The journey to operationalize Ecoconomist NGO in the midst of a politically turbulent Guatemala has been challenging yet enriching. The NGO Law of Guatemala (2021) created a complex array of legal and regulatory challenges that were only overcome by Ecoconomist in 2024. During this time however, the NGO has been able to set up a platform which receives donations through crowdfunding, create alliances with other NGOs which help us distribute our products and begin this monthly article which will help our donors find out what Ecoconomist is all about. Now it is finally time for the Non-Governmental Organization Ecoconomist to present itself to the world.
Ecoconomist is an Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) which operates in Guatemala and aims to raise funds to create economically sustainable ecosystems in vulnerable Guatemalan communities. Currently it has been raising donations to install Off-Grid Solar kits for families in Sololá Guatemala and aims to build acuaponic fishtank systems for communities in a near future.
Ecoconomist – An up-and-coming NGO?
As it is mentioned in Ecoconomist’s August Newsletter in Spanish, one of the main representatives of the Directives of Ecoconomist, Mr. Olof Hörmander who has Bachelor’s in Development Ecoconomics and a Master’s in Humanitarian Studies, recently developed a financial spreadsheet for Ecoconomist thanks to the well counciled guidance of Pionero Philanthropy and its online courses on NGO Management.
The financial spreadsheet which is now available on Ecoconomist’s website, www.ecoconomist.com is actually an ‘Ex-Ante’ financial spreadsheet. This is to say it is a forecast of the possible donations that could be acquired by Ecoconmist in the last months of 2025. The spreadsheet also forecasts which projects these donations will actually be allocated to. ‘Ex-Ante’, which is a Latin phrase meaning ‘before the event’, therefore refers to forecasts instead of actual results. The actual results will be offered in Ecoconomist’s ‘Ex-Post’ financial spreadsheet, meaning ‘after the event’ together with Ecoconomist’s next monthly Review and thereafter be updated regularly.
Ecoconomist’s Financial Forecast
Ecoconomist, as it can be seen on its ‘Ex-Ante’ financial spreadsheet, now available online, predicts that by december 2025, we will have installed a total of 16 solar panels of 2 light-bulbs and 24 solar panels of 4 light-bulbs, all including a USB pluggins to charge phones with, by December 2024, benefiting a total of 40 families in the surroundings of Lake Atitlan. It also predicts that we will have raised at least half of the money necessary to construct our first communal Aquaponic Fish Tank system in the town of San Andrés Osuna, to produce fish and vegetables which can lead partial economic sustainability for some of the families in this town. More information on these projects can be found on our website as well.
As can be seen on Image 1, which is a screenshot of Ecoconomist’s Ex-Ante Financial Spreadsheet, it was predicted that in August 2025 we would have received enough donations to install a total of 3 Solar Panels with 2 light-bulbs and 1 Solar Panel with 4 light-bulbs in the outskirts of Panajachel, in Sololá, Guatemala. These actually turned out to be 3 Solar Panels with 2 light-bulbs and 3 Solar Panels of 4 light-bulbs. These actual results will be displayed in Ecoconomist’s ‘Ex-Post’ Spreadsheet (meaning ‘After the Event’) together with next months Ecoconomist Review.
As can also be seen in Image 1, which displays the incoming donations for Ecoconomist for the month of August, the donations are already seperated by project. Each project is displayed by category, following the same order as we use in our crowdfunding website. That is to say, every time we reach our goal for a project on our website, the donations received will be registered directly on our Ex-Post Spreadsheet as well and made public through our website. You can also see that the donations received are also split in our income sheet into the funds which will be kept by Ecoconomist to cover the costs for buying the solar panels and the percentage which will be sent to our partner NGOs which will be responsible for installing the solar kits. Finally, it should also be mentioned that our Spreadsheet also include tabs for costs, monthly inventory and accounts payable, amongst other categories but these are much more straight forward.
Ecoconomist’s Newsletters and Tools of Operation
Along with Ecoconomist’s first monthly Review, Ecoconommist will also be publishing its first Newsletter in Spanish, named Mensuario Ecoconomista, on our website. The idea is that along with these Newsletters, we will also be presenting a monthly ‘Tool of Operation’, which the NGO will be using to get further connected with our donors. This month’s Tool of Operation, for example, is our Ex-Ante Financial Spreadsheet. Next month’s Tool of Operation will be our Ex-Post Financial Spreadsheet and so on, with other Tools of Operation including our projections for our Aquaponic Fish Tank Projects and other useful tools that will be able to explain how we operate. Thank you for reading our first Review and we hope to be hearing from you soon.
Ecoconomist will be one of the world’s first NGOs to publicly display both their financial forecasts and results
