IMPACT-G

Carl Dey is committed to helping the underprivileged in society and supports the development in the community by helping women start sustainable businesses to help provide for their families.

He was senior manager for strategic outsourced operations for a fortune 500 company in the USA with responsibility for 22 states before returning to Ghana to start his venture to meet the housing needs and to help the underprivileged. Carl earned a bachelor and masters degrees from the University of Texas at Arlington. He has a BIG heart for the underprivileged and started the nonprofit, CSDMF foundation. He is the founding member of Broken Crayons and the PAIS project in Ghana. Both are organizations which focuses on transforming the lives of families in undeserved communities.

Carl loves soccer, swimming and volunteers in his community. He is completing his Executive MBA program at MIT at the the Sloan School of Management.

Impact-G is committed to solving the issue of extreme poverty in our community. Our strategy is to teach the women 'how to fish' as opposed to giving them fish. We address the problem strategically by setting them up with their own businesses and help them grow into flourishing 

business owners. We build store fronts for them to sell their chores like provision stores, cloths, and water, sowing etc. We provide and grantee for them so they can set up bank accounts to encourage the habit of saving. Health insurance cards and a mentor to help them ran the business successfully. Over a period of over 6 months the ladies are able to stand on their feet. My idea will elevate humanity by helping the ladies to provide 3 meals for their family. They will be able to pay for school fees and seek medical help when they need it.

The problem I am working to solve is the total reduction of poverty through entrepreneurship. We seek to empower or women and make the totally independent of any man or system that keeps them down. We teach them how to fish by training them on sustainable business practices. Ghana is a developing country and poverty is still a huge problem and governments cannot create enough jobs for the people. Poverty is still a global issue and the private sector is the only engine of growth to eliminate it. Millions of people are affect and it keeps growing because there are not enough jobs in the villages so it has encourage rural- urban migration. A trend that I have another idea to reverse through agriculture. Another factor that contributes to the problem is luck of education, lack of finance, and unfavorable business environment especially for women. In a recent statistics from the Ministry of Employment and Bank of Ghana out of every 50 loans that are processed only 4 go to women business owners and none goes to uneducated women or if they are first time business owners. This directly kills innovation and has become worse after covid -19. 

We interview very poor in society and help them start their businesses. We meet them with the help of the schools in the community. The schools have a record of people who cannot pay fees. We invite the parents and interview them and chose 20 of them every round. When we get to know what they would want to do in terms of work. We look for space in town, build store fronts, start up capital and buy their first stock of goods. We pay 2 years advance rent. We get the ladies and their family health insurance cards so they can get medical attention when they fall ill. This way, they will not take precious time away from work. We also set up business accounts for the them in the bank and guarantee for them. This way they have the habit of savings and they will also have a record of sales for the banks to see. They can use this as a line of credit to expand their businesses. We get them a mentor goes around every day to teach them how to keep their books. The ladies meet every two weeks to share best practices and experiences. 

The community I am working to improve is the poor women in Accra. They are mostly people who cannot afford 3 meals a day for themselves, do have their own home and cannot pay kids school fees. Because I grew up in this community I have a good understanding for the needs and having transitioned out I am determined to help as many as possible. We also understand their needs by interview them and having them answer some 35 questions that we developed from our feasibility study by a team of 5 MIT students who came to Ghana to conduct the study. We have direct communication with them daily through the mentor we have hired to go round and teach them and collect data. We use the number to improve on their business practices. My project is addressing their needs by helping them start their businesses and gradually transition from poverty. There are currently 194 women whose businesses are sustainable  and many more are coming on board. We also provide small business loans to businesses who are set up already but just need some financial injection and coaching to transform their businesses. I am happy with the growth and transformation. 

To provide an integrated and sustainable solution to ending acute poverty is to attack the problem at it's core. The opportunity given the ladies to own their businesses and to take their destiny into their own hands is a way of liberating them from poverty. Teaching them how to fish trains them to continue on their own and to grow when help is not readily available. The project is aligned to my selected dimension because it creates opportunities for those left behind to catch up and hopefully exceed expectations. Families are directly positively affect and that builds a great community. 

I grew up in a very poor neighborhood . My mother carried me on her back and walked for miles while selling bread. I saw my parents struggle to pay the school fees for me and 4 of my siblings and never had any property to their name. They sacrificed for us to get a good education. My mother died when I was 4 years died my father also passed when I was in high 

school. I made a commitment to myself to help the poor when I grew up. When I was studying in the states I organized mission trips to Ghana every year to work in orphanages. Over the years I told my 

friends about my passion to help people and we put a team together from MIT to visit Ghana and did a feasibility study and see how best to help the poor. We decided that when we focus on the women they can be an important catalyst to help the family succeed. It was a great decision because our numbers show that when the ladies succeed they help their families succeed. They can now afford food, pay for utilities and attend better schools.

