This was revealed in a survey conducted by LETS GO (Leading Entrepreneurs Towards Seizing Global Opportunities) Foundation and GE Money Bankin 2006, which led to the creation of Innovative Funance (fun and finance) Board game, an interactive fun way of learning the basics of finance which can be played by five to 10 students.

“The game is designed to manage, solve and understand financial concepts,” explained Michelle Javellana, project manager of LET’S GO. “Participants need to answer questions related to cash flow and cash management to win the game.”

The game was conceptualized by Maurino Bolante, a professor at Asian Institute of Management. Funance is part of Women Entrepreneurship Program (WEP), a financial education program also under LET’S GO.

“Funance deviates the traditional way of learning financial basics in classrooms,” said Bolante during a workshop he facilitated in Assumption College at San Lorenzo Village, Makati.

The board game is further comprehended with help of Funance Implementation Workshop made up of five modules.

Modules 1 is where student participants learn the definition of different account titles in the balance sheet and its equation; module 2 tackles parts of income statement and its format; module 3 holds a group competition to test participants’ knowledge and understanding of balance sheet and income statement concepts; module 4 provides a case study “Pasta at Iba Pa.” This phase is for students to explore business operations when starting a restaurant and module 5 uses a board game that challenges students to make cash flow and cash management decisions in a simulated competitive scene.

“Since we rolled the program in 2006, we received other concepts suggested by students like accounting taxation. Our aim is to include the program in their curriculum next year,” emphasized Javellan.

Based on the study, students are more interested in topics which expound running a business and recognizing opportunities.

To make the project sustainable, the local unit of General Electric Co. will give financial assistance to graduating students.

“We will include loan in the future and have advice centers next year to further guide our future entrepreneurs,” informed Albert Go, corporate communications officer of GE Money Bank. “We also intend to conduct workshops in provincial women schools.”

The WEP and its collaborators intend to transform job seekers to job creators as solutions to increasing number of unemployed people in the country.

GE Money Bank has partnered with the Let’s Go Foundation to establish the Women Entrepreneurship Program, which aims to inspire young Filipino women to be enterprising leaders of society. Since its launch in December 2006, the program has reached more than 10,000 college students, professors, and women entrepreneurs, as part of our initiative together information, which was used to develop interactive teaching tools and workshops to supplement existing curriculum in women’s colleges.

Our employees have spent more than 4,000 manhours in the program, and met with different stakeholders to plan and roll-out a sustainable program to help ensure the success of women entrepreneurship in the Philippines. Starting from increasing awareness and inspiring students to consider entrepreneurship as an option after graduation from college, the program also includes tools that will equip women with the basics of running their business.

Eric Montelibano, Communications Leader, said, “We are committed to provide entrepreneurship education to women. Through the initiatives of the WE Program, we aim to inspire and cultivate the entrepreneurial spirit among women.”

Accomplishments

Women Entrepreneurship Research

The WE Program conducted research with female college students from the Consortium of Women’s Colleges (CWC) and successful women entrepreneur to determine the traits, attitudes, and educational needs of women. The results revealed the knowledge and skills young, business-minded women need in order to pursue successful entrepreneurial careers. The results of the research formed part of the basis in developing an interactive teaching tool to address the basic gaps needed in practicing entrepreneurship.

Teaching Tool Development

Funance, or fun in finance, a teaching tool composed of board games, inspirational videos and actual case studies, was designed to make the learning of Finance more fun and interesting. Funance orients students with financial knowledge on the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow which are basics in running a business.

Let’s Go Foundation has been developing Funance with the help of the Consortium of Women Colleges (CWC) students, where several simulation exercises have been conducted on the students, helping in the improvement and development of the teaching tool. The program will be rolled out in women colleges in October of 2008.

Interactive Website

A dedicated website (www.womenentrepreneurship.org) was established to provide a resource to help students and entrepreneurs with information that would help their businesses. The website features revealing studies done on women entrepreneurs, as well as success stories and tips on how to manage a business.

It also features forums, where students, mothers, entrepreneurs and women curious about starting their own business can exchange ideas, share their experiences, talk about their passions and inspirations or simply provide support for each other.

The future of the WE Program

The WE Program will pilot the Funance teaching tool to 4 schools from CWC, namely – Assumption College, College of the Holy Spirit, Miriam College, and St. Scholastica’s College. The results of the pilot will be used for improvements and will be made available for other colleges, universities, and NGOs.

The program is designed to be sustainable and we will help ensure the success of women entrepreneurship in the Philippines in the next phases of the program. Together with the Let’s Go Foundation, GE Money Bank is committed to provide a significant input to the women’s sector, to further develop financial education to college students and women entrepreneurs, and to assist in the financial empowerment for women.

Findings of a survey conducted by the Women Entrepreneurship Program (WEP)—a partnership of the Let’s Go Foundation and GE Money Bank—indicate that there is low awareness of finance and money management among the Filipino women surveyed.

Over 78 percent of those surveyed reported they had not been exposed to a formal business management or entrepreneurship course in college.

