Where the Money Goes
We are a small charity, but transparency is essential to us. We primarily depend on donations from the British public to continue our vital work. We aim to teach people, many of whom are living on under £1 per day how to be resilient and self-sufficient. We teach them how to start savings groups and set up small businesses. The training has been remarkably successful, and the true impact of our programme is seen in the tangible, positive and lasting changes within families and communities.
We do not give money to communities to establish businesses. Instead, we fund training delivered to church and community leaders by our partner, HAAPNET, empowering the leaders to go back to their communities and harness the latent skills and talents within those communities. We fund three types of training and support:
1. Community development training
Church and community leaders are taught how to mobilise their communities using local skills, resources, and processes so that those communities become financially independent and do not need external aid. They are taught how to do a needs assessment with 30 people in their community to identify the community’s needs and how to analyse and prioritise the findings. They learn how to apply Christian community development principles, develop a Community Plan to implement the Needs Assessment findings, and set up and run a community savings scheme to fund projects, ensuring the appropriate checks and balances to protect against corruption. Through a form of ‘tabletop banking’, members of the communities pool resources to enable them to raise the money they need to set up income-generating businesses. Because local community leaders are trained to go back to their communities to establish the community development principles, they are established members of their communities. They understand the needs and skills of the local communities and are trusted members of those communities, which is fundamental to the programme's success.
Once communities have identified the small businesses they wish to establish, we fund the practical skills training they may need to develop their businesses, successfully overcome any hurdles or challenges, or take the business to the next level, as required. Local professionals with a deep understanding of the communities they work in provide this skills training.
2. Practical skills training by local professionals on any skills the community has identified they need for their projects
3. Business management training
As well as practical skills training, we provide business management training as needed.
We coordinate with our partner, Community Development Projects (‘CDP Australia’), so that between us we cover the monthly cost of the training in the four African countries in which we operate. We work hard to ensure your charitable donation has the most significant impact, with complete transparency. All money we receive through generous contributions from regular monthly donors and one-off gifts funds the training. CDP in the UK is run entirely by volunteers who give their time and expertise freely to ensure that all monies raised go to funding the life-changing training.