As part of our African Regional Social Entrepreneurship Program (SENAP region), Ashoka has just launched the Ashoka Social Investment Accelerator Program to support social entrepreneurs to become investment ready.

This six-month program is designed to support social entrepreneurs that are looking to raise investments for the first time. Selected participants will be provided with mentorship support in business modelling, finance and legal expertise to find the right type of financing.

Why should you participate as a Mentor?

This is a fantastic opportunity to be exposed to innovative inspiring social entrepreneurs in the SENAP region, giving you insights on grassroot solutions and sustainable business models to tackle social challenges.Your expertise can help them build success.

What is this Social Investment Accelerator about?

Many social entrepreneurs start their venture because they want to address a challenge, but not all of them have a business background. Further, once they have their social enterprise operating they often are inhibited by a lack of expertise in business modelling, economic growth models, financial planning and lack of appropriate documents and preparation for engaging investors.

The Accelerator is based on the Social Investment Toolkit (8 modules), developed by Mark Cheng, the Ashoka Europe Director and Social Impact Investor, and approved by UBS.  The 12 selected social entrepreneurs will participate in a 2-day kick off workshop in September in Johannesburg, where they will connect with their mentors and Finance experts, and will start working on the 4 first modules of the toolkit. Over the 4-month period after the workshop, the other 4 modules will run as an Online Mentoring Programme. Social entrepreneurs will each be assisted by 3 experienced mentors and will also be provided specific assistance by experts on topics such as marketing, sales, legal, accounting, impact, geographic expansion, and support on business models. The programme will conclude with a Public Networking Event in February 2019, where they will be able to pitch in front of our partners, Business Angels, and Social Impact Investors.

What happens next?

• Should you be interested in joining the screening team, please contact Pauline Verhaeghe, pverhaeghe@ashoka.org or Kara Fitzgerald, kfitzgerald@ashoka.org (or Vannessa Westcott, vwestcott@ashoka.org) in lead of the Social Investment Accelerator. Please include in your email a short biography mentioning your experience relevant for this opportunity.
• We are also looking for Social Entrepreneurs to join the Ashoka Social Investment  Accelerator: Call for Application is open until 21 May 2018. Do you have a social entrepreneur in mind that would fit the eligibility criteria? Please invite them to apply on VC4A platform.
• For more information on the accelerator, please see the website https://vc4a.com/ashoka/ashoka-social-investment-accelerator/