KickStart International (previously APPROTEC)
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
In Kenya:
John Kihia
Country Director
Parklands, Kalson Towers, 6th Floor
P.O. Box 64142 – 00620
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel/Fax: +254-20 3740175 /67/8 Cellphone: 0722686251 / 0733 626705 / 0725790050
Workshop: 254 20 787380/1, 783046
Email: kickstart@kickstart.org / John.kihia@kickstart.org
Website: http://www.kickstart.org
In Mali:
KickStart - Mali
Rue 19, Porte 96
Badalabougou Est
BP E1882
Bamako, MALI
Tel +223 2224005 / 2237422
Fax +223 222-34-59
Email: nafasoro@kickstart.org
In Tanzania:
KickStart Tanzania
P O Box 33605
83 Old Bagamoyo Road
Malakuwa, Kawe, Dar es Salaam
Tel: +255 27 2509370; +255 754 317111; +255 878 317111
Fax- +255-27-250-9844
Email:kickstart.tz@kickstart.org
In the United States:
KickStart International
2435 Polk Street, Suite 20
San Francisco, CA 94109-1600
USA
Tel: +1-(415) 346-4820
Fax: +1-(415) 346-4818
Email:info@kickstart.org
Martin Fisher, Co-Founder & CEO, Director
Prof. David Some, Chairman of the Board
Description
KickStart is an international, nonprofit, non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in Kenya in July 1991 and has offices in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali. To raise funds for its expansion, KickStart has now established a 501(c)3 nonprofit in the United States and opened a new development and collaboration office in the San Francisco Bay area. KickStart’s mission is to help millions of people out of poverty. It promotes sustainable economic growth and employment creation in Kenya and other countries by developing and promoting technologies that can be used by dynamic entrepreneurs to establish and run profitable small scale enterprises.
KickStart believes that self-motivated private entrepreneurs managing small-scale enterprises are the most effective agents for developing economies. These entrepreneurs raise small amounts of capital ($100–$1,000 US) to start a new enterprise and KickStart helps them to identify viable business opportunities, access the technologies required to launch the new enterprises and widely market new products. In addition to promoting small enterprise development, KickStart’s technologies, expertise, and methods are widely applied throughout Africa to support programs in agriculture, shelter, water, sanitation, health and relief.
To achieve its development goals, KickStart does market and sub-sector studies to identify profitable small enterprises that can be established by local entrepreneurs with limited capital investments. The organization examines raw materials, competing products, potential market demands and constraints and opportunities for small enterprises.
Besides, KickStart designs and develops the tools, equipment, manuals and business plans required for establishing the identified small enterprises. They also design and produce the tooling and quality control procedures required for manufacturing the new equipment. The organization also trains private manufacturers to mass-produce the new machines and tools and also trains them to set-up production assembly lines using the tooling designed by KickStart. Quality control training is also given.
KickStart promotes the new technologies and installs them in the private sector to ensure that they are well known, accessible and purchased by thousands of small-scale investors.
In addition, it recruits and trains a network of local retail shops (over 120 shops in Kenya alone) in cities, towns, and small market centers around the country. KickStart then buys the technologies from the manufacturers and sells them with a mark-up to the retailers.
KickStart monitors the cost-effectiveness and impact of its program by measuring the number of new businesses and jobs created and the amount of new profits and new wages earned by the new entrepreneurs and their employees. These impacts are compared against program costs.
Finally, KickStart develops and uses cost-effective marketing tools to promote and market the new equipment to local entrepreneurs. These include live demonstrations at retailer outlets; radio and newspaper advertisements; mobile truck mounted demonstrations in local villages; demonstrations at local shows and exhibitions; commissioned sales staff; and discounts and sales.
KickStart sees collaboration as one of the most important factors in ensuring the viability of its efforts. Such collaborative efforts have included PRODEPAM partnership which launched a manual irrigation pump for women in Zambia, SC Johnson partnership that sought to improve the livelihoods of pyrethrum farmers in Kenya and the collaboration with XAccess Foundation which helped to modify an innovative bicycle for the local market. In collaboration with IDEO, a highly regarded design firm in America, KickStart explored developing a manual pump capable of drawing water for irrigation from 60-foot-deep wells and retailing for about $125. To complement the pump, the organization collaborated with another U.S. firm to develop an efficient process for drilling 60-foot-deep wells.
KickStart links up donors to villages that need funds for water services. It gets its funding from governments, organizations, financial institutions and it is also funded from private investments. For instance from 1994 to 1999, with funding from the Netherlands government and the British DFID, KickStart promoted the new press and the small-scale production of cooking oil and seedcake as a profitable business venture in Kenya. By funding the organization, the Skoll Foundation helped it strengthen its operations, develop two new products and reach 50,000 more clients. Other donors include the USAID, the Mulago Foundation and individual donors.
