The Social Influence Accomplice Highlight sequence highlights varied Cisco non-profit group companions which are serving to rework the lives of people and communities. This weblog options Cisco’s partnership with Agora Partnerships, Bridge Worldwide, CARE Peru, Centro Group Companions, Defy Ventures, and Hand in Hand Worldwide, highlighting the transformative work every of those organizations are doing within the entrepreneurial and financial empowerment area, particularly for underserved communities.
World Entrepreneurs Day 2024, noticed on August 21, celebrates the ingenuity and perseverance of entrepreneurs who’re the driving power behind innovation and financial development worldwide. This yr’s theme, “Empowering Entrepreneurs for a Sustainable Future,” underscores the very important function that entrepreneurs play in creating options to world challenges and advancing sustainable improvement. Find out how a few of Cisco’s non-profit accomplice organizations are enabling the transformative influence of entrepreneurs and fostering environments the place their concepts can thrive and result in a brighter, extra sustainable future.
Agora Partnerships
“Taking part within the Eco problem has been a possibility to see my enterprise with one other perspective, not simply seeking innovation alternatives, however of a social and environmental legacy, that may transcend different generations and even different geographies.”
—Feminine entrepreneur chief of knowledgeable audio companies firm
Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute virtually 25% of Latin America’s Gross Home Product and make use of over 60% of the whole inhabitants. On the identical time, SMEs throughout the area face stagnating productiveness development and growing vulnerabilities to local weather variability and pure useful resource degradations throughout the area face stagnating productiveness development and growing vulnerabilities to local weather variability and pure useful resource degradation.
The significance of SMEs for each financial prosperity and environmental preservation means an funding within the greening and modernization of their enterprise fashions can have an outsized influence on the area’s general sustainability.
And but women-led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) face technological, financial, cultural, and institutional boundaries to enhancing the environmental footprint of their fashions – impeding sustainable and inclusive financial improvement.
Agora Partnerships strives for a world by which social and environmental sustainability turns into the true enterprise engine for SME development. With instrumental early-stage ideation and planning funding from Cisco Basis, Agora designed the content material, methodology, structure, and prototype for an eco-innovation (environmentally optimistic practices) repository aimed toward facilitating the combination of eco improvements within the enterprise operations of conventional WSMEs in Latin America.
The method entailed a number of phases. First, they built-in in Agora’s enterprise coaching a product that enabled firms to ideate, choose, and plan the implementation of eco improvements straight linked to enhancements of their backside line. They then moved on to pilot the content material with precise enterprises to validate assumptions, comparable to cross sectoral applicability and relevance throughout completely different enterprise improvement phases. From there, they created an Ecochallenge fund deciding on awardees to fund their plans for testing and studying. Lastly, they translated the primary two phases right into a digital and self-guided format which is able to permit Agora to create influence at scale by making the content material accessible to audiences past Agora’s present program individuals – permitting them to proceed to help feminine entrepreneurs all through Latin America to make their companies greener – and extra profitable.
How Agora Partnerships is making a distinction:
- 89% had mapped the unfavorable impacts of their companies and had no less than one technique to mitigate them.
- 81% reported that the Eco-challenge contributed considerably to their development and the event of environmental data of their enterprise.
- 72.97% reported implementing social / environmental actions
Agora Partnerships has many alternatives to assist with their efforts. Particularly, the group wants:
- Consultants in gamification to enhance the present consumer expertise of the eco improvements repository.
- Environmental consultants that may assessment piloted eco improvements to determine potential enhancements, potential factors of problem, and analysis methodologies/practices.
- Practitioners or entrepreneurial help organizations who wish to pilot eco improvements with their very own entrepreneurs to proceed constructing the eco innovation knowledgebase.
- Suggestions of databases or reviews highlighting confirmed environmental practices that reap financial returns in SMEs.
Be taught extra about Agora Partnerships (en español video)
Bridge Worldwide
“We offer capacity-building consultations and coaching to create modern and catalytic approaches to entrepreneurs. We additionally present crowdfunding alternatives to extend entry to monetary sources and public visibility for the social companies that we help all around the area of Asia.”
