Idea 364 of 500. Cluster 18: Sri Lankans abroad, both directions
Money-transfer products that buy a specific thing at home, a course, a machine, a roof, rather than cash
The mechanism, from the book
1.5 million people abroad who know how rich countries work, and who send home money and little else.
Every idea in cluster 18 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Agree with one local supplier, a roofing merchant, a sewing-machine dealer or a training college, that you will send them paid orders from abroad for a small commission. Then offer 10 families abroad the chance to buy a named thing for a relative at home, paid direct to the supplier, with a photograph sent on delivery. One completed order with its photograph proves the loop.
- Who pays first
- A worker abroad who sends cash home every month and wants to know that this month's money bought the roof and not something else.
- What leaves today
- Remittances now arrive as cash and are spent on consumption; tying them to a course, a machine or a roof turns them into capital at home.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. EightWhat It Costs to Go First
What bonds sold to Sri Lankans abroad have and have not done - Ch. SixteenThe Bridge
The institutions that could carry value back
More from cluster 18
- 361A directory of Sri Lankans abroad: who does what, where, and what they will help with, verified
- 362Return-relocation services: the school, the house, the car, the tax, in one package
- 363Sri Lanka House in London, Melbourne and Toronto: a shop, a café and a desk, the Colombo model abroad
- 365Investment clubs of Sri Lankans abroad that own one business each at home, with a manager on the ground
- 366Import agencies in each city with a Sri Lankan community, stocking Sri Lankan brands and nothing else
- 367A returning-professional registry that hospitals, universities and firms at home can search
Idea 364 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.