How share-outs are calculated at cycle end
The share-out is the moment the whole cycle builds toward — every member's savings, plus the group's earnings, coming back to them. In Ustawi it is a calculation, not a flat split: each member's payout is weighted by the shares they accumulated across the cycle, drawing on a fund grown by the group's real interest and fine income.
The distributable fund
First the system establishes what there is to distribute. The distributable fund is the members' accumulated shares, plus the interest earned on internal loans and the fines collected, less whatever the group votes to keep aside in its social/welfare fund for the next cycle. That earned income — interest and fines — is why a share-out returns more than members simply put in.
Fund = shares (contributions) + interest + fines − social fund set aside.
Each member's proportional payout
Each member then receives a payout in proportion to the shares they accumulated across the cycle: a member who bought 20% of the total shares receives 20% of the distributable fund. Because the fund already contains the interest and fine income, a member's share of those earnings scales with their shares — which is what makes this a weighted distribution rather than an equal split of contributions.
If a cycle's distributable fund is TSh 3,000,000 and a member holds 15% of total shares, their payout is TSh 450,000.
Where group rules differ
The proportional-to-shares method is the common case. Some groups' constitutions also weight attendance or loan usage; always follow your own group's constitution. The share-out calculator models the standard proportional split so you can sanity-check a cycle before you close it.
The share-out is calculated and recorded formally at cycle close, so each member's payout is auditable rather than reconstructed from a coordinator's notes.