—Ahlim Kim, Program Director
The Bridge Worldwide helps underserved social innovators and rising entrepreneurs in South Korea and throughout the globe. By way of its on-line crowdfunding platform which merges the ideas of “donation” and “funding” into one, The Bridge Worldwide created a revolving donation mannequin that sustains and builds financial resilience for program beneficiaries and donors.
With Cisco’s Regional Resolution Grant, The Bridge Worldwide was capable of reestablish its on-line platform. The platform goals to create a sustainable ecosystem of influence donations and extra sources which are essential for enterprise sustainability of people’ dream to grow to be economically impartial and be capable to give again to others in want. Just lately, The Bridge Worldwide has enhanced the ‘Birthday Donation Marketing campaign’ function, which allows people to launch their very own campaigns utilizing their birthdays. They’ll invite family and friends to donate in direction of social causes they care about to rejoice. This enchancment has efficiently inspired extra folks, each regionally and internationally, to take part in these campaigns. The influence of the grant is promising for beneficiaries, together with mission VietHarvest in Vietnam, Ritma Inexperienced in Indonesia, and Jumpaa Comics in Laos.
How Bridge Worldwide is making a distinction:
- Variety of entrepreneurs served (North Korean Defectors and Growing Nations in Asia): 53
- Share improve in funds raised: 26%
- Fee improve in financial independence (re-donation price): 11%
Bridge Worldwide welcomes neighborhood help via donations and volunteer involvement:
- Host a donation marketing campaign: Take a look at fundraisers just like the “Birthday/Occasion Donation”, designate a mission, and help celebrating particular events comparable to birthdays, graduations, marriage ceremony anniversaries, and others.
- Join for mentoring and enterprise partnership constructing.
CARE Peru
“CARE has advocated for ladies entrepreneurship at a nationwide scale. We purpose to contribute to a resilient and inclusive financial system by unleashing the facility of growth-oriented girls entrepreneurs. We help girls entrepreneurs to really feel assured, resilient, in management, and outfitted to develop their companies, in order that they achieve financial energy of their households, communities, and economies.”
—Marilu Martens, Nationwide Director at CARE Peru
CARE established a everlasting presence in Peru in 1970 following the devastating earthquake within the Ancash area, and in 2012, it was constituted as a Peruvian NGO. For over 50 years, it has applied over 1000 initiatives targeted on the nation’s social improvement, which have modified the lives of probably the most weak folks. Within the final 5 years, CARE Peru has positively impacted the lives of over 7 million folks.
CARE Peru’s Women with Alternatives (GWO) program creates an academic ecosystem that fosters the well-being and academic continuity of adolescent ladies, igniting their curiosity to be taught and potential to grow to be the most effective they are often to beat poverty. This system implements varied instructional initiatives concentrating on stakeholders, comparable to college students, academics, faculty directors, households, native authorities, and neighborhood leaders. CARE Peru supplies a supportive setting, participating establishments and neighborhood leaders to again this system’s implementation. Lecturers and faculty directors bear capacity-building applications to combine the GWO curriculum into faculty administration devices, guaranteeing sustainability. College students take part in asynchronous and synchronous studying periods, creating abilities and competencies via initiatives just like the “Thought y Emprende” contest, which inspires entrepreneurship and STEAM schooling.
With Cisco’s Regional Grant help, CARE Peru developed its STEAM initiative which included a pilot of the Cisco Networking Academy course on “Get Linked, ” instructional directions and expertise coaching to equip college students with important digital abilities and help their creativity for studying and put together a pathway for a optimistic future in for underserved ladies in rural areas of Peru. Program success contains elevated pupil engagement, data switch of data to academics, and program sustainability inside collaborating public/authorities faculties.
How CARE is making a distinction:
- 16 secondary faculties’ individuals of the GWO Program collaborating within the methodological switch
- 60 instructional actors from secondary faculties, Native Schooling Unites (UGEL) and Regional Directorate/Unit of Schooling (DRE/GRE) from varied areas together with of Cajamarca, Bambamarca, Lambayeque, and Amazonas that take part within the methodological switch course of from GWO Program
- 50 academics who improve data in thematic areas from GWO Program
- 50 academics with certificates/recognition achieved for collaborating in GWO Program signed by UGEL/DRE/GRE
Be part of CARE Peru’s trigger and make a distinction. Your help will allow over a thousand college students from the Women with Alternatives mission to proceed their instructional journey and obtain targets they by no means thought potential. To donate, go to their web site or give by way of PayPal.
