Promoting A New Response to The Global Education Crisis

Around the world, more than 264 million children are currently out of school, according to UNESCO’s latest Global Education Monitoring Report.

This number grows each year. The reasons why are complex, but the problem is invariably grounded in a lack of money. Schools need buildings, books and teachers; but governments in developing countries are frequently unable to raise enough taxes to pay for even these most fundamental of educational resources.

Even when they do, that money does not always get to education, and donors cannot cover all the gaps.

One specialist microfinance charity is addressing this issue through a programme that lends small amounts of money to large numbers of independent schools in Low and Middle Income Countries (LMIC), and to the parents whose children attend them.

Demand is insatiable across every country in which the charity operates. To meet it at scale, this non-profit organisation has innovated to secure funding from the impact investment sector. It connects sustainable commercial investment with microfinance institutions in the developing world, to fund more lending and to maximise the positive social impact.

The charity’s hands-on approach focuses on helping schools to improve the quality and availability of educational facilities, while lowering the potential risk to lenders, which has enabled the operation to grow into a leading supporter of independent schools in developing countries.

With success came increased profile and the need to manage this. Those within the charity needed reassurance that its growing education microfinance programme was ethical and sustainable. Education and development stakeholders needed to understand the organisation’s unique and proven approach, amid some controversy surrounding microfinance and low cost private schools in the developing world. Potential investors needed to be convinced of the scheme’s viability and appreciate it as an exemplar in impact investment.

Accadian responded by conducting a strategic communications audit, then producing a roadmap for the charity, setting out the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats affecting its programme. This analysis generated recommendations for raising and managing the organisation’s profile with its key audiences, in the short-and medium-term.

We enabled the organisation to take the communications initiative and reframe itself as a new, dynamic voice within its sector, by exploiting key communications networks, such as live events and social media channels, and by adopting a leadership role in terms of policy development.

We provided the strategic direction, together with the tools, content and activities, to establish our client as an emergent leader in education microfinance for the developing world.