Deadline: 24 April 2020
ygap has announced the Pacific Islands Program to support game changing, women-led impact ventures that are improving the lives of people living in poverty across the Pacific Islands region.
The yher Pacific Islands Program is a powerful opportunity for passionate female impact entrepreneurs who are at the early stages of building businesses that exist to improve the lives of people living in poverty across the Pacific Islands region.
The ygap program provides the region’s most promising women entrepreneurs with access to the skills, knowledge, connections, funding and community they need to build sustainable and scalable ventures.
It has been designed and is delivered by women entrepreneurs, for women entrepreneurs. yher leverages ygap’s proven model which has been developed by running over 45 programs and supporting more than 515 impact ventures globally. It has now been contextualised to meet the specific needs of their Pacific Islands women trailblazers.
The yher Pacific Islands program is a 6 month program that begins with an intensive live-in accelerator week, which will be held in Suva, Fiji from the 18th to the 24th of July 2020. The rest of the program will consist of remote support, which you can access and partake in from home.
Program Stages
The program runs in a number of stages:
- Accelerate: You will begin your yher program journey by attending a one week immersive ‘accelerator’ experience in Fiji. Here, you will meet like-minded women entrepreneurs from across the region, and together go through an intensive week of training. This presents a unique opportunity for you to step out of the day to day activities of your business, and spend a full week working and reflecting on your business as well as focusing on yourself as a leader. By the end of the week, two entrepreneurs will also have been awarded funding. Your accelerator journey will be facilitated and supported by their local team as well as one of their global facilitators, all who are women entrepreneurs and are invested in seeing you succeed.
- Support: After having spent a week deep diving your business under the palms of Fiji, you will return home energised and ready to start implementing your newly acquired ideas and insights. The yher team will continue to be there to support you. For 6 months, you will have access to monthly coaching calls, small grants, resources, connections and more.
- Growth: And that’s not all. At the end of the support phase, they will work with the entrepreneurs who have made the most progress and have been the most engaged and proactive to apply for further funding from ygap.
What’s in it for you?
- Training: You’ll participate in a week long intensive entrepreneurship program designed to fast track your early stage venture. The training and mentorship provided will help you nail your business model and prepare for growth. And you won’t be going through this training alone. You will be accompanied on this journey by up to 11 of the best women entrepreneurs from across the region.
- High tea: At the end of the week long program, they will gather for an exclusive, invite-only high tea event giving you the opportunity to network with key players in the entrepreneurial ecosystem and share your venture.
- Funding: A total of $10,000 AUD in prize funding is awarded at the High Tea event to the winners of their peer review and audience votes. An additional $40,000 AUD total in grant funding or investment will be awarded at the end of the 6 month program between the two most promising ventures.
- Support: Following the week long training, they provide your venture with six months of business support, tailored mentorship opportunities, perks from their partners, and access to small grants of up to $1,000 AUD. This package of support is designed to help you build a strong strategy for impact and growth.
- Community: Beyond the training week, you will have the opportunity to connect with each other through their virtual community to keep each other inspired and accountable with monthly check-ins and knowledge sharing.
- Connections: You will also get access to ygap’s global community, as well as the yher Pacific Islands network of mentors and partners
Eligibility Criteria
- Are you a female founder that:
- Is living in the Pacific Islands?
- Is running a business in the Pacific Islands?
- Has a business that has been actively tested, developed or launched and is currently active?
- Has a business that is selling a tested product/service?
- Is making money (or will be making money soon)?
- Has a business that is making a difference in your community?
- Wants to grow your business to impact more people?
- Female-Led Ventures: You must have at least one female co-founder who will participate in the program.
- Local: You intimately understand the problem that you are trying to solve in your community.
- Social Impact: Your venture must exist to improve the lives of people living in poverty and align with one or more of the Global Sustainable Development Goals.
- Support Women and Girls: They prefer ventures that have a clear mandate or mission to uplift women and girls in some way, however, this is not required.
- In the Early Stages: You will have already fully developed, tested or launched your venture and can demonstrate early traction or proof of concept. Your intervention should be innovative and unique, and will typically have been in operation less than two years.
For more information, visit https://ygap.org/yherpacificislands/