Deadline: March 11, 2024
Applications are open for the Acumen Energy for Livelihoods Accelerator – East Africa 2024. Delivered by Acumen Academy, the Energy for Livelihoods accelerator aims to build an ecosystem of locally-led scalable social enterprises across East Africa committed to improving the livelihoods of smallholder farmers, small businesses, and micro-entrepreneurs. Through the program, participants will develop and refine a scalable business model that has the potential to transform the lives of low-income people while conserving resources and protecting the environment.
Through this program, you will learn how to:
- Develop, refine, and test key hypotheses for how your enterprise can scale
- Make data-driven decisions by gathering customer insights
- Learn ways to communicate and demonstrate your social and environmental impact
- Improve your financial sustainability through isolating and testing your organization’s revenue, cost and investment assumptions
- Refine your value proposition and develop marketing, sales, and pricing strategies that work for low-income customers
- Develop the hard-edged leadership skills needed to build better, truly inclusive, sustainable solutions
Benefits
- Through 12 weeks of structured programming, you will learn the essentials for building a business model that can achieve both social and environmental impact and profitability. You will dive into a curriculum leveraging Acumen’s learnings, expertise in energy investment, and pioneering moral leadership practices, and leave with the competence and character needed to build solutions that improve the livelihoods of low-income communities.
- Taking part will provide you with unique access to a supportive network of peers, facilitators, and mentors who will share constructive feedback, encouragement, and opportunities to profile your work and accelerate you toward scale.
- In addition to developing the essential skills needed to build your business model, cohort members who fulfill all program commitments will be eligible to apply for a share of $50,000 and possible inclusion in Acumen’s PEII+ investment initiative.
- Entrepreneurs who graduate from the program will be welcomed into Acumen Academy’s global community, The Foundry.
Eligibility
Open to social entrepreneurs who run a for-profit social enterprise in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda), using sustainable energy and energy-efficient solutions to positively impact the livelihoods of low-income people, through one of the following models/sectors:
- Agriculture & Allied sector – companies with clean energy solutions throughout the agriculture value chain to improve farm incomes/productivity or reduce costs and labour for smallholder farmers.
- Energy for micro-entrepreneurs – companies enabling clean energy & energy-efficient solutions for businesses that reduce costs or unlock new business opportunities, for example in cooling, cooking, transport, or manufacturing.
- Business enablers – companies providing supplementary services for enabling clean energy transition, including but not limited to distribution and financing solutions, skills development, data tools, and market-building approaches for farmers and businesses.
Additionally, all applicants should have:
- Local founding team members.
- A deep commitment to the work of tackling poverty and injustice and an interest in being part of a global community bound by values.
- An operational track record of 12 months or more with existing customers. Preference will be given to companies who achieved >$40,000 in revenue in the last 12 months.
- Able to demonstrate impact in job creation/enhancing income generation and reducing emissions.
- A team with relevant sector experience and three or more full-time staff. Ideal candidates will have 5+ years of professional work experience.
Application
For more information, visit Acumen.
