Field Execution

Field Unit: When entering a new community, One Acre Fund first mobilizes existing self-help groups, and consolidates 150+ farmers into a farm producer group. We attach a field officer to this group, who administers our services: group formation, contract signing for credit, local farm input distribution, education services, and receiving of repayment. Over time, each field officer grows to serve 200+ farmers.

These field officers are typically recruited from the communities in which they work. We don’t hire university-educated horticulturists for our field staff. We prefer to employ down-to-earth, hard-working staff who have strong teaching ability and leadership potential within their own communities.

District Operating Unit: One Acre Fund consolidates 50-80 field units into one district operating unit. At full size, these district operating units serve 8,000-15,000 farm families. In addition to the core field officer staff, we layer on 6-12 field managers, one bookkeeper, and two director-level staff.

Whole Organization: One Acre Fund as a whole is composed of 12 district operating units, of varying tenure. Our growth strategy focuses on:

1. growing existing district operating units
2. adding additional district operating units
3. adding new countries of operation

Performance Management: One Acre Fund monitors the quality of all operations using weekly "key performance indiciators" (KPIs). Every week, at least five different KPIs are used to monitor the quality of individual field officers, higher-level field managers, or entire district operating units. An example KPI is farmer repayments, which is a good indicator of customer satisfaction levels. Sites that have good customer service tend to attract a high volume of voluntary early repayments – sites with poor customer service have low volume of early repayments. We track figures like this throughout the year, and quickly replace any poor-performing staff. These KPIs are supplemented with a regular and intense schedule of in-person field visits from managers, to keep a close eye on quality of program execution.