Financial linkage development

An initiative to address the 1st sustainable development goal “Poverty” by the development of establishing linkages for the livelihood income generation for the rural poor citizens / population under poverty; establishment of virtual platform for business linkages & entrepreneurial developments.

self-help women groups, youth with disabilities, farmers in environmental conservation, organic cultivators and every individual entrepreneurs in the village to build partnerships with each other through an efficient platform. 

Key components were;

1) Connecting via virtual platforms - village level entrepreneurial groups with their business developers (investors, partners, financial contributors).

2) Training village level entrepreneurial focal points through in-market focus products and connecting to the national level linkages that help them emerge with business circle for respective entrepreneur’s groups.

3) Entrepreneurial education to the small livelihood groups on how best to cope with village resources and with partners and investors.  

we're unlocking the incredible yet untapped potential of rural entrepreneur groups and potential village level resources with Youth, women, disables, farmers, etc.. Our vision is to expand to serve at least a million poor families at villages and engage them nationally. 

. In Sri Lanka, there are 50.5% among the 19.7 million is employed with low-income, of different ethnic groups who fall behind the poverty line as per ADB. Post War communities who are falling behind by their economic recovery compared to the other provinces.Coping with covid19. Every citizens experience the restrictions on Freedom of movement, Changing priorities of livelihood, Look for new methods for market access,..

If every small livelihood income generation groups were linked & assisted with business stakeholders, then all the small group / entrepreneurs can succeed at their self-sustained livelihood incomes at their village steads.

Business mentors, investors and donor partners in these communities are also busy, are rarely adequately market updated or qualitative.

While the village level groups spend more than 80% of their time with the same village, community feels that each one struggle to work with their communities and resources to support them for the self-sustained livelihoods. 

An initiative to address the 1st sustainable development goal “Poverty” by the development of establishing linkages for the livelihood income generation for the rural poor citizens / population under poverty; establishment of virtual platform for business linkages & entrepreneurial developments.

self-help women groups, youth with disabilities, farmers in environmental conservation, organic cultivators and every individual entrepreneurs in the village to build partnerships with each other through an efficient platform that links & fills the gap of entrepreneurs groups. 

Key components were;

1) Connecting via virtual platforms - village level entrepreneurial groups with their business developers (investors, partners, financial contributors)

2) Training village level entrepreneurial focal points.

3) Entrepreneurial education.

External business stakeholders and the village level entrepreneurs get mentored within the platform, when it is actionable. For example, a village level entrepreneurs / small groups can start communicating in their local languages own languages with their relevant investors, potential partners through possible communication technologies.

Investors can also think the possibility of what actionable steps they can take to ensure to help the rural entrepreneurs.

The proposed model “Social Enterprise of Voice” is the another king of local globalization which make the strong bridge between village to city. This effort has taken in appropriate time of Covid19 crisis which will support to build the lack of communication via technology.

The implementation of this project will definitely uplift the level of low income entrepreneurs. As I am the technology person, I strongly recommend and welcome to this proposal

Thank you

Dr. Basheer Riskhan ( PhD - Information Technology)
Associate Professor,

The below diagram represent the beneficiary groups by real time examples in Sri Lanka : -

Donors to VOICE to Beneficiary groups (livelihood) 

But the proposed model as : - 

Donors + Investors + partners to Beneficiary groups Via VOICE 

(VOICE shall be the New Social enterprises through the Technology platforms) 

During the COVID19 pandemic the donors will be a question ? for the long term funded programs. 

Under the above circumstances, its feasible to look for domestic feasible mechanisms. So the donor is replaced with local Investor / partner / skill mentor, towards the same beneficiary groups in the rural villages. 

The Beneficiary group and the outside stakeholders were connected via a technology platform maintained by the Social Enterprise (SE)which uses technology for financial linkages and Network developments. 

The SE has a years of field level operations with identified income generation small groups, uses the ICT technology platform to maintain the linkages for financial developments in the Income generation activities.  

The solution is a new business model:- 

From Non profit to Profit entity 

From Local NGO to similar to Private Company operations. 

Message from PICTA President (Puttalam ICT Association)June 16th, 2020

VOICE Area Federation – Puttalam

I write to appreciate “VOICE Area Federation” for the proposed new model “Social enterprise of VOICE” which I strongly believe that it’s a breakthrough for donor funds during and after the COVID19 circumstances.

As per the prevailing situation of the COVID19 pandemic, the donor funds were very much suspicious for 2021 and further; Such social enterprise model initiation shall be a breakthrough for domestic fund coordination towards the rural entrepreneur’s and livelihood small groups at village locations.

As PICTA shall extend the possible support in all the ICT base initiations.

All the Best

A.K.M. Afras

President - PICTA 

This model tested with the small group " Youth with disabilities  - cash value addition program at Karuwelagaswewa division in Puttalam District" 

a. A group pf disable youths in the village is ready to take up daily labor works but limited to their physical abilities. 

b. A investor came forward to work through the disable youths; 

c. Identified the un-utilized cashew resources of the same villages. 

d. Investor assured small training for disable youths and enable them to engage in the cashew value addition. 

e. Currently these disable youths engage in value addition and the investor take forward the marketing and sales. 

f. Income from sales (an agreed percentage) is distributed among the disable youths engaged in this cashew program.  

A similar model tested with : - 

Women group - village level garments 

Youth groups  - Drinking water supply project  

Farmer groups  - Organic cultivation's  

Women groups - waste management productions 

Youth groups  - Employment based training's 

From current system of NGO grants to Investor / partnership model for the livelihood income generation groups. 

