FNB inviting South Africa’s Leading Social Entrepreneurs

Deadline: 30 September 2019

Are you a social entrepreneur committed to improving lives and creating a real impact through the work you do? Or an entrepreneur with a passion for providing meaningful solutions to social and environmental challenges? If so, then FNB’s Social Entrepreneurship Impact Lab is for you.

The Social Entrepreneurship Impact Lab is an exciting enterprise development programme that aims to support the growth of 25 social entrepreneurs who are tackling pressing social, environmental, and economic issues in South Africa.

This 18-month programme will provide business support solutions to assist social entrepreneurs to significantly change their growth trajectory and achieve the full potential impact of their social enterprise.

The Social Entrepreneurship Impact Lab is implemented in collaboration with Fetola – social entrepreneurs with over ten years’ hands-on experience in successfully boosting the growth and long-term survival of businesses across all sectors in South Africa.

Social Enterprise: A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This includes maximizing social impact alongside profits for external shareholders.

Components

The programme covers comprehensive business support to assist the business to scale and maximize social impact. The various components include:

Mentorship
Access to markets
Business skills training
Peer networking
Media
Access to finance
Business support tools and resources
Technical consulting and so much more

What is the cost of the programme?

Social Entrepreneurship Impact Lab is a national programme that is funded by FNB. Once the social entrepreneurs have been selected, all costs related to the programme will be covered by FNB.

Eligibility Criteria

The programme is for South African citizens only, where the shareholding of the business is at least 51% black owned and the turnover is less than R50 Million per annum.
There is no guaranteed funding as part of this programme, however the intention is to facilitate appropriate finance opportunities to entrepreneurs.
If applicants business has been operating for more than 6 months and has a financial operating track record. Businesses in ideation and concept phase are not eligible.
They are looking for businesses which are commercially self-sustaining and the entrepreneur is willing to scale their business therefore NPO’s are not eligible.
Many entrepreneurs start their businesses whilst still employed and would be open to considering applications in this regard provided there is clear commitment to a transition strategy within the next 6-12 months.
Black owned (51% or higher black shareholding) social enterprises which have been operational for at least 6 months, have a proven business track record and a turnover of less than R50 million per annum.

Criteria

All entries are assessed based on the following criteria (but not limited to):