Photo credit: Pact

WORTH is an award-winning micro-banking program that empowers women to lift themselves and each other out of poverty and recently reached its one-millionth member! WORTH’s unique model brings women and older girls together in groups of 20 to 25 to save money, access credit and start small businesses.

Unlike micro-lending and many other development programs, WORTH provides no capital or seed money; the only materials groups receive are notebooks for recordkeeping and lockboxes for storing their savings and ledgers. Members are required to make small savings deposits at weekly meetings, and when groups’ funds grow large enough, members may begin taking loans, which they use to start small businesses.

The impact of the WORTH program could not be more exciting to us, but since the group administration processes are all done by hand, we knew we had to look to technology to improve our efficiency and impact.

Going Digital

Pact as an organization has been in the process of a digital transformation focused on growth and efficiency, and our WORTH program has been at the forefront. Two years ago, we pitched the idea of an app at Hewlett Packard Enterprise's Living Progress Challenge. We won, and the prize included HPE’s services to design and build an android app called myWORTH that automates and digitizes these functions—saving time and money while improving data quality—and ultimately lets our saver group members focus on entrepreneurship, not math or administration.

The app’s feature roadmap goes beyond group logistics to incorporate mobile money, eLearning and other features that further boost financial inclusion for our group members. We will be showcasing myWORTH at SG2020: The Future of Savings Groups, and here is some background on our design process:

Photo credit: Pact

Design Process

Over the past two years, we hired and trained staff to manage the app's lifecycle and engaged a Tanzania-based app developer to help support and further build it out.

We piloted the app with 2,000 users in 80 groups in urban Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In our subsequent focus groups and analysis, we identified the following impact and results:

Meeting logistics are simplified and improved.

• Remote participation has boosted attendance.
• Improved group efficiency has meant more time for discussion and cohesion and less math calculation.
• Users appreciated that they could share phones thanks to their data being stored in the cloud.

Data transparency, quality and access are vastly improved.

• Users can review their own savings as well as the group's as a whole; they appreciate transparency.
• Data that used to be squirreled away in thick paper ledgers is now accessible via the admin portal.
• Calculations that were done by hand are now automated.

Small business effectiveness is improved.

• Users are building relationships with peers and customers via the app.
• Users discovered the “Instacart” model, selling their wares via WhatsApp, Instagram, etc.
• Users can access independent learning via YouTube, etc.

We’re looking forward to our next steps, including adding functionality to link users to the larger financial ecosystem and traditional lenders, collecting feedback via the app and delivering eLearning to users who wouldn’t normally have access to training.

Learning Together at SG2020: The Future of Savings Groups

We will be presenting myWORTH during our upcoming SG2020 Peer Learning Session, Beyond Savings: Designing Relevant, Responsive, Accessible Technology on Tuesday, March 10. You are also welcome to test, interact with and ask questions about myWORTH at the Savings Groups Technology Fair at SG2020. Register now to join us!

Mark Reilley is the Senior Director of Technology and Data Analytics at Pact, where he focuses on building Pact's analytics capabilities and developing technology products like the MyWORTH app and leveraging them within the organization's Digital Strategy. He has 20+ years of global IT experience at nonprofits including the Pediatric AIDs Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as at IBM, Sprint and PwC management consulting. He holds an MBA in Technology and an MA in Writing and spends his spare time reading and outfitting his condo with the latest "smart" technology.