Eliminating poverty is extremely important to me because i grew up very, very poor in these very communities and much has not changed for the people I grew up with. My mother carried me on her back for miles selling bread but she died when I was only 4 years. My father also died when I was in high school and life has been difficult growing up. I was fortunate to get an education to transition out and later to the university in the USA. That is why I organize mission trips since 2005 to bring experts down to Ghana to help in these communities. 

I believe that having grown up in this very community I have first hand experience and understanding of what my people in this community continue to go through. My mother also sold bread and carried me on her back while she did her business. I was a key member of the MIT students who came down to Ghana to do the feasibility study that informed the plan of action to take

I have also worked with these women for the past five years from the beginning (Interviews, visiting homes, understanding their life, starting businesses, failing, starting back up and learning from their experiences). Through the process i have a great understanding of what works and what does not work. We have learned enough to scale without any delay. I have also built a team that understands how best to execute and stay focused on the defined plan of action. 

I have a passion for helping people. I have a desire to see people get out of poverty. I know if is possible because I am a product of this community and have been fortune to transition out of it. I know what is takes to be successful and I am ready to keep helping and improving the lot of other to get out. 

Finally, my education, work experiences and working for non profit has prepared me for the task ahead. I am extremely excited about how far we have come and the potential of changing and transforming my community. 

My life is a definition of someone with a winning mentality. I lost both parents when i was very young but I was determined to succeed so I worked very hard in school to overcome my difficult situation. When I arrived in the USA i could not pay for my schooling so I decided to work as a cleaner in a church for 2 years and someone decided to help me pay for school because of my hard work, humility and attitude to life. When I first started building the small businesses for the ladies, the first set of ladies did not do well. We did not find spaces for the store fronts, some of the ladies spent the money on other things and did not follow the plan and one lady even sold the store front and spent the money. This did not discourage me. I used the experience to shape the program better and put better systems in place to prevent others from failing today we can celebrate our hard work. Because of my background many people did not give me the chance to make it even family members but today they look back and wonder how ?

From an early age, I developed the heart for helping people so when I got to college in the USA I organized a group of guys and told them about my vision of helping my people. After I got their interest I put together a team made up of teachers, doctors, ordinary workers and organized a mission trip to Ghana from 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012 to work, learn, educate, and teach underprivileged kids. I lead teams of 15 professionals to do health clinics, teaching students, reading, and clean up exercises.

I met the founder of the PAIS Project and told him about what his program could do in helping kids. I selected one of the student to go for training in the United Kingdom and United States. After this lady returned to Ghana to help set up Pais Ghana. An average of 20 high school and college students travel to Ghana and spent over a year to work in schools, churches and deprived communities. The students have positively influenced thousands of Ghanaian youth. Their experience in how people live with very little water, electricity and food, shelter has forever changed them.

Not part of a larger organization. It's a stand alone organization.

My work is innovative because it combines a number of strategic (health insurance, bank accounts, daily sales records, cooperative buying, bi-weekly best practices sharing etc) interventions that makes the program unique and sustainable. To make the initial stages easy for them we pay the school fees for their wards and any arrears they might have so they will have the peace of mind needed to focus on their business and not having worry about schools fees at least in the short term when their businesses start. It also allows them to save up to pay the fees when the future fees are due

I am building sustainable businesses for these women and make them powerful by having them take their own destiny into their own hands. We teach them how to fish buy ensuring they understand fully how to run and manage a business. The health insurance we get for them and their families keep them healthy always, the bank accounts enables them to develop the attitude of savings so they can borrow against them in the future to expand their business. This was not possible in the past because the did not qualify to set up a bank account until we guaranteed for them. We have them all meet every other Sunday to share experience and best practices. The way they learn from each others experience.

All these measures make our work unique from others and the sustainability aspect is powerful because that represents their future and livelihood

The ladies in this community are my mothers and I understand their situation first hand because my mother lived the same reality and I grew up here so I have a very good understanding out what a good outcome looks like.

My theory of change is designed on the activity of getting the ladies to work and building their own businesses which will drive the output through activity during the selling process. The desired outcome will lead to an improved life style, positive attitudes, they are recognized and accepted socially and they are more confident to interact with others because they feel good about themselves. In my interactions over the last 5 years the opportunity I have given them even makes their marriages better because they get a lot of recognition and respect from their husbands because they are not fully dependent on them for their livelihood. 

