Money and business skills 

At Good Return, we believe that Financial Empowerment is the foundation for lasting change. For people who are excluded from finance, building confidence, agency and entrepreneurial capacity is not just about money — it’s about choice, opportunity and resilience.

 

Too often, financial exclusion and marginalisation create barriers that keep people trapped in cycles of poverty. Limited access to bank accounts, affordable credit and savings, combined with limited knowledge of formal finance, make households vulnerable to shocks. 

We  help people overcome these barriers by developing the combination of attitudes, knowledge, skills and self-efficacy needed to make informed financial decisions. Through training, digital financial literacy tools, engagement initiatives and awareness campaigns, we support individuals and entrepreneurs to manage money confidently, grow businesses, and build resilience in the face of economic and climate challenges.

The goal of Financial Empowerment is simple but powerful: to enable excluded and marginalised households to take control of their financial lives, achieve financial wellbeing, and create better futures for themselves and their communities.

Stories from the field
Inaugural Deadly Sisters Awards Celebrate Indigenous Women in Business
Inaugural Deadly Sisters Awards Celebrate Indigenous Women in Business

The Deadly Sisters Awards celebrate the extraordinary entrepreneurs in the Maganda Makers Business Club for Kimberley Indigenous Women.

Learning the business of being an Indigenous woman entrepreneur 
Learning the business of being an Indigenous woman entrepreneur 

Right now, a movement is growing across Northern Australia to build leadership through self-employment and business for Indigenous women. It is not driven by an individual desire for profit or exponential business growth, but is inspired to see business as a tool for social growth and cultural empowerment.

From pigs to piggy banks…financial empowerment, Solomon Islands style.
From pigs to piggy banks…financial empowerment, Solomon Islands style.

Nirri Shah’s recent field visit to the Solomon Islands enabled her to meet existing and potential partners, and to hear inspiring stories from our Consumer Awareness and Financial Empowerment (CAFE) coaches and learners across rural communities.

Building confident financial customers in our region
Building confident financial customers in our region

As a social purpose organisation, Good Return strives to equip women and other marginalised groups across the Asia Pacific region with confidence and resilience to access responsible finance and the tools to manage money.

Hats, bags or scarves? Adapting our Financial Capability curriculum to be relatable for different cultures.
Hats, bags or scarves? Adapting our Financial Capability curriculum to be relatable for different cultures.

Good Return financial capability training programs are dynamically adapted for every community group to be relatable and appropriate for the specific needs of all learners.

“I am thankful for the training as it opened my eyes as well as my mind to know that it is good to save. There are great things to learn, and those things can take them far in being stable and capable with money in hand.”

CAFE: Financial skill-building in action

The Consumer Awareness and Financial Empowerment (CAFE) Initiative is an innovative financial education program for people in disadvantaged communities. Focused on behavioural change, CAFE helps learners make good financial choices so they can plan for the future and take control of their money.

Good Return designs creative and engaging courses, activities, interactive exercises, and take-home challenges to develop a learner’s financial capability and confidence. Our curriculum is tailored to local cultural settings and different levels of literacy. 

Together with our partners, we deliver much of this training face-to-face. From remote mountainous regions in Nepal to tiny island communities in the Solomon Islands, our team travels far and wide to engage with learners. 

To date, we have trained over 50,000 people in our region in financial literacy. We know that this knowledge gets shared with households, expanding our impact to 200,000 people.

Good Return’s CAFE Initiative is delivered in partnership with the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and with support from the Accenture Australia Foundation.

Indigenous women’s entrepreneurship in Australia

Future Weavers is an Indigenous women's movement building leadership through self-employment and business. 

The movement elevates remarkable First Nations women in remote and regional communities across Northern Australia and reimagines self-employment and business as a leadership and social change tool.

The first implementation has been the Maganda Makers business club in the Kimberley region, which has connected over 100 women with business and leadership opportunity. 

The club brings the women together in person or online, to network and share ideas, access resources and connections, and learn new skills. The women share learnings on marketing, budgeting and finance, production and sales and how to deal with the unique challenges of doing business in remote areas - where even getting to the post office in the wet season can be impossible.

Future Weavers is led by Natasha Short and her business, Kimberley Jiyigas. It is locally implemented by Enterprise Partnerships WA and supported by the Menzies Foundation and Good Return. Learn more here.

Access to safe digital finance

Our Digital Financial Literacy initiative helps vulnerable communities — especially women micro and small business entrepreneurs — gain the skills and confidence to use digital financial services effectively.

We do this by combining engaging, bite-sized content with innovative delivery methods that meet people where they already are. The program includes:

  • Short, practical learning resources such as videos and micro-lessons.

  • Training partner staff as digital financial literacy champions to share resources and support learners.

  • Reaching participants through familiar channels like messaging apps, partner applications, and social media.

  • Using chatbots (via WhatsApp, Messenger, and Telegram) as an easy entry point for financial education and ongoing engagement.

By making digital learning simple, accessible, and relevant, the program empowers people to adopt digital financial services with confidence — building financial capability, resilience, and opportunities for business growth.

The Digital Skilling at Scale project is supported by Accenture and delivered in partnership with the National Bank of Cambodia and APPEND Inc. in the Philippines.

My Money Tracker

The My Money Tracker app helps microbusiness owners to keep track of their household and business cash flows and become more aware of their spending. By tracking their money they can understand whether they are spending more than they are earning and easily track their credit and debt. In turn, this can help them to improve their money management and stay in control of their household and business finances.

The app is simple, fast and secure and features icons and clear text to make the app easy to understand particularly for people with low literacy.

The app has been live in Cambodia since 2021 and already 50,000 people have used it. We are pleased to have recently launched the app in the Philippines, with features updated to suit the local context.

Good Return worked in collaboration with St. Elizabeth Community Development Program (SECDEP), Ahon sa Hirap, Inc., and Alalay sa Kaunlaran, Inc., in the Philippines. Good Return’s My Money Tracker and CAFE Initiative are delivered in partnership with the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and with support from the Accenture Australia Foundation.

Meet our learners

  • Even though she has experienced vision loss, Youen Keo wants and needs to continue her farming business. Financial literacy training from Good Return and our partner Chamroeun Microfinance has helped Youen rebuild her farm and her confidence.

    Meet Youen

  • Lovelyn from the Solomon Islands recently completed our financial capability training. “We need to have a financial goal in our lives because finance is part of our life and wellbeing. It is important that we learn how save to help improve our families’ lives and our community.”

    Read more learner stories

  • Aliya is a goat farmer in Nepal. “The program taught us that even if we save Rs.5 it’s a saving. I learnt the importance of collective saving and investing it to buy goats and expand my business and income."

    Meet more learners

  • Ly is a financial capability coach in Cambodia. “I am confident in learning and delivering this financial knowledge to people in my community. In doing so, they have a better understanding of their money management and savings for unexpected events for themselves and their families.”

    Meet more learners

 Good Return’s My Money Tracker and CAFE Initiative is delivered in partnership with the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program (ANCP) and with support from the Accenture Australia Foundation.