By creating LEEP pathways that support girls economic empowerment, organisations can also help lower their cost per participant (CPP), which can lead to a variety of organisational benefits, which include a pipeline for new staff and the ability to increase the amount of girls a programme reaches through peer leaders and junior coaches.
Women Win believes in framing the challenge of girls’ economic empowerment in a way that develops a peer leadership pathway while also addressing organisational sustainability and ability to scale up. By making the case for a CPP approach to peer leadership, we endeavour to promote a pathway to economic empowerment for more girls.
If LEEP can become an accepted strategy to lower CPP, more girls will be placed in positions of leadership within the programme or organisation. Not only does the strategy result in girls gaining transferable life and livelihood skills that can lead to economic empowerment, as described elsewhere in this guideline, the approach also enhances the organisation’s ability to scale.
While pioneers of the LEEP strategy are still in an early stage, the results are encouraging. They believe CPP and girls’ leadership answers the twin challenges of programme impact for economic empowerment and organisational sustainability. The following real life example demonstrates the potential power of using a peer leadership approach to reduce CPP.
Real Program A
- 2010: 100 girls, $10,000 funding - $100/girl CPG (cost per girl)
- 2013: 100 girls, $10,000 funding - $100/girl CPG
Urban slum community, 7 mo. program, 2 life skills/week, 1 sport/ week
Human Resource Profile: 2 social workers, 2 sport coaches, no peer leaders (exclusively professionals)
Real Program B
- 2010: 1,000 girls, $85,000 in funding - $85/girl CPG
- 2013: 4,000 girls, $140,000 in funding - $35/girl CPG
Urban slum community, 9 mo. program, 2 life skills/week, 2 sport/week
Human Resource Profile: 20 coaches originally, 10% of participants recruited for leadership positions each year (mostly intra-program development of workforce)
The Naz Foundation has carefully analysed historical CPP and used the insights to develop a plan to dramatically reduce their costs and scale their programme while maintaining consistent quality. They also saw an increase in leadership positions at the organisation (2.5 in Year 1, 2.9% in Year 2 and 3.5% in Year 3 of implementing a LEEP pathway).