Bright Future Fund for Social Enterprises

Unilever is recommending social enterprises for TRANSFORM funding. They are looking for social enterprises working in:

• Plastics recycling & refill models and regenerative agriculture.
• Water, sanitation, hygiene and digital health care (such as telemedicine and models supporting pharmacists or community health workers).
• Increasing livelihoods of shopkeepers or creating opportunities to learn/earn for young people in the informal sector.

Funding Information

Grant funding of £100k – £200k per project over 12-18 months.

TEANSFORM Support Criteria

In order to be selected, applications for projects must meet all of the following criteria.

• Alignment with impact and geographic priorities
  • Have a clear potential to create positive impact on low-income people’s lives in one of the six areas that TRANSFORM funds:
    • Environment
      • Waste-free world
      • Protect & regenerate nature
    • Health and well-being
      • Water, sanitation & Hygiene
      • Digital Health
    • Inclusive Economices
      • Raise living standards
      • Future of work
  • Be implemented in an East African country (Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda), ideally in a tier 2 city or rural context rather than in the capital city.
  • Demonstrate at least one of the following: female ownership, local ownership, a focus on the very poor/marginalized or an intention to expand to fragile contexts (including those caused by climate change).
• Innovative approach to tackling social problems
  • Propose a project which represents a new technology, business model or approach. This could involve taking a proven business model to a new market.
  • Demonstrate how TRANSFORM plays a catalytic role in the testing and scaling the innovation.
  • Be willing to share learnings for the public good and disseminate learnings.
• Market-based solutions with the potential to reach operational sustainability.
  • Demonstrate a clear pathway for the proposed project to be commercially viable at scale, with assumptions which can be tested through the project.
  • Show how TRANSFORM support unlocks resources/follow-on funding from other sources.
  • The application must come from a social enterprise, not an NGO.
  • The enterprise must have sufficient capacity and maturity to effectively deliver the project and to absorb the financing and in-kind support provided. This will be reviewed considering the amount requested in the range of £100-250k. Smaller and less mature businesses are encouraged to apply for the lower end of the range and more mature businesses are encouraged to apply for the upper end of the range.
  • Unilever, the FCDO and EY cannot receive TRANSFORM funds to run internal projects. TRANSFORM funds must be provided to third parties only.
• Strong leadership and networks
  • A commercially savvy CEO and/or leadership team who demonstrate personal commitment to the project.
  • A strong network of public, private and/or non-profit partners with evidenced traction relating to the proposed project.
• Clear value-add from partnering with TRANSFORM
  • Enterprises must be able to clearly articulate the value of partnering with Unilever, FCDO and EY – particularly considering the value of business support, in addition to grant funding.
  • They must have the potential to operate in areas relevant to Unilever’s expertise and capability and where Unilever can add value. Unilever can offer expertise in marketing, behaviour change, distribution and provide a test environment for innovations in their value chain with smallholder farmers, suppliers, manufacturing and small retailers. Unilever is interested in how impact enterprises can provide new routes to market, become suppliers, incubate innovation and create purpose-driven brand stories. This test bed provides evidence both for Unilever specifically and for a generic corporate setting, and TRANSFORM encourages enterprises to forge partnerships both with Unilever and other corporates.
  • Through TRANSFORM, EY professionals provide technical business support to impact enterprises on a not-for-profit basis, helping tackle specific scale challenges. EY provides coaching and consulting services on a range of topics including building/testing a commercial model, investment readiness, people and HR strategy, customer strategy and more.

For more information, visit TRANSFORM.