In line with its mission to teach and inspire more female students to take on the torch of entrepreneurship, WEP recently launched the “Funance” game, an interactive teaching tool designed to help bridge the finance knowledge gap in the country.

“Even before they start studying finance, most students are already hesitant to do so,” said Let’s Go Foundation program manager Carlo Calimon. “Funance is a fun way to learn and remember important concepts.”

Calimon said Funance was designed to encourage students not to fear finance.

“Funance shows that there’s an easier way to teach and learn Finance,” he said. “The game is very hands-on and engages students in a fun and entertaining way to make the learning meaningful and relevant for students.”

Funance is a comprehensive series of videos, board games and case studies consisting of three core components:

1. “Definition of Terms,” which guides players through balance sheets and income statements.
2. “Building a Case,” which instructs players on how to develop a balance sheet and income statement based on transactional cards.
3. “Cash Flow,” a board game that teaches cash management.

Funance started out as concept developed by Prof. Maurino Bolante, a finance professor at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), together with Prof. Jay Bernardo, the founder of Let’s Go Foundation. Calimon also added significant inputs in the development of the game.

Calimon said he believed women could easily succeed in business if empowered to make the right decisions, and the best way to empower them would be to educate them on the fundamentals of business.

“We will start targeting college students first,” he said. “Over the long term, WEP will expand to the high school level, then the out-of-school youth, then the older sector.”

Recognizing the need to train women on the fundamentals of business even before they graduate from college, Let’s Go Foundation and GE Money Bank joined forces to form the WEP in 2006 which works to create new and innovative ways to teach and inspire more female students to take on the torch of entrepreneurship.

The launch of Funance reinforces WEP’s commitment to the development of women entrepreneurs across various segments and age groups in the country.

Funance will be rolled out in pilot schools starting in June, with a plan to extend its reach to more schools in the months after that. There are also plans to make it available to NGOs, such as cooperatives, who want to teach women’s groups the basics of finance.

Watch the Let’s Go Video here.

This was determined after the presentation of the results of GE Money Bank & Let’s Go Foundation’s survey on women entrepreneurship, the first phase of the Women Entrepreneurship Program (WEP) which was launched last December. The program aims to educate and inspire young Filipina women to be enterprising leaders of society. Data from the survey will be used to develop a curriculum designed for teachers nationwide to adapt into their respective entrepreneurship programs.

Let’s Go Foundation founder prof. Jay Bernardo discusses the survey results.”An entrepreneurial culture will help uplift the quality of life of women, including their family, community, and aid in the economic development of the country,” says Jay Bernardo, Let’s Go Foundation founder and Asian Institute of Management (AIM) professor, during the discussion of the survey results at the AIM Conference Center in Makati City.

The research study, conducted by market research guru Dr. Ned Roberto, identified the tools that successful women entrepreneurs proved important in their businesses and the factors that affected their decision-making processes. It was aimed at gaining insights into the experiences, problems, success and attitudes of growing women entrepreneurs, the findings of which will be used to create a curriculum for an entrepreneurship training program specifically tailored to the needs of would-be women entrepreneurs.

The survey research focused on 100 growing women entrepreneurs, referring to women who are engaged in business for at least two years. Each of them was interviewed face-to-face, one-by-one by highly trained researchers who were guided under Roberto’s strict tutelage. Each was asked 29 questions that pertained to their experiences as they engaged in entrepreneurial activities.

The study showed that 43 percent of women entrepreneurs surveyed find the professor teaching the subjects as the process most useful in growing their businesses against the common notion that workshops are the most effective tools. “It is, therefore, essential to optimize the learning experience of every aspiring entrepreneur by equipping teachers with the right classroom materials,” says Bernardo.

The survey furthered revealed that 65 percent of growing women entrepreneurs initially worked in a private corporation before going into business. A good 53 percent of the respondents also showed that these women had parents who were both entrepreneurs. It was no surprise, therefore, that most of them drew their inspiration of going into business from their families.

In addition, the research study showed that 31 percent of those surveyed said finance is the most critical subject to master, while 26 percent said marketing and another 23 percent said strategic management. These results demonstrate the importance of structural or foundational education necessary for those who pursue majors in entrepreneurship programs.

GE Money Asia Corporate Citizenship leader Tomoko Takazawa notes: “By learning from the survey completed by Let’s Go Foundation and utilizing our expertise as a bank, as well as our experience of implementing financial education programs, we look forward to developing a unique curriculum which would really be beneficial for Filipino students. Empowering women through financial education is GE Money’s global objective for its corporate citizenship initiative.”

Let’s Go Foundation and GE Money Bank are now developing a teaching program to be rolled out to pilot schools in 2007. Based on the figures of the pilot research, the program will be refined and enhanced for wider implementation across the country, targeting women’s colleges in the future.

Taking cue from the results, the WEP recommended offering a program with finance, marketing, strategic management and human resource management as options for a major.

Open forum with (from left) television personality Ms. Che Che Lazaro; Sr. Mary Gertrude Borres, R.A., president of Assumption College and board member of the Consortium of Women Colleges, whose member schools will be the initial recipients of the curriculum developed from the GE Money Bank & Let’s Go Foundation research; and successful women entrepreneurs Chit Juan (chief executive officer of Figaro Coffee Company) and Anabel Tanco (general manager and director of Bizu Patisserie and Bistro).

