Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund: A Chance for Early Stage & Mature Enterprises and Non-profit Organizations to Win up to GBP100,000
Deadline: 15 March 2020
Applications are now open for the Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund (KCJF) which is a £5M UK – Aid-funded programme designed to test and support innovative enterprises that have the potential to catalyse job creation for the youth and vulnerable populations in Kenya, at scale.
(Ad) Are You Searching for Latest Grants, New Donors, Sample Proposals, Jobs and How to Apply Resources? fundsforNGOs Premium has all these and more at one place! Learn more.
The fund seeks to support innovations aimed at increasing international competitiveness in agriculture and manufacturing; support innovations aimed at raising productivity and/or supporting shifts into the formal sector; diversify risks and access larger, longer duration loans in order to grow micro-enterprises; catalyse sustainable change in sectors and geographies that have the potential to create employment and increase incomes for disadvantaged groups, including women and people living with disabilities (including semi-arid lands).
Focus Areas
(Ad) Stop getting irritated with excessing advertisements. View the information you want quickly on a clean, ad-free and exclusive Member Dashboard that offers tools to search for grants, view latest grant opportunities, upcoming deadlines, sample proposals, downloadable ebooks and also organize your favourites! Learn more.
The fund will focus on three broad thematic areas as outlined below:
Agriculture/Manufacturing sectors
The fund will support innovations aimed at increasing international competitiveness. This thematic area would for example, support agribusiness/manufacturers to innovate, test new technologies and provide evidence to key state actors to address market distortions and unlock policy constraints holding back key sectors. It could help companies to integrate more horizontally (through associations) or vertically (in supply chains) as well as scope out international markets. It could help attract anchor investors into the new Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in close collaboration with (and not in duplication of) other economic development initiatives run by DFID and other development partners.
Informal sector
The fund will support innovations aimed at raising productivity and/or supporting shifts into the formal sector. This thematic area could for example use technology to link up clusters of informal microenterprises with formal firms (e.g. aggregators) and connect them to local or regional value chains. It could also pilot initiatives which enable youth entrepreneurs in the informal sector to find ways to build up savings; diversify risks and access larger, longer duration loans in order to grow microenterprises.
Improve incomes and livelihoods for marginalised groups and geographies
To ensure no one is left behind, this thematic area will aim to catalyse sustainable change in sectors and geographies that have the potential to create employment and increase incomes for disadvantaged groups, including women and people living with disabilities. This could include levelling the playing field for women-run businesses, e.g. around market positioning and access to finances. It could also include focusing on Arid and Semi-Arid Lands and leveraging DFID Kenya’s county-level investment climate work as well as engaging in dialogue and advocacy with county governments. However, as minimum levels of technology access, infrastructure or spatial proximity of firms are often needed for innovations to be optimally tested, the proposals would need to focus on areas where catalytic and scalable solutions remain feasible.
Award Information
(Ad) Are you still finding it difficult to search for donors online? Join Premium and use our powerful Donor Search mechanism to find relevant donors based on your country and location or keyword. Our specially developed algorithm will search across the internet for the most relevant and useful donors of your interest willing to fund your work. Learn more.
The Business Innovation Competition Winners will receive grant funding and technical assistance, assessed on a case by case basis and not exceeding a total of GBP100,000.
The exact size of the grant funding will be determined by a grants management team and will depend on the business needs and priorities in achieving the set objective.
In subsequent phases of the programme, additional funding may be available based on learnings from this phase.
Eligible Costs and Activities
Grant funds provided under the Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund can support any activities that directly contribute to the desired impact, which is to create jobs, increase income for youth and vulnerable populations in target sectors and geographies associated with increased or improved productive opportunities.
Eligible activities include but are not limited to growth and expansion of existing innovative solutions, introduction of new tech-based solutions, expansion to new markets for products, value addition and micro-level processing, and provision of educational and/or skill building services.
Eligibility Criteria
(Ad) Not able to keep track of so may different grant opportunities and their deadlines? No problem! fundsforNGOs Premium has a handy tool called “Deadline Calendar.” This tool will help you keep track of all upcoming grant opportunities and their deadlines and view them in a beautiful calendar format. Learn more.
The Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund is designed to support a broad range of enterprises including early stage and mature enterprises as well as non-profit organizations that meet the following criterion;
Is legally registered and operates in Kenya;
Is implementing an innovative solution(s) that addresses felt needs;
Is able to demonstrate the minimum viable product/post proof of concept for the innovative solution;
Is able to demonstrate initial investments into the innovative solution;
Has potential to grow exponentially, create more jobs and improve livelihoods at scale.
Note: Government organizations, political parties and organizations that advocate, or espouse anti-democratic policies or illegal activities are not eligible to receive funding from the Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund.
(Ad) Are you looking for readymade proposals? fundsforNGOs Premium has a vast collection of Sample Proposals from successful grantees around the world. These proposals are available for viewing so that you can quickly get new ideas, best practices, lessons learned and develop your proposal in the perfect manner. Learn more.
Evaluation Criteria
The applications will be evaluated by a team of reviewers who will select 10 finalists, who will then proceed to participate in a business competition after which five successful enterprises will be selected by a team of judges and funded.
(Ad) How to raise funds? Where can I find a list of donors for my area of work? How to write proposals? How can I submit a grant request to USAID, the European Commission or the Gates Foundation? How can I use Social Media to promote my work? We have developed powerful resources in the form of Ebook and Articles covering all this information and more. Learn more.
How to Apply
To enter the Business Innovation Challenge, applicants must complete an online application form by logging into the website of the Kenya Catalytic Jobs Fund.
For more information, visit https://kenyacatalyticjobsfund.org/the-fund/