In describing the activities that lead to the desire outcomes my goal was to get the out of the house and keep them busy selling their products and services to people in the community and others driving through. Some engage in selling provisions, produce, grocery, cooked food items, sowing, whole sale clothing and cosmetics and everyday items like water, drinks and everyday items that school children and workers will want to buy. It would interest you to know that some of these women sold water on a retail bases on the road in-between cars with the risks associated with it . I have rescued many of them who own their own store fronts and have become wholesalers at a particular location where others will come and get products from them.

I believe all this has a direct impact of them(humanity) because they can now afford 3 meals a day and their family can have a balanced diet.  Some the women have seen tremendous improvements in their life to the extent they have moved their kids to better schools.  That is definitely life changing. A transformation that everyone in this community appreciates. I look forward doing many this that brings them much needed held.

The first set of ladies that we set up are the lowest of the poverty chain. They usually don't have anything in terms of the infrastructure or social structure for us to help them build on. So we provide the stores, provisions, health insurance, start up capital, bank accounts, training on how to ran a business etc. They are currently 78 business women. Their experience and success has made me and my team to believe that we can get many people out of poverty with the right approach because this has proven to be a success story.

The second set of women are people who have been in business before in the past and usually have their own store fronts but nothing else. With these group of we help with training on how to run a successful business, start up capital, bank accounts if they do not have any, health insurance. These set of woman are 94 and counting.  I hope to bring in 50 women in the next year and about 300 in the next 5 years.

It is important to note that we have over the year gone through the learning curve and we know and understand what works and what does not. Financing has been a huge issue and with the right financing  we can scale to over 1000 women in the next 4 years. 

My goal is simply to attract the right funding to scale this project to about 1000 more women in 4 years. We have a proven model that works and has proven to be sustainable. The more people we can help bring out of poverty the more people we can make independent to take their destiny into their own hands. It is important to note that my approach is really trans formative and revolutionary. This is because from my experience the standard of living for the women increases to the extent that they move their children to better schools. Some are able to afford fruits after dinner. This seems like basic in the western world but it is a luxury in my community.  

Ultimately my goal is for all these ladies to be successful and begin to help others in their circle get out of poverty. They will become so powerful they become an inspiration to the others for them to know it is possible to transform their life and get out of poverty. 

I believe the barrier that currently exist is the land to secure the store fronts for the ladies. The public spaces that are needed to contract the store fronts at strategic places is becoming limited so we really have to move around for a long time to get the ladies an idea place that will have the needed foot traffic to attract the right customers to buy their products. 

Insufficient capital is also a barrier because we are only able to scale and bring more ladies into the fold if we have the resources to do it. Without sufficient funding it takes a longer time to bring in more ladies onto the program. As of now we have over 3072 women who are on the waiting list to be part of the program because they have seen the transformation it has brought to their friends  in the community. 

Another barrier which I think is self inflicted. It is not so bad but if the ladies turn out not be good at what business they decided to it will be bad on the number of women who make progress and get out of poverty. That is my ultimate goal so I am working hard to make them successful. 

The main idea that I have come up with is to leverage my relationship with the city authorities who have come to recognize the significant impact of my program. The plan is to have the a lot some spaces in the market and business areas a number of spaces for us to comfortably erect store fronts. I will use the same approach for the municipality authorities.

I hope the issue of funding will be resolved when I hopefully win the prices to help me scale up the ladies faster. I also hope to come up with some fund raising activities to help fund the project. 

The issue of the ladies not been successful, I will increase training and teach on information we are getting from the experience of other ladies (best practices) so that the new ladies coming in will benefit from the experience of others so they do not repeat the same mistakes. That is why our by-weekly meetings with all the women is extremely important. They make friends and we encourage partnerships from which they share experiences. 

We do not partner with any organization at this moment.

