Applications Invited for Work4Progress Program

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About the Organization

Committed to local socio-economic development right from the start, ”la Caixa” Foundation soon began to provide social, cultural and civic services aimed at improving people’s quality of life.

Its mission is to build a better and fairer society, giving more opportunities to those most in need, with the values of trust, excellence and social commitment that have always accompanied us since the beginning. And with the vision of being a point of reference for society in developing lasting solutions that meet the basic needs of the most vulnerable people, foster the progress of society by responding to new challenges in research, high quality training and education, and make science and culture available to all segments of society.

About the Grant

We help create good quality employment for women and young adults in vulnerable situations in India, Mozambique and Peru.

The W4P programme promotes social innovation platforms for action and learning upon which innovative solutions can be scaled. The programme focuses on prototyping high-impact solutions that are identified in spaces for co-creation and collaborative learning.

Objectives

• To provide support for the networks of institutions that work jointly in developing prototypes on the ground to check their viability and identify the most efficient initiatives for generating employment.
• To generate a new culture of collaboration among institutions working in the same geographical zone, with a view to increasing their impact and to creating sustainable action.
• To promote innovation in products, services or processes.
• To incorporate new constant monitoring and evaluation processes with which to adapt the programme in real time to the needs of each place.

The main objective is the creation of employment for vulnerable populations, primarily in rural environments of India, Mozambique and Peru, with special emphasis on young people and women.

To meet it, inclusive businesses will be developed and their impact, sustainability and resilience maximised by establishing and strengthening the W4P ecosystems which, under a network of local agents, include support services for the entrepreneurial ecosystem and financial and non-financial services focusing on local and sustainable economic development in the regions in which the W4P programme operates. Therefore, the focus must remain on promoting multi-agent (involving private and public agents, social entrepreneurs, civil society, etc.) and multi-variable (acting on several levels) solutions for true systematic changes that provide for greater scaling and sustainability of the proposed models, thus increasing the impact on the communities.

 To develop the sub-objectives, the call has two financing models:

Donation model:

Design, start-up, acceleration and scaling of business and service prototypes, seeking their commercial and financial viability at all times while generating long-term employment for the populations of the respective regions.

• Design of new medium- to large-scale prototypes associated with the portfolio of prototypes implemented by Work4Progress, with a special focus on the circular economy, the energy transition, and the adaptation to climate change.
• Encouragement of access to the markets of the portfolio of prototypes implemented by Work4Progress, with particular priority given to the involvement of the business sector.
• Development of technological innovations to improve business competitiveness, including their digitisation and giving priority to innovations that supplement the activities implemented by the Work4Progress programme.

Refundable financing model: Design and start-up of a financing scheme that contributes to the acceleration and scaling of business and service prototypes to:

• · Close financing gaps during the early stages of innovation and in growth stages of MSMEs, due to the lack of adequate products or the high perception of risk by local investors or financial backers.
• · Give support to the two MSME target segments:
• Impact MSMEs: The companies developed through the prototypes of the W4P programme which deal with the impact objectives of the programme.
• Aggregator or ecosystem driving SMEs: The companies from the W4P ecosystem environment that can act as aggregators (cooperatives, marketers, or service providers) or driving forces of the value chains related with the prototypes of the programme.

With a focus on ecosystem development and networking, applying for the models in the call can be strategically combined in an attempt to implement supplementary objectives:

• Improving access to financing for the beneficiary population, especially women and young people.
• Strengthening collaboration among sectors (government, social sector, academia, and companies) and networking.
• Access to sources of co-financing (calls, local philanthropy, impact investment, grant programmes of state institutions, etc.).
• Raising awareness of the impact potential and systematisation of best practices and lessons learned.
• Development of a technological and skill-based infrastructure for the objectives of the call.

Eligibility

Donation model Networks of 2-4 institutions led by a non-profit organisation that submit a proposal to strengthen any of the existing Work4Progress platforms (see annexes) in accordance with the general and supplementary objectives described in Section 2 may take part in this call.

