Request for Proposals: ANDE Advancing Women’s Empowerment Fund 2020 for Women Entrepreneurs in Emerging Markets – Jude Ogar

Deadline: January 8, 2020

Proposals are invited for the ANDE Advancing Women’s Empowerment Fund 2020. At the 2019 ANDE Annual Conference, ANDE announced an exciting new partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), under the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) initiative, and the Visa Foundation to launch the ANDE Gender Equality Initiative, which aims to support women entrepreneurs in emerging markets.

The initiative’s first activity, the Advancing Women’s Empowerment Fund, will identify the best strategies to get investment capital into the hands of women entrepreneurs in emerging markets. The fund will distribute $1.2 million in funding over two years through one-year grants of up to $150,000 to entrepreneurial support organizations.

ANDE seeks proposals to pilot, test, or expand scalable solutions that tackle the financing gap for women-led SGBs in South and Southeast Asia to create learnings and insights for uptake by the broader SGB sector.

Grant

• ANDE intends to support a minimum of eight proposals for this round, from a total funding pool of $1.2 million. Submissions should be for activities of up to 12 months with a maximum total request of US $150,000.

Eligibility

Open to companies that have a woman in a leadership position with strategic decision making authority and meet at least one of the following criteria with a focus on companies founded and led by all-women teams from the local context:

• Founded by a team of at least 50% women
• Have a woman currently serving in a top leadership role (CEO, Executive Director, COO, etc.)
• 51% or more women ownership

Guidelines

ANDE seeks proposals to pilot, test, or expand scalable solutions that tackle the financing gap for women-led SGBs in South and Southeast Asia to create learnings and insights for uptake by the broader SGB sector. ANDE is specifically focused on submissions catalyzing early-stage, growthoriented capital. They encourage submissions employing creative solutions to the financing gap that fit any of the following categories:

• More gender transformative approaches to delivering acceleration services including recruitment, selection, cohort and program design or other elements seen as constraints to the success of women entrepreneurs
• Supplemental services delivered independently or in coordination with traditional accelerator programs including tailored consulting services, bespoke matchmaking, investment facilitation, mentorship or other approaches to address gender deficits in traditional acceleration.
• Novel approaches to addressing systemic constraints that result in less investment being received by women entrepreneurs.
• Initiatives that support informal enterprises converting to formal enterprises.

These activities should also, when possible, build the capacity of implementing organizations to continue to expand access to financing for women-led SGBs in the future. Incubators, Accelerators, Investors, Capacity Development Providers, and Research and Advisory Service Providers are welcome to apply.

Application

To apply for an Advancing Women’s Empowerment Fund grant, applicant must provide a brief proposal (no more than 10 pages, including a cover sheet). A template for completing the RFP can be found here.

Submit completed proposals here no later than 11:59pm ET on Wednesday, January 8, 2020.

For more information, see FAQ or visit AWEF.

SOURCE: Jude Ogar, Opportunitydesk

About Jude Ogar

Jude is an educator and youth development practitioner. He is very passionate about the growth and development of young people, especially those in Africa. You can connect with him on Facebook (Jude D’genius Ogar) or Twitter @dgeniusjude