The Microfranchise Accelerator (The MFA)
- Community development
- Employment
- Economic development
- Income generation
- Poverty alleviation
- Social enterprise
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?
Founding Story
Tracey
Chambers
The Clothing Bank (TCB) in partnership with The Business Place Philippi (TBPP) for this project
, WC, Cape Town
, WC, Cape Town
18-34
Female
1‐5 years
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Operating for less than a year
Access to financing, Access to supply chains, Access to technology, Access to economic opportunity.
TCB has trained more than 250 women that run successful businesses, of which 91% have improved their whole family living conditions and 88% have started saving.
TBP has since 2000 helped more than 40,000 entrepreneurs across South Africa. It highlights that there is a vibrant market and that with the right business opportunities jobs can be created.
At the moment, we developed and are rolling out two franchise models for 50 franchisees, impacting the lives of 250 people indirectly for the first 6 months. The idea is to make sure that our franchisees can generate at least R5,000 profit per month, which is above the R3,500 tipping point we have found from our research on our entrepreneurs.
1) Western Cape region for the 1st year, national level from year 2, following TCB and TBP branches
2) Create portfolio of 30 franchise models to choose from for potential franchisees and create about 2,000 jobs (2/3 employee per franchise)
3) 600 franchisees with successful businesses (30 franchise models replicated 20 times) who are empowered, earn more than R5,000 profit per month, have started saving, are sending their children to school and have increased standard of living in general
4) Creation of network of franchisees who shares knowledge and benefits from workshops, on-going trainings and a full range of support and services from the MFA
Finish a successful pilot of 4 months on the 50 screened franchisees with the 2 franchise models selected and designed
Start the mentorship programs, workshops (life-skills, business skills, best practices) and organize the network of franchisees
Refine and scale up the use of the electronic tools under test to support our franchisees and franchisors such as mobile banking
Be a sustainable micro franchise center that provides a portfolio of franchise opportunities for our necessity entrepreneurs
Replicate each franchise model and scale up to 100 successful franchisees in the network, all using the same systemized process
Grow from 2 franchise models in our portfolio to 3-5 depending on the complexity of the models selected
Consolidate the network and grow to the national level, following the national branches of TBP and TCB
In addition to providing direct support for the franchisor and franchisees, the MFA has established partnerships with service providers and a range of mentors who will offer Advisory (business development, process improvement, market research, etc) or Support Services (accounting, legal, marketing & PR, technological support, etc) to the network, thereby capitalizing on the economies of scale and specialist knowledge of micro-franchising in BOP markets.
The MFA need investment and funding to continue to scale up. We are always happy as well to hear about mentors and potential cooperation with service providers. Finally, Franchise models need technology to manage the network: we currently use some innovations but are interested in learning from more.