FRONTIERS Projects | Improving Financial Sustainability: Break-even Analysis of The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) Training Centers

FRONTIERS PROJECT
Improving Financial Sustainability: Break-even Analysis of The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO) Training Centers

TASO seeks to subsidize its support services for HIV-positive persons through fees from its training center, which provides education on reproductive health care and project management for counselors, AIDS community workers, and medical personnel. In this study FRONTIERS worked with TASO to determine the number and types of courses needed to increase the cost recovery of TASO’s services and thus reduce its dependence on donors. The study, developed during a week-long course on financial sustainability, identified three obstacles to the sustainability of training programs: insufficient fees, excessive costs, and small class size. Proposed solutions, including modest fee increases, increased class size, and use of local instructors rather than outside experts, would increase cost coverage significantly to 50 or 60 percent in the short term. TASO’s board approved changes in fee structures and began exploring ways to reduce costs. In addition, the board began planning analysis of local and international markets as well as long-term strategies for income generation, including further course development and collaboration with the Regional AIDS Training Network to attract larger groups of students.

Location

Uganda

Duration

September 2004–July 2005

Population Council researchers

James Foreit, Rick Homan

Non-Council collaborator

The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO)

Donor

US Agency for International Development

Publications/Resources
Council researchers' names appear in boldface type.

2006
Mugumya, Nicholas, Juliana Nyombi, Michael Matsiko, Rick Homan, Harriet Birungi, and Nzoya Munguti. "Cost of training programs and willingness to pay for training: An application of break-even analysis in Uganda," FRONTIERS Final Report. Washington, DC: Population Council. (PDF, 229 KB)