One of the recipients of the second
edition of the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme Dayo
Adetiloye shared his experience on his website, he wrote:
“I saw the Tony Elumelu
Foundation $5000 grant opportunity and applied in the first edition, but
my idea was not selected. However, the few people I encouraged were
selected. In the second edition, I summoned courage and applied. Glory
to God, my Idea of starting a business Hub was selected! I was able to
use the $5000 grant to set up my first major branch and we are expanding
to 10 major cities in the Southwest Nigeria in the next 3 years.”
Dayo Adetiloye is one of many more
inspiring success stories of how receiving grants has helped individuals
with dreams and ideas to achieve their goals. This is why we have come
up with a list of prominent organizations that give grants. Fund raising
is a crucial issue that many entrepreneurs and startup founders face.
And a brilliant idea may remain just that throughout a lifetime; until
it is achieved. This is why Les Brown attributes the ‘Graveyard’ as one
of the richest places on earth:
“The graveyard is the richest place on
earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams
that were never fulfilled…..the inventions that were never shared, the
cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to
take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry our
their dream:
Investors are always eager to invest in
new ideas but in order to contain risk, most wait for the ideas to
actually pan out, and also survive for some time before they invest. And
before amazing investors come our way, we need the initial capital to
fund our prospective startup.
Asides dealing with doubt/fear, mustering
courage, finding a perfect location, sourcing good employees, and few
more challenges, having no capital to get an idea started is a major
obstacle. Loans are not always advisable, however, Bank of Industry(BOI)
loans can be considered because interest rate is as low as 5%.
Besides raising capital from benevolent family members and friends, applying for grants should be a major consideration.
Grants are subventions usually given by
organizations, individuals and government, for the financing of a
particular purpose. Grants do not come with interest loans or rate
charges, they are earned. And there are criteria to being a beneficiary
of a grant depending on the body giving it.
Here is a list of prominent organisations that give grants to entrepreneurs and startups.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation
The Tony Elumelu Foundation launched
in 2015, has a decade-long commitment to use $100million to create
about 1,000,000 new jobs opportunities. With a strong vision to
“establish the pre-eminent pan-African entrepreneurship, programme and
create 10,000 startups across Africa within the next 10 years that
generate significant employment and wealth’’. African startups and
entrepreneur with brilliant ideas that have the potentials to succeed.
Founded by one of Nigeria’s philanthropist and Chairman of Transcorp
plc, Tony Elumelu.
Shell LiveWIRE
Shell LiveWIRE
is an investment programme supported by the Shell Petroleum Development
Company of Nigeria Limited(SPDC) that aims to assist young Nigerians to
consider being entrepreneurs, starting out their own business as a
career option.
They run a course– Become A successful
Owner Management Course (BSOM), which provides youths with management
guidelines and skills. They also provide training guidance and business
mentorship to young entrepreneurs between 18-35 years. This program is
beneficial to the Niger-Delta regions where it operates, like Rivers,
Bayelsa.
African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF)
African Women’s Development Fund
is entrusted with the vision to ‘ensure that women live in a world
where there is social justice equality and respect for women’s rights.
AWDF supports African women by mobilizing financial, human and material
resources for them. Special funding is given to facilitate learning,
network opportunities also amplify the woman voice and celebrate African
women achievements.
I had rather be self-made
‘I had rather be Self-made‘
is founded by one of the most influential female bloggers in Nigeria,
Linda Ikeji. It is a platform for the blogger to give back to her
society by helping young ladies. This platform according to Linda is not
an organisation or foundation, but it offers a platform to mentor and
help young ladies financially. For ladies to be financially dependent. I
had rather be self-made started out in 2015 helping selected ladies
from 18-26 years of age. It is for young ladies starting out, who has
great business ideas and needs capital.
There are also some organizations that make their funds available in form of a competition such as the following.
The Next Titan Show
With Heritage Bank as its lead sponsor, The Next Titan
is a reality show for entrepreneurs in Nigeria. It provides a platform
for entrepreneurs to meet, interact, juxtapose ideas. It is aired on
Silverbird and TVC and Channels. It is known as Nigeria’s foremost
entrepreneurial reality show. At the end, the winner will be given 5
million and a brand new car. It is a ten-week long show, before the
final stage which the winner with the best innovative idea is chosen,
the chosen contestants all go through a series of training organized by
the show. Therefore, in the end, everyone’s a winner, even though just
one person goes home with financial aids, but every other person has
also gone through a process of training and acquire more needful
knowledge. The eligible age is 18-39years.
Seedstars World
Seedstars invests in over 65 countries around the world. Seedstars World
is a Switzerland-based startup competition that takes place in emerging
markets around the world. Seedstars run about 65 local competitions.
The competition is set to identify the best in emerging markets’.
Competitors are trained on how to best pitch, and the emerged winners
are awarded.
Conclusion
Having this list of organizations that
give funds is not enough, thousands of persons apply each year for these
grants, and the key to succeeding is having a unique, different
solution to solve as a startup and entrepreneur, and being able to pitch
your startup and ideas well. Grant-giving organisations love new and
innovative ideas, they look out for what value your idea will generate,
also if it can also survive in the present economic situation.
Vast majority of startups left the stage
of being just an idea, and started, but did not succeed and grow. How
your startup aims to solve a particular problem in the society and how
this is relevant, how people can gain from this solution and so much
more.
You cannot present the same ideas as
others and expect to be chosen. No, present something different and
rare, that will achieve a different result.
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