MUMBAI: Facebook India today announced a call for applications for its CSR initiative, Facebook Pragati - powered by N/Core (The/Nudge Centre for Social Innovation). The initiative will incubate and accelerate, early stage women led non-profits that are working in the areas of women entrepreneurship and to drive awareness and adoption of technology among women in India. This is a part of the Corporate Social responsibility mandate by the Government, where Facebook will work in collaboration with N/Core. Facebook Pragati will award four grants of up to 50 lakhs for each non-profit to scale their work.
Ajit Mohan, Vice President and Managing Director, Facebook India said, “Facebook is an ally for accelerating India’s growth and promoting inclusion is one of our key priorities. An important enabler for that is financial independence. The relative number of businesses in India run by women entrepreneurs is still very low. We are committed to helping women entrepreneurs succeed through greater access to digital platforms, funds and mentorship. Our CSR focus with Facebook Pragati will be to empower women to set-up and grow their businesses, and contribute to making the country economically and socially stronger. ”
“N/Core believes in the massive potential of women entrepreneurs to drive innovation, create jobs, unlock the power of technology, and fuel India’s economic growth. We are excited to partner with Facebook in launching Pragati and taking a significant step towards bridging the deficit for providing essential support for women entrepreneurs.” added Akshay Soni, Managing Director, N/Core Accelerator
Each of the non-profits selected for Facebook Pragati initiative will get access to:
Direct Grant: as resources to build an organization and scale operations for a greater impact. Each non-profit selected will receive a grant of upto INR 50Lac.
Mentorship: by an N/Core Partner - Kamakshi Rao (Partner, Ankur Capital); K R Lakshminaraya (Chief Endowment Officer of Azim Premji Foundation) and S K Jain (Co-founder, WestBridge Capital) amongst others. The startups will also receive hands-on support in areas like technology, marketing and human resources from renowned experts and industry leaders including Facebook’s leadership team and employee volunteers
Fund-raising: Along with improving the fundraising strategy of the nonprofits through techniques including targeting and storytelling, the program will also ensure face to face meetings with funders to enable the nonprofits to utilise and internalise the learnings, leading to greater sustainability.
Organisational capacity building: the program will work on building second tier capacity within the nonprofits, with a series of functional mentors across marketing, HR and technology. Apart from creating sustainability, this will also let the founder of organisation to spend time on strategic growth, resulting in scaling up faster.
Who can apply?
Nonprofits that are less than 3 years old and have at least one woman founder
Should be able to demonstrate a viable business plan, working in the space of women entrepreneurship and promoting use of technology in India.