Also, as part of the curriculum, students were urged to undergo on-the-job training in corporations in order to gain experience and training that will expose them to corporate systems and procedures. It was also suggested to integrate as priority targets the qualities of passion and dedication into the self-mastery or self-discovery modules of the training program for entrepreneurs. Networking skill, likewise, was also underscored as an important trait to encourage or even train early in the life of a woman.

In terms of the development of teaching materials, formulation of cases and/or creation of videos on the mothers, as well as the role of the family, of women entrepreneurs, were proposed by the program.

Finally, in order to optimize entrepreneurs’ learning experiences, it was deemed that the thrust be primarily put in preparing teachers, and then on developing teaching materials. Thus, an effective “Train the Trainors” program was advised.

GE Money Bank president and CEO Ben Kua reiterates, “The survey results are incredibly important because they point us in the right direction toward building a unique and relevant program that offers women interested in entrepreneurship the right foundations to succeed.”

Professor Jay Bernardo, Founder of the Let’s Go Foundation said, “An entrepreneurial culture will help uplift the quality of life of women, including their family, community, and aid in the economic development of the country.” The research study identified the tools that successful women entrepreneurs proved important in their businesses and the factors that affected their decision-making processes. “The research shows that 43 percent of women entrepreneurs surveyed find the professor teaching the subjects as the process most useful in growing their businesses against the common notion that workshops are the most effective tools. It is therefore essential to optimize the learning experience of every aspiring entrepreneur by equipping teachers with the right classroom materials,” Bernardo added.

The survey showed that 65 percent of growing women entrepreneurs initially worked in a private corporation before going into business. A good 53 percent of the respondents also showed that these women had parents who were both entrepreneurs. It is no surprise therefore, that most of them drew their inspiration of going into business from their families.

In addition, the research study showed that 31 percent of those surveyed said finance is the most critical subject to master, while 26 percent said marketing and another 23 percent said strategic management. These results demonstrate the importance of structural or foundational education necessary for those who pursue majors in entrepreneurship programs.

Tomoko Takazawa, Corporate Citizenship Leader of GE Money Asia also notes, “By learning from the survey completed by Let’s Go Foundation and utilizing our expertise as a bank as well as our experience of implementing financial education programs, we look forward to developing a unique curriculum which would really be beneficial for Filipino students. Empowering women thorough financial education is GE Money’s global objective for our corporate citizenship initiative.

GE Money Bank president and CEO Ben Kua reiterates, “The survey results are incredibly important because they point us in the right direction toward building a unique and relevant program that offers women interested in entrepreneurship the right foundations to succeed.”

Let’s Go Foundation and GE Money Bank are now developing a teaching program to be rolled out to pilot schools in 2007. Based on the results of the pilot, the program will be refined and enhanced for wider implementation across the country, targeting women’s colleges in the future. “We look at the program as a long term development opportunity that will encourage women entrepreneurship in the Philippines. GE Money is committed to support this initiative and will help roll out the program to more schools in the future,” Takazawa stressed.

PDB SME Solutions, Inc. that seeks to empower the Filipino entrepreneur in order to be globally competitive through developing products and services in information and communications technology complement Let’s Go as it illustrates its mission reflected in their group’s name as Leading Entrepreneurs Towards Sensing Global Opportunities. The non-profit organization was founded in May 2001 by Mr. Bernardo III, a professor at Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and is the Chairman of JAD Group of Companies.

Stipulated in the partnership, Let’s Go will provide useful articles and materials for SME.com.ph visitors and subscribers and also impart resource personalities for site queries in the Ask the Experts section. Members of the AIM academe and their corresponding field of expertise were named to actively participate in the said Web site’s section are:

• Prof. Maurino P. Bolante for Accounting
• Ms. Laarni Baluyot and Dr. Eduardo A. Morato Jr for Business Planning
• Prof. Francisco M. Bernardo III and Prof. Alejandro J. Ferreria for Entrepreneurship
• Prof. Cecilia B. Manikan for Entrepreneurship in the Arts
• Dr. Eduardo A. Morato Jr. and Prof. Richard L. Cruz for Finance
• Mr. Angelito Domingo, Dr. Milagrosa D. Lagrosa, and Prof. Jack Kanapi for Human Resource
• Prof. Gaston D. Ortigas Jr for Information Technology
• Prof. Tomas B. Lopez for Marketing
• Prof. Ronald T. Chua for Micro Finance Institutions
• Prof. Francisco P. Bernardo Jr, Prof. Mariano S. Lagman, and Dr. Ricky Sumallo for Operations
• Prof. Marie Lisa M. Dacanay for Social Entrepreneurship

Both parties will promote their co-branded activities through their respective sites, SME BizLink e-Newsletter, Plantersbank’s Business Line magazine and other leading dailies. Contents of their sites, particularly the business’ articles will be linked side by side and will be showcased in SME Resources and Tools section of SME.com.ph. Future projects like state-of-the-art seminars and trainings will soon be launched.