The Broccoli Project is a novel incentive program for the poor that, unlike the more familiar loyalty programmes that reward consumers for spending money, rewards life-affirming actions, such as medical screening for a range of conditions, including HIV, hypertension and diabetes.
The Broccoli Project utilises state-of-the-art biometric technology – a finger print reader backed up by a central database – to keep track of its members. One of the first organisations to benefit from this technology is the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, which uses it in its mobile medical screening facilities. These mobile clinics use a finger-print reader that connects directly to the Broccoli database of biometric identities, and so avoids duplication of records and prevents wasteful repeat testing. Poor people who utilise the testing facility are rewarded with vouchers for food, clothing and/or building materials.
The benefits to the poor are quite obvious, but the Broccoli Project also benefits NGOs and donor organisations in a number of ways. Firstly, it offers a method of measuring the effectiveness of outreach programmes so that NGOs and NPOs can accurately report their service delivery to their stakeholders in a way that is supported by real data.
And, in the same way that bad management of information has a snowball effect, so does good information management. The efficient use of resources enables more work to be done. But, even more importantly, the irrefutable evidence of good management and efficient use of resources results in increased donor confidence so that more funds become available to be used efficiently. It’s pretty obvious, once an organisation is perceived to be fiscally responsible and efficient, and to be doing good work, it gets more funding. And when it then uses that funding efficiently and effectively, everyone benefits.
It’s early days yet, and we have some interesting developments planned. One of the first that we’ll roll off will be to sell vouchers for food, clothing or building materials to companies or members of the public who can then use them to give away to people instead of cash handouts. The vouchers will be available on this site, and will be redeemable at a wide range of retail outlets. And, of course, they will be tax deductable.