Requirements

Institutions leading the proposal must meet the following requirements:

• They must be not-for-profit institutions.
• They must have an accounts audit report.
• They must have at least 5 years experience in fighting poverty, generating employment, international cooperation and/or innovation, especially technological.
• If Spanish or international institutions, they must be accompanied by at least one institution from the country in which the proposal is to be implemented.
• If Spanish or international institutions, they must prove at least 3 years’ a experience in the country in which the proposal is to be implemented.
• If institutions are not Spanish, they must prove experience of collaboration with Spanish organisations and/or multilateral bodies (UNDP, etc.).
• Any specific experience in the geographical areas in which the Work4Progress networks operate will be considered particularly positive.

The networks must include one or more of the following types of partners (justification must be provided if they are not included):

• Incubators and accelerators of social enterprises with a presence in the target countries.
• Local social economy companies and business associations and other articulators of the social enterprise ecosystem, startups, small-scale local companies based in the countries of operation, cooperatives and similar, provided that the costs incurred by these associations and organisations as part of their proposals for the Work4Progress programme are exclusively direct and that the roles and responsibilities of these institutions are clearly defined in the proposal and reflected in the budget. Under no circumstances will the structural costs of such institutions be accepted.

Networks that incorporate the following types of partners will, moreover, be considered very favourably:

• Institutions in the fields of academia and research from the countries of operation.
• Micro-financing or social impact investment institutions from the countries of operation.

Refundable financing model

Networks of 2-4 institutions led by a non-profit or for-profit organisation specialising in financing and with social interest which submit a proposed scheme for the sustainability and scaling of the MSMEs in the Work4Progress ecosystems may take part in this call. Especially innovative proposals submitted by local institutions will be valued positively.

 Requirements Institutions leading the proposal must meet the following requirements:

• They must be non-profit institutions or, if for-profit, they must specialise in the development of the activity and have a social interest (micro-financing institutions or development finance institutions or social impact investment funds).
• They must have an accounts audit report, with full financial statements, notes and the auditor’s opinion, where applicable.
• They must have proven experience of at least 5 years in the management of financing instruments or social impact investments in areas related with fighting poverty, generating employment, developing production sectors, international cooperation and/or innovation, especially technological, in the countries of the Work4Progress programme. They must have portfolio status, management and quality reports.
• If Spanish or international institutions, they must be accompanied by at least one institution from the country in which the proposal is to be implemented.
• If Spanish or international institutions, they must prove at least 3 years’ a experience in the country in which the proposal is to be implemented.
• Any specific experience in the geographical areas in which the Work4Progress networks operate will be considered particularly positive.

The following will be positively valued for both models:

• The network of institutions is already linked or generates new ties and activities to innovate and maximise the impact within the framework of existing Work4Progress ecosystems (see annexes).
• The networks promote local ownership through greater presence of local partners and adapting structural costs wherever possible.
• Institutions with quality certification.
• Proven experience in networking and flexibility to form part of a social innovation platform.
• Membership of bodies, networks and platforms of coordination and collaboration.
• Proven experience in collaborating with local authorities in the countries and regions in which the Work4Progress networks operate.
• Available experienced personnel based in the geographical areas of the Work4Progress networks.
• Inclusion in the proposal of partners, either confirmed or potential, with the capacity or desire to become potential joint financial backers; the provision of commitment letters is therefore recommended.

At the time of signing, the institutions must:

• Be up to date with their tax and employment obligations (certificate from the Tax Authorities and from the Social Security or equivalent official documents issued by the competent authorities of their countries of origin).
• Have sufficient capacity and structure to guarantee the programme’s objectives.
• Have successfully met the requirements of the compliance procedure of “la Caixa” Foundation.

How to Apply

End: 30 August 2024

Application process

For more information please check the Link

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Tags Innovations and Technology Research Others