Your work was funded.
Now it has to sell.
Being funded proved the need was real. What changes is who pays. I work out who holds that budget, what they will pay, and what it costs you to deliver.
Aid is becoming investment. Investment expects a return.
the top of the range bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa was projected to fall by in 2025
donor countries with further cuts announced to 2027, together nearly three quarters of all aid
question that now decides everything. Who pays you?
Most people in the sector know about the cuts. The part that gets less attention is what happened to the money that stayed. It did not disappear. It got fussier. Fewer deals, each one bigger, and local money matters more than it did five years ago.
That is not a funding problem. It is a commercial one, and commercial problems can be solved.
Find out where you standPeople who have to start earning what they used to be given.
NGOs
delivering a service that somebody else pays for. The work is good. The invoice does not exist yet.
Businesses
already trading, with one service line a funder still pays for. That subsidy ends the way a grant does.
Programmes
moving the businesses they support onto their own feet, and needing them to still be standing after exit.
Four advisory methods.One subscription.
Find the sentence that sounds like your situation. Each one leads somewhere specific.
“Our funding ends and nobody is paying us yet.”
Grant to Commercial Viability Canvas
I find which of your services somebody will pay for, what it really costs you to deliver, and who holds that budget. Then we sell to one real customer while your funding is still there.
Score your organisation“How much can this business absorb, and what changes if we invest?”
Market Intelligence
A system that collects real transaction data from every business in your portfolio, week by week, and tells you who to back, how much they can take, and what changes if you do.
Join as a founding subscriber“We asked for money and got turned down. Nobody told us why.”
The Investment Case Canvas
Usually the case was built in the wrong order, with the ask first and the evidence last. I rebuild it the other way round, so the money can see how it comes back.
Send me your case“When our programme closes, will any of this still be running?”
Intervention Design Canvas
Your whole design on one page, as nine numbered decisions your team, partners and donor can all read. Built so a private business makes money from keeping it going after you leave.
Talk about your programme“Our cash is tied up in stock and suppliers want paying up front.”
Enterprise Trade Liquidity Multiplier
Instead of lending your cash out, we keep it where everyone can see it. Suppliers then extend you their own credit, because visible money makes you safe to trade with.
See if you qualifyScroll the row to see all five. Not sure which one fits your situation?
Every method runs on a canvas.That is the whole idea.
Alex Osterwalder made this argument for business models and he was right. Put every decision on one page and three things happen. You see the whole picture at once. You see which pieces do not fit. And everyone in the room is looking at the same thing.
That last one matters more than it sounds. A canvas is the only format I have found that a chief executive, a field team, a partner and a donor can all read together without a translator. So each method is a canvas of numbered decisions, each with one question, one output, and a test that says whether it is finished.
decisions
Grant to Commercial Viability
From funded delivery to a paying customer.
decisions, four stages
Intervention Design
For programme teams designing for life after exit.
steps, then a fork
Investment Case
For anyone who has been turned down without a reason.
things scored
Market Intelligence
Four readiness tiers, from real transaction data.
What the work found.
Fifteen engagements. Some of this contradicts what the sector tells itself, and it is written plainly because that is how it turned up.
Training is not transformation
Training alone does not improve produce quality. The market has to reward quality before quality appears. That changes what a capability budget should be buying.
Inclusion without income is still exclusion
A study tracing where the money actually lands in a value chain, and how little of it reaches the people a programme counted as included.
A donor programme that became a business
A regional seed and markets programme moved from donor funded to a private company across three Southern African countries, with clear customers and its own plan.
Corporate finance first. Development second.
That order matters. I came to development from corporate finance, which is why the models I build are meant to be used rather than filed.
The steps are the same every time. Find out who pays. Design the service for them. Build the numbers. Test it on a real customer. Hand it over.
Useful without me.
Free. Give an email once and take everything in the library, plus the longer newsletter that only goes out from here.
Commercial Readiness Score
The ten questions I ask in a first session, scored, with your gaps named and one next step.
Score your organisationThe canvas, as a wall print
All nine decisions on a single sheet you can put on a wall and work through with your team.
Get the printInvestment case checklist
The eight things a funder checks for, in the order they check them. Use it before you send anything.
Get the checklistLessons from implementation
Twenty years of running economic development programmes, in short pieces you can watch on a commute.
Watch on YouTubeFind out where you stand.
Ten questions. Two minutes. A report naming where your work starts, and what being wrong about each gap costs you.