FOM Grant to Sain Tus: Successful Business Training in Khuvd

Over May 23-24, 2013, the Sain Tus Center NGO ran a successful training on business management, organization, and accounting in Jargalant soum (village), in western Mongolia’s Khuvd province. With 25 participants, the training was funded through a $250 grant from Friends of Mongolia’s annual small grant awards for sustainable community development. The project fulfilled its goal to provide train-ing for low-income families in Jargalant soum that run their own businesses, and focused on increasing income through better management and marketing. The trainees all managed businesses related to tailoring or the production of felt products.The mission goal of the Sain Tus Center is to, “Empower Mongolians living in Western Mongolia through capacity-building projects that will help them increase their knowledge, make sound decisions, and improve their lives.” Prior to submitting their proposal for this project to Friends of Mongolia, Sain Tus consulted the owners of many small businesses in Jargalant to ask them what type of training they would like to receive, if possible, and Sain Tus sought to meet their needs through this grant award from FOM. This was a highly effective approach.The Sain Tus Center split this training into four components:

• Financial Accounting and Funds Tracking: including weekly, monthly, and yearly tracking and estimates of revenues and liabilities.
• Organizational Structure and Management: including discussions on role and responsibility definition/designation, delegation of duties, and efficient supervision.
• Small Business Development: from initial business concept to business launch, and also including sessions on business principles, business research, identification of weaknesses/inefficiencies in a business, marketing concepts, and relationship skills (among employees, with suppliers, with customers, etc.)
• Micro-Enterprise Group Fund: this training component included information on how to create and manage a group fund (microenterprise loan system), how to find/create funds for a microenterprise group fund, and how to jointly monitor a group fund.

The feedback from post-training surveys was very optimistic, and in the estimate of Sain Tus Director, Ugaanerdene, many of these businesses are now, “on a robust track for sustainable growth.”