LOGISTICS  ..................................3349
SOFIA'S CONTAINER COST .................4500
VIVIAN'S ADMISSION  .......................1600
HEALTH INSURANCE CARDS ...............1800
JULIET'S CANOPY ...........................1700
JULIET'S TABLE .............................1980
JULIET'S GLASS SHOWCASE ...............1600
JULIETS TRANSPORT........................1508
JULIET'S FOOD ..............................2300
SARAH'S ADVANCE .........................3000
MENTOR'S SALARY ..........................800
Global mamas ..............................6800
NII'S TRANSPORT ...........................900
BANK ACCOUNTS ..........................4300
SOFIA'S SHELVES  .........................1300
SOFIA'S STOCKS ...........................3400
ABIBA'S CONTAINER COST ..............4900
ABIBA'S CONTAINER  ....................2100
ABIBA'S  ...................................890
ABIBA'S CONTAINER CARRIAGE........ 1000
SARAH'S CONTAINER COST ............  3500
SARAH'S CONTAINER ...................   900
SARAH'S CONTAINER    ..................1190
SARAH'S CONTAINER .....................700
JULIET'S ADVANCE RENT................1500
ROOFING COST (SARAH & ABIBA) ......2700
ROOFING WORKMANSHIP (SARAH & ABIBA) 2300
STIPENDS (40X7) ..........................1600
ABIGAIL'S ADVANCE RENT(1YR).......... 3000
ABIGAIL'S CONTAINER COST ............3900
BOARD .....................................940
MENTOR'S TRANSPORT ..................800
ABIGAIL'S SITE CLEARING ...............788
ABIGAIL'S CONTAINER..................  1200
ABIGAIL'S ..................................980
ABIGAIL'S CONTAINER CARRIAGE.......1200
STIPENDS ..................................2300
PAINT & TURPENTINE ...................800
PAINTING WORKMANSHIP ..............1200
AKU SEDENU ..............................2000
SHELVES  .................................890
ABIGAIL'S CONTAINER ..................1239
ABIGAIL'S CONTAINER .................1600
ABIGAIL'S CONTAINER  ................2000
SARAH'S SEWING STAFF COST ........1740
RENT FOR 2 LADISE ...................3800
RENT FOR 2 LANDIES ..................4800
WOOD CARRIAGE (ABIGAIL) .........1900
CLOTHING .............................1800
ABIGAIL'S STOCKS ....................3200
ABIBA'S STOCKS .....................3100
MENTOR'S LAPTOP & STUFF .......6000
STIPENDS (40X8) .....................3000
NII'S WORKMANSHIP .................2900
ESTHER'S ADVANCE RENT ..........2700
TRANSPORT FOR ESTHERS GOODS..... 900
ESTHER'S CONTAINER COST .........3800
CONTAINER CARRIAGE ..............1200
BLOCKS............................... 1990
SAND ................................6300
CARRIAGE (SAND & BLOCKS)...... 1395
FILLINGS FOR FOUNDATION .......2943
FOUNDATION WORKMANSHIP...... 2900
VIVIAN'S INTERVIEW FEE & TRANSPORT 2490
VIVIAN'S ...............................2000
ESTHER'S CONTAINER ...............1800
ESTHER'S CONTAINER ................2190
PAINT  (ESTHER) .....................900
ESTHER'S CONTAINER ...............1800
TABLES ............................... 2010
MENTOR'S ............................1400
ESTHER'S STOCKS ...................3100
SARAH'S SEWING MACHINE .......1800
ABIBA'S CONTAINER WELDING..... 1740
AKU'S FRUIT BUSINESS ..............1595
VIVIAN'S FRUIT BUSINESS.......... 1700
MENTOR'S SALARY................... 800
ABIBA'S EXTRA STOCKS .............2300
KINGSLEY'S ELECTRIC METER....... 4500
GIFTY'S CONTAINER COST .........4000
GIFTY'S ADVANCE RENT ...........3000
PURCHASE OF CARD............... 2300
STIPENDS ...........................3000
HEALTH INSURANCE CARDS ......4990
MENTOR'S SALARY .................800
THE BANK VISITS ................1200
RABIATU'S CONTAINER COST ...3400
STIPENDS .........................3000
RABIATU'S ADVANCE RENT .....2350
RABIATU'S CONTAINER CARRIAGE.... 1700
RABIATU'S CONTAINER PAINTING .....900
MENTOR'S SALARY .......................800
place contraction for 5 ladies ........6590
GIFTY'S STOCKS ........................3420
RABIATU'S STOCKS ...................3400
BANK A/C's ...........................6500
PAINT .................................880
TURPENTINE ........................800
PAINTING WORKMANSHIP (SARAH & ABIBA) 900
Cement ..............................7980
IRON RODS  ...........................6880
TOTAL ............................418,258.5 (Cedis)

TOTAL IN USA DOLLARS    $76,047.4 

I am applying for the Elevate prize because the price will be the single largest price that can potentially scale our priority of helping the underprivileged in Ghana. Because inadequate funding is one of the limitations we face as an non profit organization we will be able to help over 1000 women in the two year period. We have a very good understanding of what is takes to scale up quickly without any problem. 

The municipality has witnessed and endorsed our projects but funding is the biggest problem. We can also bring in the needed staff to help scale the program and affect many more people. There is a huge number of women on a waiting list who are just waiting to experience this life changing opportunity and the Elevate Prize will help achieve that. 

I do not have any partnerships at this time

I have not thought about partnership yet.