Centro Group Companions
“At Centro, we consider entrepreneurship is a strong catalyst for financial transformation and social mobility. By equipping underserved entrepreneurs with tailor-made technical help, entry to capital, and devoted teaching, we empower them to show their visions into sustainable companies. Our dedication lies in nurturing their daring concepts into thriving enterprises that not solely profit the entrepreneurs themselves but additionally enrich their communities.”
—Arturo Noriega, Founder and CEO
As we rejoice World Entrepreneurs Day, it’s important to focus on the transformative initiatives which are making vital impacts on the entrepreneurial panorama, particularly for the underserved. Cisco has been a pivotal accomplice in Centro’s journey to empower underserved entrepreneurs globally. By way of their beneficiant help, Centro has expanded its capabilities and attain, touching the lives of over 1,000 entrepreneurs yearly.
Cisco’s investments in Centro’s expertise and capacity-building initiatives have been game-changers. With Cisco’s backing, Centro has invested within the Centro App, a complete software that has revolutionized how entrepreneurs entry sources, teaching, and capital and helps monitor influence. One other vital milestone within the partnership has been the adoption of Salesforce because the centralized database administration system. This transfer has streamlined Centro’s operations and knowledge administration practices, guaranteeing that each resolution the group makes is knowledgeable. The inception of Centro Labs, additionally funded by Cisco, served as an incubator the place the groundbreaking concept for the Centro CEO App was conceived. As an AI-driven platform, the Centro CEO App guarantees to be a cornerstone in Centro’s technique to equip entrepreneurs with good instruments they should succeed.
Cisco’s help extends past monetary help—it’s a partnership that embraces imaginative and prescient, innovation, and the relentless pursuit of empowering those that aspire to make a distinction via entrepreneurship. As Centro appears in direction of the long run, the group is grateful for Cisco’s unwavering help and excited concerning the countless prospects that lie forward. On World Entrepreneurs Day, Centro celebrates not simply the spirit of entrepreneurship but additionally the partnerships that amplify this spirit. Due to Cisco, Centro is just not solely dreaming of a extra inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem however actively constructing it.
Since 2021, the help from Cisco has been instrumental in serving to Centro leverage expertise and construct modern options to broaden its applications and companies to achieve underserved entrepreneurs. The next are some key highlights of Centro’s influence over the previous three years:
- Assisted 2,500+ underserved low-income girls and entrepreneurs of shade with its applications and companies.
- Facilitated entry to $4.7M++ in capital, serving to entrepreneurs begin or develop small companies to realize monetary independence.
- Offered 1,400+ hours of one-on-one enterprise teaching companies to assist entrepreneurs overcome enterprise challenges and join them with native small companies sources.
Centro believes in trust-based philanthropy and gives quite a lot of alternatives for help and engagement:
- Advocate Centro to Entrepreneurs: Join entrepreneurs to Centro’s applications and companies to assist them begin and develop their small companies.
- Take part in Graduations: Centro welcomes visitors to take part in Centro program graduations to offer suggestions to entrepreneurs on their enterprise fashions/pitches.
- Assist Entrepreneurs Entry Capital: With as little as $25, folks may help a neighborhood entrepreneur entry an interest-free Kiva mortgage of as much as $15,000.
Defy Ventures
“I’ve by no means felt fairly so full, empowered, educated, safe, and assured about opening my very personal enterprise. I used to be beforehand incarcerated, and a former drug addict and my enterprise concepts have been simply that— concepts and desires. . . till I got here into Defy Ventures’ entrepreneur program!”
—Carol Anne Madonia, Founder and CEO of That Meatball Collective
Defy Ventures is a nationwide nonprofit whose mission is to shift mindsets to offer folks with felony histories their greatest shot at a second probability via entrepreneurship, profession readiness, well-being, and private improvement coaching applications delivered each in jail and in the neighborhood.
