3) Strategy Summary:
Our strategy is to identify high performance MicroEnterprises started by our 626 Filipino graduates and then develop five MicroFranchise models to offer to our Academy graduates. Serving as the franchisor, we will develop "blueprint" operation manuals that will be offered to NGOs worldwide. Many of our graduates have businesses that are now providing families with a fuller, healthier life; children are going to school, family assets are being generated and medicines purchased. However, we have found that many start the "perfect business" and then abandon it and move to another venture. This wastes time, money and energy. The five models to be replicated are: Cell phones stores, pharmacies, photographers, iodizing salt and ink refilling.

4) How the Strategy Works:
Step 1. Identify top performers, scaleable businesses and create MicroFranchise prototypes.
We have located 25 of the top performers among our 626 graduates. Under a locally-driven program entitled AMP (Accelerate and Magnify Performers), we are designing individual programs in concert with the MicroEnterprise owners to increase mentoring, inventory loans and operational help. About 24 of our graduates currently own Cellular City franchises. We have also found four models for which we will develop MicroFranchise operations manuals. This year we plan to launch two MicroFranchises. They will be ink cartridge refilling retail locations as well as small in-house bakeshops. We also will work on a HP Village Photographer model and replicating an iodized salt business. The salt business currently operates in two Philippine provinces. We will help him develop a franchise format which will allow him to go regional and perhaps nationwide.

Step 2. Develop due diligence documents to research and prove the model and sustainability and scalability of the business. Our Filipino director, Tony San Gabriel, has already developed a 20-page due diligence report on the ink cartridge refilling business. He will now develop and publish a document that will be used to help our own foundation as well as others decide which businesses can most easily and most profitably be replicated. Profitability of the MicroEnterprise as well as easiness of replication are two huge factors in deciding which ventures to MicroFranchise.

Step 3. Work with International Franchise Associations, universities and large foundations to reach, document, fund, and mentor and publish materials on MicroFranchising.

MicroFranchising will only work if we use the expertise of others to help us develop documents which will enable us to produce a business franchise format which includes procedure and operational manuals. We have already made contact with two Franchise development groups, one which is for "homegrown, indigenous" franchises. The vice president, who owns 54 small franchise operations, has agreed to help up in our citizen based strategy. We are also working with local business people who are respected in the Philippines. One imports motorcycles from China; the other has a smoothie business with 49 small kiosks.

We have had graduate researchers from both the UCLA and BYU travel to the Philippines to study the MicroFranchise concept.

We hope to attract additional funding from the International Franchise Association and the International Franchise Society who will have an interest in this project in order to distribute to people at the bottom of the pyramid.

Step 4. Participate in conferences to learn and spread the idea of replicating through MicroFranchising. Last year at the 7th annual BYU MicroEnterprise conference, the Academy sponsored a MicroFranchising session. As a result of that popular session, we will this year develop seven sessions on MicroFranchising. Tony San Gabriel, Managing Director of Philippine Academy will present. Others will be from the NGO, franchising, and private industry. We believe this will spread the word on the feasibility of this citizen based strategy. Pioneers in MicroCredit including Sam Daley-Harris and John Hatch will present. We believe many will become advocates and replicators of MicroFranchising.

Step 5. Publish materials and offer them to other NGOs and foundations. At the conference, we will distribute Vol. 4 of "Where There Are No Jobs." This volume is being produced by Jason Fairbourne and BYU undergraduate students. It will contain 2 page synopses of 50 replicatible businesses. It will also contain a due diligence document and more detailed documentation on 10 MicroFranchisable businesses. We hope to include materials from Scojo Foundation, the reading glass social entrepreneurs, materials from HP Village Photographers, our Cellular City franchises, Kenya Pharmacies, TropicSno with its 1,500 dealers in 30 countries and others. This fourth volume of "Where There Are No Jobs" will later be available to NGOs. We plan to also present at the MicroCredit Summit in 2006.

Step 6. Start replicating businesses throughout Philippines. We will continue to replicate our MicroFranchise Opportunities (MFOs) to our 626 graduates. Plus we will introduce the advantages of MicroFranchising to our 125 new students this year.

Step 7. Continue to introduce the concept to the world leaders of MicroCredit organizations.
I believe that the MicroFranchise concept is sound enough to be a new tool for MicroCredit organizations to: 1. Provide additional client services. 2. Appeal to donors suffering from donor fatigue. 3. Provide a profit opportunity for the NGOs who can become the franchisor for a number of high potential MicroEnterprises that they already have, but haven't discovered yet among their borrowers. 4. Provide more business training for their borrowers. MicroFranchising can be a worldwide movement.

