Co-facilitator for initiative helping government program beneficiaries access commercial finance.

The Enterprise Georgia (EG) micro grants program is well established and provides much needed financial support to many rural entrepreneurs that often serve a social function in their communities. While not all businesses in rural areas want or need to grow – and commercial financing is not always appropriate – many businesses do the capacity and willingness to develop their business and require additional investment. Enterprise Georgia is therefore considering the next stage in the journey of grant awardees – how they can develop their businesses through access to commercial financing. This took the form of a pilot graduation program to identify MSME beneficiaries based on their performance and provide institutional support to them for applying for commercial financing, including by connecting them with financial institutions.

SavvY supported the programme as the Co-facilitator from 2022 to 2024. Our role of co-facilitator was to refine the test the graduation model together with the EG-RSMEDP working group. This included identifying and segmenting micro-entrepreneurs with growth potential, identifying the services required to enable them to access finance, and supporting their ‘graduation’ through coordinating the relevant ASPs (Accounting Service Providers) that provide technical assistance. Our team liaised closely with and support the EG-RSMEDP technical working group which included representatives of EG from senior management and the micro-grants department.

How we Helped

Developed segmentation/selection methodology to identify high growth potential beneficiaries underserved by commercial credit providers.
Developed service package(s) required for ASPs to improve grant awardee internal financial management processes and investment support services to enable to access commercial finance. In addition, SavvY conducted the workshop
Supported selection of ASPs that can provide business advisory services. Including development of the selection criteria and methodology for identifying suitable ASPs; workshops with ASPs that can serve micro-entrepreneurs in rural areas and technical assistance to identify optimal number of ASPs to enable support to preliminary selected list of grant awardees.
Oriented and coordinated ASPs to provide packages of additional support to improve financial knowledge and skills of selected micro entrepreneurs to improve their performance.
Prepared the lessons learned document and communicated the results to the stakeholders
Suggested the improved and enhanced Graduation model for further implementation

Impact and Potential

Within the framework of the project, during the first and second phase our team selected 54 and 52 entrepreneurs, respectivel, who were actively involved in the Graduation programme. In addition, selected and trained 10 ASPs who were able to introduce and strengthen financial services in their activities.

SavvY supported and monitored the progress of the ASPs during the project implementation. Also, our team supported monitoring activities both directly and through technical assistance to EG, culminating in a report and recommendations for integration of this activity into EG’s processes for future grants rounds.

Finally, the satisfaction of the entrepreneurs with the project was estimated at more than 90%. They improved their financial literacy, strengthened their financial accounting practices, were able to obtain financing from financial institutions, and established connections with service providers in the region for future cooperation.