Sustainable Telecentres
About our sustainable telecentres approach and the importance of social business planning for non profit ventures.
As an internationally recognized, award winning non profit working in the field of ICT we understand the challenges of deploying start up and scale up operations including telecentres...and making them work!
What we do
OIT specializes in developing business training, start up plans, outsourcing applications and mentorship programs for small to medium ICT business and telecentres in developing nations and communities.
We offer a variety of mentoring resources in printed, audio, and video formats via our chosen and recommended partners.
In partnership with leading international companies like PaloAlto.com and other NGO organisations, OrphanIT has developed business planning (with mentoring) solutions that support ICT projects and Telecentres in developing nations like the YSEI Program.
Developing the Sustainability Business Plan - How it works and how we mentor the process
The OrphanIT Mentoring Program utilises face to face and distance mentoring to bring the information and research together to create a viable and sustainable plan covering a three year timeframe.
When the plan is near completion it is proofed and polished by one of the OrphanIT senior managers ensuring each project has a sound and viable base to move ahead. This process is crtical as the failure rate in ICT projects in developing nations is as high as 95%.
Professional Business Planning makes solid sense in the mentoring process and is the cornerstone of our sustainability program.
Our team have successfully used this process over the last three years (including these software tools) to consult to social businesses turning over more than $600,000 PA.
We have proof of concept having implemented an award winning 3 year pilot telcentre program in Manila, Philippines. This centre was integrated into a much larger and very successful Philippines micro-finance program called CTC.
More recently we have been working with XayanIT.com, a Bangladesh based, non profit ICT outsourcing firm. XayanIT have won two awards so far and are on track to have their largest turnover year yet with many jobs being created for local youth
Our consulting service group concentrates its development efforts on sustainability methods and business plan skilling of managers at ICT projects. Our team are all experts in the field of ICT and telecentre management.
A core part of our curriculum is the Business Planning element. This is a comprehensive 3 - 6 month program which walks the managers of ICT projects through a comprehensive real world business plan with one topic and outcome developed each week.
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Why We Use Business Plan Pro Social Enterprise Edition
We use the Business Plan Pro Social Enterprise Edition simply because it works and is easy to use for social enterprise managers and social entrepreneurs.
Our process includes walking the project managers through every step of creating their business plan. The plan may be about the final document for a funder, donor or sponsor, but for the ICT project it is about the process of gathering ideas and developing and growing the social business. We use this tool because it creates a great looking document for funders, while helping projects better understand and grow their ventures as well as helping ensure they are still viable and growing in the years to come.
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Social Return On Investment - What Is It?
Business Plan Pro Social Enterprise Edition provides a means of measuring the social benefits of your business in broad economic or detailed financial terms.
Importantly this planning process also helps the ventures calculate their Social Return On Investment (SROI) as this has become critical when seeking funding.
Business Plan Pro - Social Enterprise Edition was developed in partnership with Palo Alto Software specifically for nonprofit organizations as an easy-to-use blueprint and interactive planning tool for successful earned income ventures.
The wizard-driven software produces a social enterprise plan that includes market analysis, strategy and implementation description, social return on investment, sales forecast, personnel plan, and financial statements.
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Pricing and purchase details are located here |
The methods we use to mentor and business plan
OrphanIT Mentors manage the entire process of building, deploying and implementation of each projects Sustainability Plan. We additionally use these tools where appropriate:
Staying in Touch between Mentors and Mentees
We keep the momentum going using a mixture of these ICT tools and have recently had mentors, students and centre managers on Skype in London, Sydney, Manila and Dhaka using VOIP simultaneously for three hours.
We primarily use these tools:
Business Plan Pro - Social Enterprise Edition
Face to face mentoring (on ground)
Distance mentoring (virtually)
Skype.com (Voice over internet protocol - VOIP)
Messenger (Online chat)
Email
Telephone/Fax
YSEI Participants learn:
-What mentoring is, how it can benefit them personally, and their organization.
-How to work more effectively using mentoring.
-The top ten business skills critical to being running a viable and sustainable venture.
-How to complete a career development plan.
We are currently deploying these methods on the YSEI mentoring program right now
-Matching mentors with YSEI fellows
-Creating their business plans using Business Plan Pro - Social Enterprise Edition
-Determining technology requirements
-Frequency and method of contact for the mentored fellows
-Program orientation and training
-Support and monitoring of the relationships
-Monitoring and evaluation.of the program
OrphanIT team members carry out the actual mentorship and business training process remotely and onsite.
OrphanIT is a multi award winning, cause related, non profit, social business you can trust. Using our web development services helps SolvePoverty.com
