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  • Writer's pictureSummer S. Li

A numbers exercise

Another core component of the need assessment was the financial analysis that would provide essential information about the business performance and financial sustainability of the selected social enterprises. We first developed a generic template, imagining perfect data availability, with all the outputs and analyses that we found valuable. Then, we did a reality check using the data we had received thus far from two social enterprises, Ruaab SEWA Artisan's Producers Company (Ruaab) and Karn Bhumi Krishak Producer Company (Karnabhoomi) and made tweaks to both the analyses and the guidance provided in the template.

My prior experience with financial analysis helped and hindered me both: developing the first draft was easy, but I made many implicit assumptions so the guidance provided was far too little for the template to be user-friendly for someone not well-versed in accounting and adjustments to the input data categories were necessary given the particular nature of the social enterprises (e.g., Karnabhoomi resold produce and earned the difference which had to be reflected in the revenue and cost lines). Moreover, we had to make a number of new assumptions (to be tested later with members of Ruaab and Karnabhoomi) in order to make sense of and align the different reporting.

After finishing the generic template after incorporating feedback from the rest of the IMAGO team, we tested the template on Karnabhoomi. This led to new questions (e.g., how should physical assets be "monetized" and included?) and requests for more data and so this number exercise continued.




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