FITD for the first time with a challenge for social enterpreneurship
Encouraging the development of social entrepreneurship by supporting innovative solutions for current social needs and social innovations, while ensuring sustainable and inclusive development, is the goal of the first such challenge implemented by FITD in partnership with the Association for Research, Communications and Development “Public” and Business Impact Lab.
At the public call, social enterprises that are focusing on at least one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals will be co-financed. Solutions will be sought to end poverty in all its forms, end hunger, improve food security, improve nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture. Other goals are to ensure inclusive and equal quality education, and to promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Projects aimed at achieving gender equality and encouraging women and girls as well as promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth through employment and decent work for all will also be supported.
“I am proud that for the first time we are investing in the development of social entrepreneurship and that the Fund for the first time offers solutions to some of the key challenges facing social entrepreneurship in the country, such as lack of funding support and the ability to scale to the next level. Through this challenge, by creating a real business model and strategy, we help social entrepreneurs to create a model that is both influential and financially sustainable” said Kosta Petrov, director of FITD, at today’s presentation of the call.
Petrov added that the call is open to companies that at the time of application exist for no more than 6 years, citizens’ associations or teams composed of two to five individuals. In case when a competitor is a team or association of citizens and whose project proposal has passed the selection phase, the competitor is obliged within 30 calendar days after receiving the Notice of Selection of the project proposal, to establish a company in which as founders will at least 51% of team members call.
The total budget provided for financing is 6 million denars. For an individual project proposal, the Fund provides up to 90% of the total project budget, in a maximum amount of 1.5 million denars, while applicants must provide a minimum of 10% of the total project budget.
The implementation of the project can be up to 12 months. Based on justified circumstances, the Fund may approve extensions of the project implementation for up to 6 months.
The partner organizations will provide individual mentoring support to selected competitors in the field of impact communication, and will provide access to national and global scaling programs for their businesses.
“The inclusion of FITD in encouraging social entrepreneurship is one of the key steps in the development of the social economy in the country. This also means setting basics for the development of social financial instruments that the social enterprises in our country lack so much. But at the same time, this call opens new horizons for the private sector, which is already expected to be more sustainable and inclusive, focused not only on profit, but also on its positive impact on nature, society, man, the goals of sustainable development” said Klimentina Ilijevski, Executive Director of the Association for Research, Communications and Development Public.
According to Kristijan Mileski, co-founder of Business Impact Lab, FITD has a clear goal when it comes to building the capacity of social enterprises.
“I am happy that we will give our contribution to this call to the selected companies. Individual mentoring sessions will further strengthen the impact that entrepreneurs strive for and will be of particular importance to their path of growth and development in both the domestic and global market, concluded Kristijan Mileski, manager and co-founder of Business Impact Lab.
Some of the activities that will be approved for financing are activities for testing, research and development, design and development of a prototype, activities for systematic measurement of the impact of the enterprise and others. Some of the costs that will be approved for the projects are: gross salaries for persons with salary supplements defined in accordance with the Law on Labor Relations, procurement and / or rental of equipment and consumables for research and development, hiring experts / research advisors and development and others.
The procedure, from receiving the applications to the selection and making the final decision for selection and allocation of funds to the awarded competitors, consists of several steps: administrative review of applications, first evaluation of the project proposal, presentation of the pre-selected proposals to the Commission for evaluation and selection, selection of the best project proposals and signing of contracts. Each project proposal will be evaluated by an Evaluation and Selection Committee consisting of: two representatives – external experts in the field of challenge, two representatives from partner organizations and one representative of the Fund.
The main criteria for evaluating project proposals are: degree of innovation, project team capacity, project quality, implementation potential / market potential and impact.
The deadline for applying for the public call is until 22.10.2021, until 14.00, while the application process and all project documentation are available at: https://fitr.mk/sp