essential business and life skills they need to effectively start and operate their own businesses in the future — changing the culture from that of job seekers to job creators.

Making Cents provided Plan with market and program assessments, and targeted curriculum and design services at the design phase of the pilot. Making Cents is currently working with Plan to develop the capacity of their national offices and local partner organizations in each country to implement the market research, training and mentoring components of the program. More specifically, Making Cents is building the capacity of local Plan and partner organization staff so they can effectively:

• conduct market research and read market signals to recognize economic opportunities;
• train youth on how to conduct market research and read market signals;
• train youth on how to assess their own capacity building needs; and
• identify links to, and needs for, savings-based financial services.

Making Cents is also establishing an M&E system to measure results.

In collaboration with the Making Cents work, Plan will support and facilitate participatory market research in order to identify the specific financial services needs children and youth of each country have. Plan will also identify, develop and test appropriate approaches, methodologies and financial products to meet these needs. This process will help local development organizations be able to promote community-managed microfinance models with various cohorts of youth, and/or assist microfinance institutions in their efforts to develop financial products and services that specifically meet the financial needs of youth. The provision of such financial products and services to youth will be the backbone of the project since it helps young people acquire the necessary funds for business investment and personal asset building, and because the program aims to improve money management at the individual and household levels. 

Making Cents designed a program based on the findings from a comprehensive needs assessment, incorporating direct input from program staff, trainers, and youth. The core of the program uses Making Cents’ MicroEnterprise Fundamentals™ curriculum, which was adapted to match local economic and cultural conditions.  

The course was complimented by a comprehensive business skills facilitator training course for RECLISA project staff, local NGOs and youth trainers from across southern Africa who would be implementing the course directly. The training-the-trainers course provided implementers with increased knowledge on financial literacy and improved course facilitation skills, as well as a comprehensive overview of the MicroEnterprise Fundamentals™ course materials. 

The resulting program focuses on business and life skills development, and provides practical paths for youth to apply the lessons learned to their daily lives. The program empowers youth with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to be able to move away from exploitative labor conditions and create their own business. 

Local youth trainers and RECLISA staff also gained the competencies and confidence to plan and conduct financial literacy training courses to underserved youth in their communities. Additionally, they carry their learning forward to combat child labor exploitation with practical life skills education throughout southern Africa.

To further meet the needs of local underserved youth in the region, Making Cents translated the course materials into the regional languages of SeSotho, SiSwati, and SetSwana for use in Botswana, Lesotho, South Africa, and Swaziland.

Various curriculum options were explored that would not only help the students develop their math and reading skills, but also hone essential interpersonal, critical thinking and personal productivity skills. Making Cents’ Work Out! ™curriculum provided just the right comprehensive instruction that the GEAR UP Program was looking for, and it served as the foundation for their entire summer program. 

Making Cents conducted a tailored teacher training workshop for the GEAR UP Program teachers, providing them with the skills and knowledge for how to effectively facilitate entrepreneurship learning, and how to utilize and integrate the different core components of Work Out! ™ (i.e. business theory, business simulation, business opportunity identification, and running a business).  

During the summer of 2008, more than 300 students participated in the program using the curriculum. The versatility of the Making Cents’ curriculum allowed teachers to venture out of their traditional teaching pedagogy, which is based on heavy lecture and structured lesson plans, to make the learning for the students engaging and interactive.  

With WAEDAT, Making Cents created a cadre of thoroughly trained women who utilized the program and other resources to build sustainable enterprises.  The program centered around three main activities:

• Providing comprehensive business skills training and technical assistance to woman-owned enterprises in selected business sectors;
• Creating a number of leading women entrepreneurs/mentors to encourage other women to enter the formal business sector; and
• Developing a system of referrals to other services and support available to women entrepreneurs.

WAEDAT’s success surpassed all expectations.  The entrepreneurs’ feedback on the program was extremely positive, and the number of participant applications grew quickly through personal referrals. During the first year, 128 clients entered the program and dozens of success stories were documented. WAEDAT’s reputation grew rapidly as a provider of targeted and relevant business services and as a place for women to share and learn from the experiences of others. Local news media provided extensive coverage of WAEDAT clients, and TV programs and newspapers ran regular features and articles.  One featured client even began her own weekly televised cooking show.

Among the most successful activities of the program were the networking and exhibition events. Initially conceived as a way for WAEDAT clients to develop business linkages among themselves, these events quickly became forums for the women to exhibit their products and services to the public. During the events, women develop business linkages, strategic partnerships and marketing alliances. Feedback on product quality, design and production is provided by experts, potential buyers and exporters, and from the women themselves. 

Women entrepreneurs who participate in WAEDAT cite the emphasis on practical training, peer learning, access to sector specialists, and content and logistics that are tailored to women business owner’s needs as unique and valued aspects of the program.

The Business Simulation™ incorporates action-based learning and has students assuming the role of manufacturers and retailers in a simulated business environment.  Through this process, students develop skills in negotiation, teamwork, recordkeeping, risk management, and taking initiative. The activities are engaging, fun, and invigorating, and they fit perfectly into GirlSportWorks’ program.

GirlSportWorks conducted their first Business Simulation training with a group of 18 students aged 15 – 17, most of whom had experience working with family businesses in their local communities. During the simulation, the students proved themselves adept at budgeting for the month and they were even more skilled at developing innovative products. The simulation brought forward the students’ experiences in their family businesses, and added to it essential lessons that further developed their business and life skills.

