Greetings everyone. I was promoting value chain development to a donor who is interested in helping to advance this field – not just fund a few good programs. Her question to me was: why do publications site the same few cases repeatedly? Are there so few good programs? Is there so little data on programs? She wants to make the case to her organization using actual numbers: the field is currently reaching x number of people and generally helping them increase income by x%, but with a significant advancement plan of $x – investing in research, training and capacity building – we could reach x number of people and deepen income increased to x%. We do not have this data. So, two questions:

1) Please share your promising practice programs – your “success stories.” We need more, especially more with numbers. You can do that here by filling out the attached form and sending it either to the conference or to me directly – it only takes a few minutes. Unless you say not to, we will post any attached documents to www.valuechainknowledge.org . This is also a great marketing opportunity for your work and organization.

2) What is your challenge in gathering and reporting outreach and impact data? How are you approaching this challenge? What support do you need to make it happen?

Mary McVay