Currently the organization serves six (06) small groups of different livelihood interventions, 

Next year it targets to double the target groups in expanding to two more districts in Sri Lanka.

In Five years it shall cover around 200 groups covering 1000 direct beneficiaries and indirectly covering 25,000 beneficiaries. 

Impact goals : - 

1. Bringing the state of Independence from dependency state for the villagers. 

2. In the absence of international donor funds, develop the local funds in the forms of investors, partners with livelihood groups. 

 3. Reduce state of poverty by developing village level entrepreneurship. 

4.  Introduce the Tech platform to bridge the gap of the rural communities with township investors / partners. 

5. Use of Tech platform to cope with covid19 situations like restrictions to freedom of movement. 

Establishments needs funding, a contributory budget is defined to transform to this model. 

-A need for legal establishments with by laws and registration certificates. 

-Introduce the director Board and operational teams 

- Introduce Governance structures 

- Model adapted as a self - sustained model. 

Its very simple by means of Grant funds !

Currently the operational model is under the Non Profit registered as "VOICE Area Federation" a community based and community driven organization with a service over 20 years, in Sri Lanka

The entity proposes a new entity as a "Social Enterprise" with "Profits" - a separate initiation towards self sustained operations with livelihood Income Generation groups at rural villages. 

As the model focus on the self sustainability, only minimum staffs will be employed at the 1st year.

Technical staffs field operations = 02  

Technical staffs on Information Communication Technology = 02

ICT Theater operations with management assistants = 05  

Expert Consultants on IT = 02 

The VOICE Area Federation (VOICE) team has an experience in the local NGO sector for twenty five (25) years. VOICE is a leading Sri Lankan non-profit organization, dedicated to developing a more equitable and sustainable life; regardless the gender, caste, ethnicity, political affiliation or religious association towards the underprivileged citizens in Sri Lanka.

Team Skills: Specialized in community based field operations, in rural villages (Poor villages, lack of basic facilities, lack of access to Government facilities,..) 

Background: Have reputed service record with Districts /Provinces implementing programs on humanitarian interventions in poor conditions eg. Lack of transport, lack of access to medical facilities, lack of Agriculture inputs.  

Experiences: with multi dimensional and multi tasking team with humanitarian development sector. Co-exist with community for Socio- Economic Developments.  

Based on the above team with experience and backgrounds is the solution proposed towards the "New Funding Model" where as all these years the concentration was on the Implementation Modalities. 

Funding model is proposed based on the accessing the strength / opportunities matching with VOICE Team, the emergency of the model is so practical for field implementation with township donors, investors and partners at domestic levels.   

To reach the goals seeks partnerships to:

• Mentor and advise product development and strategic planning for 10 years
• Support marketing and communications that clearly expose data's on beneficiaries and investors / partners. 
• Build connections or establish Business Stakeholder Forums (BSF) to investors and grantors to progress their implementation strategy

VOICE currently has two groups of partners for moving forward:- 

• Faculty of Business Studies, University of Jaffna, Sri Lanka. 
• Identified small groups as : - 
  • Youth with Disabilities
  • Farmers on environmental conservation 
  • Women groups on garment factory operations.
  • Youth on employment based training. 

Currently we are piloting the solution and using their capital and resources to support the improvements in the model for fund raising. 

From NGO grant program Model (Non profit) transforming due to covid19 situation to Investor / Partnership model (Profit generation model), for Funding the rural livelihoods. 

The proposed business model describes is based on the poor villagers expectation on, - Need of financial & technical support for entrepreneurial initiation and continuation as a self sustained livelihood at poor village levels. 

Due to COVID19, developed countries has chances to limit funds as donors and most probably a cut on major funds to the 3rd world country like Sri Lanka, At this juncture How we continue the funds ? is the question arised. 

So a long year discussions with domestic donors revealed that they are not ready as Donors'  but willing to be Partners / Investors in the poor rural villages. 

Both in terms of impact and revenue. The pilot with Youth with Disabilities - Cashew Value addition program have shown excellent partnership results for the Youth with disabilities with their ransom livelihood earnings.  These will be added with diverse groups in the field.  

The revenue-generating activities for VOICE (non-profit operations) has created a new operating model where diversification & entrepreneurship, co-exist and work with traditional private sector as interdependent community and serving the market demands. leading to fall into the social enterprise is an effective business model, by transformation.

A business model with:

1. an operating strategy that includes internal organizational structure and external partnerships that are crucial for creating the organization’s intended impact;

The business model for a social enterprise is the channel that the social entrepreneur converts inputs into outcomes; the generation of both social value (measurable impact) and economic value (revenue).

A social enterprise can be integrated with the non-profit organization in one of several ways. The enterprise and the social program are one and the same. The business is created to serve market demands. 

The business activities overlap with the social programs, the business is created as a funding mechanism. The profit focused business is created mainly as a funding mechanism to support social income generation groups. 

This model is a business models which is embedded within the VOICE serving communities.

We are totally towards "

This makes it essential to up skill and retrain workers to enable them to
match employer demand or start their own venture. Further, when two thirds of jobs worldwide are created by small and medium-sized businesses, supporting those traditionally under served with access to capital, networks, and in-demand skills is key to creating opportunity and good jobs for entire communities " 

Partnership goals are simply forwarded with domestic level donors, domestic investors and domestic mentors. 

Solve members 

Use this as a SOcial enterprise fund as a contribution from partner / Investor