Defy’s imaginative and prescient is to chop recidivism charges in half by leveraging entrepreneurship to extend financial alternative and rework lives. This yr, Defy will work with greater than 1,000 at the moment and previously incarcerated women and men to defy the chances in 9 states.
They accomplish this via entrepreneurship and profession readiness coaching applications facilitated each in jail and in the neighborhood, with the objective of supporting profitable reentry and financial alternative. Their community-based entrepreneurship applications embody enterprise coaching, government mentorship, planning grants, and seed capital to assist previously incarcerated people obtain their desires of launching a small enterprise.
Their cornerstone CEO of Your New Life (CEO YNL) jail program supplies individuals, (referred to as Entrepreneurs in Coaching or EITs), with entrepreneurship abilities, private improvement, profession readiness, and reentry preparation via a five-volume, 2000-page set of printed textbooks and the submission of assignments by way of assortment of paper copies.
With help from Cisco Basis, Defy is reworking this curriculum right into a tablet-based program, which is able to allow a major leap ahead. With the flexibility to ship studying by way of tablets, they may be capable to enhance their program with wealthy content material (comparable to supplementary movies), digital knowledge assortment, and elevated communication with program individuals each throughout and after this system. Tablets may also allow them to broaden their attain to serve extra folks and in additional areas – which means extra justice-impacted women and men will now have a good probability.
Since inception, Defy has achieved the next influence:
- 7,900+ EITs served
- 200+ companies launched
How you can get entangled:
Hand in Hand Worldwide
“The ladies we work with face a bunch of restrictive norms and attitudes that preserve them from incomes their very own incomes, and so usually tend to be digitally excluded. Due to our partnership with Cisco, we will unlock the facility of expertise to equip much more girls entrepreneurs with the talents and sources they should launch thriving companies, lifting extra households out of poverty.”
—Amalia Johnsson, Deputy CEO, Hand in Hand Worldwide
Worldwide, round 10% of ladies – 400 million – stay trapped beneath the poverty line of simply $2.15 a day. Within the locations Hand in Hand works, comparable to Kenya, Tanzania, India, and Afghanistan, there are few alternatives for formal employment. For these girls, entrepreneurship is the one route out of poverty. Nonetheless, in lots of of those communities, over 60% of ladies can’t make on a regular basis choices with out their husband’s permission. Others yearn to begin small companies however lack entry to the coaching, loans and sources wanted to start.
When girls lose, everybody loses. Households, communities and even nations grow to be trapped in a cycle of poverty. However given the chance, girls can break these cycles and form the long run they need.
Hand in Hand equips under-served girls with abilities and sources to earn more cash and ignite native economies, lifting nations out of poverty. By way of a confirmed mannequin targeted on abilities acquisition, credit score entry and market connections, Hand in Hand has reached 9 million girls entrepreneurs by way of its world community. Nonetheless, till now the talents acquisition element of Hand in Hand’s mannequin has targeted completely on in-person coaching. In rural areas particularly, native enterprise trainers spend an enormous period of time on the highway – limiting the variety of girls the NGO can attain.
How Hand in Hand is making a distinction:
This yr, Hand in Hand has partnered with CISCO to develop and check a focused, inclusive e-learning platform in Kenya – to enhance its in-person enterprise coaching.
- To date, Hand in Hand has reached 9 million girls 20 million members of the family.
- Sometimes, girls entrepreneurs double their incomes.
- 84% of ladies are actually capable of make resolution concerning the issues that have an effect on their lives.
- The brand new e-learning system will help Hand in Hand to fulfill its objective of reaching 265,000 Kenyan entrepreneurs by 2027.
- Hand in Hand’s entrepreneurship coaching delivers a median ROI of 475%.
How you can get entangled with Hand in Hand:
- Donate as we speak: A daily reward of £35 a month might equip three girls with the talents and sources to launch their very own companies.
- Accomplice with Hand in Hand: In case your group is seeking to improve its influence and rework the lives of ladies entrepreneurs, please contact Anna Davies, Head of Philanthropy and Partnerships.
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