One student commented that she would take the ideas generated from the simulation back to her family: “Our idea for creating meals out of artichokes will be easy to sell in my community, and my family will appreciate my contribution to our family farm.”  

GirlSportWorks is seeing the direct impact of Making Cents’ Business Simulation™ course every day. They are also planning to offer a joint mother-daughter module session that will allow students to develop business plans with their mothers, thereby passing the learning on to an older generation of entrepreneurs and helping to develop a strong bond between mothers and daughters through financial literacy.

Making Cents was selected as the leading entrepreneurship content developer and designer for the Make Mine a Million Dollar Business online educational website. Make Mine a Million Dollar Business is a program of the U.S. not-for-profit organization, Count Me In for Women’s Economic Independence, and the founding partner, OPEN from American Express®. The program provides a combination of funding, mentoring, marketing, and technology tools that women entrepreneurs need to help grow their businesses from micro to millions. Count Me In launched the dynamic movement to inspire and support one million women entrepreneurs to reach annual revenues of $1 million. 

Making Cents’ enterprise and entrepreneurship content provides a one-stop online resource for women entrepreneurs wishing to find relevant content items in the form of script, video, and interactive tools. Like all of Making Cents’ tools and resources, this website is dynamic, and provides demand-driven resources that are relevant and applicable to women entrepreneurs in North America.  http://www.makemineamillion.org/

To reveres this trend, Making Cents -- working with Development Alternatives, Inc. on a USAID-funded project -- developed an agriculturally-focused entrepreneurship course for youth in Afghanistan. The resulting Youth Agripreneurship curriculum and associated teacher training course teach future agricultural entrepreneurs how to identify and develop legitimate business opportunities. 

An equal number of male and female teachers and university student leaders were trained to use the experiential learning methodologies and interactive curriculum during the training-of-trainer course. With their new knowledge, trained teachers and students increased their status in their respective communities and have been able to offer the training (as trainers) through schools and on a for-fee basis. With the project’s focus on girls, hundreds of young women have been trained as agricultural entrepreneurs and are applying their knowledge to develop sustainable agricultural businesses.  In support of the development of these skills, this project also sponsored a business plan competition in which youth who were trained on the Making Cents curriculum participated. They emphasized their new business expertise and unique business ideas. 

Prior to the introduction of the Youth Agripreneurship curriculum, rural Afghan youth did not have skills or knowledge needed to seize legitimate business opportunities, and teachers did not have the tools to engage students in effective business training. Many Afghan youth are now actively engaged as productive partners in their community’s economic development through their new agricultural businesses.

Making Cents adapted our proven enterprise curriculum, MicroEnterprise Fundamentals™, to provide a culturally-relevant set of training materials for illiterate youth, utilizing role plays, illustrated visuals, simulations, group work, and facilitated discussions to teach fundamental skills such as budgeting, marketing, accounting, and business planning. A cadre of 250 local youth facilitators were selected and trained as peer trainers to maximize the number of youth the program reached. Making Cents engaged these trainers in a rigorous training-of-trainer course to develop their facilitation skills, as well as their planning and leadership abilities. 

The PATHWAYS program was implemented in a phased approach, with Making Cents’ curriculum serving as its foundation. Participating youth also gained access to vocational training. Graduates of the program with successful business start-ups were then referred to local microfinance institutions to access financial services to assist them with their business growth.

Creating a longer-term positive vision for ex-combatants provides alternative choices to picking up arms and creates a new, positive mindset that equates peace and stability with economic growth. The success of using training in enterprise development to reintegrate fractured communities was supported by a knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions study, administered at the conclusion of the first year of the project.  It found that:

• Respondents who had an income of less than $1 a day fell from 72% to 62%;
• The number of ex-volunteer combatants who were prepared to take up arms again fell from 82% to 46%;
• Respondents who participated in violent conflict in the last three months fell from 21% to 15%; and
• Respondents who had heard of, or known about, conflicts in their communities fell from 65% to 50%.

In 2009, four years after the close of the program, many of the 250 peer youth trainers have been hired by local and international NGOs and are continuing to offer the entrepreneurial skills development training provided through Making Cents’ MicroEnterprise Fundamentals™ curriculum to disadvantaged and displaced communities in the region.

CHF contacted Making Cents to assist them in designing a strategy to provide technical assistance to the newly formed cooperatives so that they could transform into viable, market-driven institutions. 

Making Cents consequently developed and implemented the Cooperative Business Fundamentals™ curriculum and training-of-trainers (TOT) course for CHF’s Cooperative Support Officers who provide direct technical assistance to the 13 Rwandan NGOs involved in the CHAMP Program. The intensive TOT course provides the Cooperative Support Officers with the knowledge and tools to change the mentalities of the cooperative members (so they would no longer see themselves as part of an association), and to also assist them in identifying and creating sustainable income-generating activities. 

Making Cents’ Cooperative Business Fundamentals™ curriculum provides participants with a step-by-step approach to work with cooperative members on the formation and running of their cooperative. It walks participants through how to develop an organizational structure to how to plan a business to how to manage finances to how to run general operations. The way Making Cents developed and implemented this course ensures that CHAMP’s income-generating activities are implemented through viable, market-driven cooperatives