Guiding Growth Through Financial Planning

We believe the value of mobile money is best communicated through financial planning sessions where farmers can make direct connections to how using mobile money can improve their farms and benefit their families.

What We Heard: The Farmer's Voice

In January we prototyped this concept by taking coffee farmers and KCL staff through a financial planning activity with a financial coach, iterating on script, approach, and class size.

  • “It helped me because I rarely have a monthly budget. Normally when I get money, I pay school fees for my kids and the rest I just use until it gets done. Then I stay without money.” —Fhina, Washing Station Employee, Farmer
  • “I decided to reduce my budget for the whole year, and in the future, when I see that it [my Mo’Kash account] is a quite good amount of money, I’ll use the money to buy a cow before the year ends.” —Fhina, Washing Station Employee, Farmer

Imagine

A financial planning service that not only helps farmers set goals, budget, and save, but also highlights how mobile money can be used as a tool to accomplish these objectives.

Design Principles

  • 1

    Make Lesson Plans Farmer-Centric and Fun

    Ask farmers to define goals for themselves, their families, and their farms through visioning collage exercises, and help them develop an actionable plan with interactive budgeting activities.

  • 2

    Keep it Simple

    Design for all education and experience levels, and understand that every farmer will have a different grasp on the information provided.

  • 3

    Help Farmers Achieve Financial Goals With Mobile Money

    Guide farmers to understand that, in addition to sending and receiving funds, mobile money can also be an important tool to help them reach their financial objectives.

  • 4

    Establish Accountability Through Community

    Challenge farmers to make a plan, set a realistic timeline, and sign a contract verifying their commitment, then share it with classmates to help build support—and hold each other accountable.

Designing the Experience

Setting the Stage

The financial planning service will be a 45-minute session with one instructor, one facilitator/translator, and an ideal class size of approximately five farmers.

Farmers will be encouraged to get to know each other and present their plan at the end of each session as a way to create camaraderie and social support.

A trained instructor will walk farmers through activities using their personal examples of both previous and current goals to inspire the class.

Instructors will be provided with a detailed script to coach farmers through every step of the activities.

Strengthen Your Farm, Family and Home Worksheet

The worksheet begins with a visioning/collage exercise that sets the foundation of the lesson and is an opportunity for farmers to visually represent their goals.

Farmers are encouraged to take worksheets and display in their homes for reference. Worksheets have been designed to exhibit the most important information when put on display in farmer’s homes.



Simple and interactive budgeting activities are used to create a realistic plan for the farmer’s goal. For budgeting, farmers will physically move post-its from one section to another symbolizing the trade-off they will be making. Math calculations are reduced to a minimum to increase accessibility of the exercise.

Worksheet ends with an accountability contract summarizing key aspects of their plan and reinforcing their commitment.

Incorporation of Mobile Money

Mobile money will be contextualized near the end of the session as a tool to help the farmers follow their plans to reach their goals. The script provided will inform instructors on how to talk about mobile money in a warm friendly fashion that is not salesy.

Farmers will also be made aware of the additional value mobile money can provide as a way to generate interest, access credit, and receive loans.

A mobile money representative that can sign farmers up for mobile money and Mo’Kash should be available after each session. If the representative is not on hand, the instructor will take interested farmers to a local mobile money agent.

When, Where, & How

  • Softening the Market

    Before a buyer develops the technological capabilities to pay in mobile money, or before they enter a new market, financial planning can be used to educate farmers on the value of phone-based banking.

  • Off Season

    During home visits in the off-season, KCL will integrate financial planning into their agricultural “sensitization training”. This is a time when farmers are available and open to full lesson plans.

  • Harvest Season

    Farmers are busy and distracted while visiting the washing stations during harvest season. This will be a time to offer supplemental financial planning services, such as tracking financial progress and optional/flexible focused classes.

Applying the Guiding Principles

Build Trust

Establishing mobile money as a tool in the context of a farmer’s financial goals and aspirations increases trust in the service as an effective means to help them climb out of the cycle of poverty.

Be Accessible

Financial planning sessions are simple, visually engaging, designed for all education levels, and conveniently located for farmers (in their own communities and homes during the off-season visits, and at the washing station during harvest season).

Offer Quick Wins

Pairing goal setting with mobile money helps farmers to understand how they can immediately begin to derive value through incremental savings that contribute towards a larger goal.

Looking Ahead

TODAY

Improvements and Iterations

KCL will run prototype verion 2 of the financial planning service in the coffee off-season during “sensitization training” in farmers’ communities. The IDEO.org team will train KCL instructors, as well as print and send necessary assets to KCL for prototypes, including two different visual designs of the worksheet for A/B testing. We will capture metrics related to farmers’ understanding and attitudes toward mobile money before and after each session. Once the sessions have been completed, we will capture success metrics related to mobile money usage.

TOMORROW

Financial Planning Curriculum

These courses—which could be offered during off season or harvest-season—will include specific subject progressions, as well as classes for individual aspirations or needs, (ex. female-focused, purchasing a cow as an investment, etc.)

Office Hours

Periodically a financial coach will come to the washing station to offer detailed assistance on goal-setting, budgeting, and saving to individual farmers. Office hours will be during the harvest season, and farmers will be notified of scheduling and availability in advance by KCL staff, as well as through advertisements at the washing station.

Explore concepts in the ecosystem

  • Delivering Mobile Money Through Improved Payments

    A tablet application which improves the mobile money payments process by simplifying it. More intuitive UX design, quicker payment speed thanks to mobile data connectivity, and streamlined KCL staff workflow will make this a more effective tool.

  • Deriving Value Through Mo’Agro

    A shop that accepts mobile money. Situated at rural coffee washing stations, this outpost—run by KCL and local merchants and/or mobile money agents—will offer basic necessities, agricultural inputs, and hard-to-find items.