Track Record
The major achievements of KickStart since 1991 has been the development and promotion of new technologies that are being used by thousands of entrepreneurs in East Africa to establish profitable small-scale businesses. All the new technologies are designed to be profitable to use, affordable to buy (under $1,000), durable, and easy to operate and maintain with minimum training. As electricity and fuel are generally expensive and labor is relatively plentiful, most are manually operated. They are also designed so that with the right tooling they can be locally mass-produced in Africa.
The technologies developed by KickStart to date are in different fields. Small-scale commercial farming can be a very profitable business in Africa, but it is difficult without irrigation. Since 1996 KickStart has been the leader in micro-irrigation technologies through the development and sales of its popularly known series of manually operated “MoneyMaker” pumps. KickStart is adding new pumps to the MoneyMaker line and continues to develop other money making micro-irrigation technologies.
KickStart’s manually operated “Mafuta Mali” oilseed press has proved to be the most popular cooking oil press for sunflower and sesame seeds in the East and Central African region.
Affordable shelter will always be in demand and KickStart developed new technologies for low cost construction businesses. KickStart’s high-pressure “Actionpac” Stabilized Soil Block Press, which makes strong building blocks from soil and cement, is the most popular in the region. KickStart also designed a low-cost Micro Concrete Roofing Tile technology, simple moulds for making Hollow Concrete Blocks and a sash clamp that is stronger and better suited to the needs of local carpenters than imported alternatives.
The organization’s Domed Concrete Pit Latrine Slabs have become the standard in refugee camps in East Africa where over 90,000 slabs have already been installed.
KickStart has designed a manually operated high-pressure hay baler that can be used to make up to 80 bales of hay in a day. Transport services are a great business everywhere and Africa is no exception. In the rural areas non-motorized transport is often the only feasible and affordable way to transport people and goods. KickStart has developed original designs for low-cost, split-rim wheels for animal carts and is working with XAccess to introduce a locally produced design of the Xtracycle cargo bicycle to East Africa.
KickStart’s state-of-the-art Impact Monitoring and Reporting Unit tracks and records key indicators and this technology has resulted in creation of over 50,000 new businesses; 800 new businesses are started every month; and US$52 million in new profits and wages are generated per year.
Challenges
Although KickStart has now established a nonprofit branch in the United States and a collaboration office in the San Francisco bay area, the organization still lacks resources that would enable it to adequately meet the needs of the communities in which it operates. This is an opportunity for donors to take charge of development in Africa through KickStart.
Another problem that the organization faces is that some of its donors do not really want to listen, but to prescribe. They seem culturally risk averse—not good at recognizing and responding to innovation and pushing the envelope. Also, they seem uninterested in institutional development plans or contributing to any activity that does not promise immediate return. Moreover, their funding comes in cycles of three or four years with very long lead times. At every funding cycle, there is uncertainty. We cannot rely on incontinuous flow to plan anything long term. If we stay afloat from year to year, implementing a patchwork of individually negotiated projects, we are going great. Growth in this scenario is very difficult to manage.
Keeping track of the impacts of the organization’s technologies is vital. KickStart measures its performance by comparing the economic benefits brought about by its technologies to the cost of developing and promoting them. Its Impact Monitoring and Reporting Unit tracks and records the key indicators. The numbers of technologies manufactured and sold are logged. Purchasers’ details are recorded in a computerized database. Training recipients’ details are also recorded. Later, monitoring staff visit a random selection of purchasers and trainees to interview them at their premises, administer questionnaires, and gather statistical data for impact analysis. Since the technologies of the organization are being disseminated far and wide in Africa, the organization needs more technical monitoring and reporting mechanisms which are expensive to acquire. The organization also needs a sharper human resource capacity.
Opportunities
Over 13 million Kenyans live on less than $1 a day. The world's poorest people must be entrepreneurial to survive. With the right tools, they can start businesses that create jobs and wealth. Therefore, KickStart still has an opportunity and is relevant in the communities of the less developed countries to elevate not only the living standards but also the rate of poverty.
In periods of economic and political change and uncertainty, where business budgets tend to be tight and community needs high, there is greater incentive for companies, communities and public officials to work together to leverage social and commercial investments as effectively and efficiently as possible. KickStart should take advantage of openings for partnerships because they will create new opportunities for training, mentoring, exchanges, incentive programs, awareness raising, voluntarism and leadership development. Besides, the organization will gain improved operational efficiency through achieving reduced costs, increased process efficiency and better service delivery. Partnerships will also help the organization develop new, creative ways of operating to meet complex challenges and create openings for the more effective and responsive design and delivery of goods and services.
