Incredible Research with London Business School and Booth Business School Chicago

Grow Movement is collaborating with two of the world’s top business schools; London Business School and Chicago Booth School of Business to measure the impact of its services on micro and small business performance in Uganda. This is an incredible opportunity for Grow to have external validation of the impact of its work. In the future this will enable Grow to influence Government policy and attract additional funding to expand.

Using a ‘Randomised Control’ methodology, 600 entrepreneurs starting in June 2015 will receive Grow Movement services. Their business performance will be compared against 400 entrepreneurs included the study who do not receive any consultancy until the end of 2016. Impact that will be studied include business sales, costs and profits, and household spending on assets, housing improvements, food and clothing. These outcomes will be measured at the start of the programme, and at 12 and 18 months using a new surveying methodology that combines electronic surveying technology with improvements in survey design.

Grow Movement Uganda Team will be expanded to 10 managers and operate from a new location in Kampala providing more laptops and internet access to clients than ever before. Grow Movement will be working with its existing volunteer consultancy base to drive recruitment ready for June 2015. If you would like to be involved as a volunteer consultant, or know someone who would like to join then please follow this link.

IMPACT! Results are out! 689 new jobs created!

At Grow Movement the team stops once a quarter to review the impact of its work. Grow is proud to announce that it has finished with 370 clients; with 166 impact assessments completed 689 new jobs have been created giving an average of 2.3 new full or part time jobs created for each consultancy.

There is a great variance across all of our countries with Uganda having the highest jobs creation rates driven but work in agriculture. Malawi has our lowest job creation rates which masques the true impact of our work. The Malawi economy has been struggling in recent years with ‘Cashgate’ and ensuing devaluation of currency. It is an achievement for our clients to stay in business, let alone create new employment.

Raising money by crowdfundraising

During December 2015 Grow Movement ran a £10,000 fundraising campaign to enable 40 more budding African entrepreneurs to access the skills and experience of Business Consultants. Grow had over 3,000 hits on its campaign site, with 86 funders from 17 countries; the UK and the USA being the biggest. £6,000 was raised enabling the gift of opportunity for 24 new clients. Achieving 60% of target in a crowded market place which is suffering from a degree of fatigue is a real achievement. A number of times it was said ‘ ‘If only you were an Ebola charity!’ it would be a lot easier for you to raise money. Ebola charities are very worthwhile doing an incredible job in very difficult circumstances.

Crowd fundraising was a new experience for Grow, the campaign was run by a team of London volunteers with the first ever professional video being also funded by a volunteer. A big thank you goes to Mark, Till, Fiona, Josh and Eunice who did a fantastic job of raising awareness and to Laura Pohl for creating a great video on a tight timeline and budget. For 2015 Grow plans to run another campaign during Global Entrepreneurship week in November with some creative ideas for perks from our talented entrepreneurs. Watch this space!