5) Key Strategy Elements:

i. Mobilizing Citizen Support:
We will spread the word about MicroFranchising to other foundations and NGO's as well as donors. We believe they will recognize it as a tool to break the multigenerational chains of family poverty. We believe the concept will gain wide acceptance both domestically and worldwide. Why? Because it is not a band-aid approach. It is true development work which allows the poor to start sound MicroEnterprises. Like in the United States, the franchise format solves many, many of the problems with the start up and growth of businesses. Therefore it will gain citizen support as the story of MicroFranchise success is told. Success brings many supporters, especially donors who will recognize the soundness of this initiative.

ii. Generating Financial and Nonfinancial Resources:
Although the MicroFranchises will sell for as little as $300 and as much as $2,000, we believe there will be many who will be able to purchase these MicroFranchises. This is especially true of those who received remittances. In the Philippines, $8 billion US flow into the country annually. Now much of this money is being spent on consumables. This will change. In additional to more donor support, a MicroFranchise organization (MFO), and often times the NGO, will be able to become more sustainable through income generated by their services and the sale of products to the MicroFranchisee.

iii. Establishing Relationships with Strategic Partnerships:
Strategic partners who will embrace this citizen base strategy will be varied. For example: Businesses who wish to sell to the four plus billion people at the bottom of the pyramid. I echo the words of C. K. Prahalad when he wrote, "If we stop thinking of the poor as victims or as a burden and start recognizing them as resilient and creative entrepreneurs and value-conscious consumers a whole new world of opportunity will open up." Unfortunately many third world citizens do not know how to be entrepreneurs. They need to follow a system rather than create one. The Academy will create and publish the systems; NGOs will follow those innovative systems and replicate successful local MicroEnterprises through the franchise model.

iv. Engaging and Managing Volunteers:
We have already had many volunteers among university students. We are also gathering more volunteers who have expertise in the areas we most need help in. We are speaking to the leaders of Franchise organization both in the United States and in the Philippines. We are having students research other like-thinkers in the development and academic worlds who have had the same ideas as we and also Ashoka has with their blueprint copying. There is much evidence that others have thought of these ideas and even researched them, however the Academy is unique in that it is a laboratory for developing idea that work. In others words they are the practical side of the theory. We are daily in touch with students and others who wish to volunteer.

v. Developing Information and Spreading the Message:
We have already self-published two volumes of a work in progress entitled, "Where There Are No Jobs." Volume four however will be the most applicable to the MicroFranchise model. We will also enlist some student interns to publicize the MicroFranchise concept through developing the following: 1. a website microfranchise.org. This will be the depository of materials on the art of MicroFranchise development. 2. Magazine articles and newspaper articles on successes of eradicating poverty through MicroFranchising. 3. Developing materials with pictures which will be circulated at conferences, especially the MicroCredit Summit 2006.

6) Increasing Self-sufficiency and Social Impact:
Our organization, The Called2Serve Foundation, is currently the Academy sponsor. We also sponsor Alumni Services which is an adjunct organization to help our Alumni succeed. We are also developing a for profit aspect of the Alumni Services. In the year 2004, the for-profit side contributed approximately 20% of the expenses to run the Academy. This contribution will increase as the MicroFranchising model develops. We are very unique in that 1. Our Alumni develop the businesses that we will franchise. 2. Our alumni will become the franchisees. 3. Our alumni who already appreciate the education the Academy has provided that has changed their lives will be most happy to become managers, owners and employees of our MicroFranchises. 4. Significant profits will flow into the parent organization as these MicroFranchises replicate, buy product, pay royalties and open additional locations. 5. The Alumni Services will build huge equity as they launch MicroFranchises.

8) Organization Mission and Vision:
The Academy for Creating Enterprise provides Filipino young adults with the necessary hope, motivation, education and knowledge needed to plan, start and build MicroEnterprise business. These new skills will enable the graduates to have a higher level of self-reliance and a better family lifestyle.

Contact Information:
Stephen W.  Gibson
Academy Founder
Academy for Creating Enterprise
1095 Mountain Ridge Road, Provo, Utah 84604
United States
Tel: 1801-373-5163
Fax: 1-801-3733722
Email: Gibsw@aol.com
Website: the-academy.org