TRANSFORM: Funding Programme to Impact Enterprises (South Africa and Zambia)

TRANSFORM is an impact accelerator led by Unilever, the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) and EY.

They unite corporates, donors, investors, and academics to support visionary impact enterprises across Africa, Asia and beyond. Together, they test and scale new solutions that tackle environmental challenges, improve health and well-being, and build inclusive economies.

Unilever will provide in-kind support by a Project Lead for the duration of the 12–18-month grant-funded project. Impact enterprises can also request pro-bono bespoke technical assistance from EY, including EY Professional Consulting (EY Teams work with enterprises for up to 12 weeks, offering support to improve their businesses’ productivity, resilience, and capacity to scale), dedicated, 1:1 business Coaching, skills development workshops and training.

Thematic Areas

• They are looking for impact enterprises in South Africa or Zambia that are working on the following areas:
  • Plastic
    • PET & flexible recycling technologies.
    • Businesses working on fair wages and conditions for waste collectors.
    • New models like refill and recycled flexibles.
  • Livelihoods
    • Supporting livelihoods in general trade through finance and training for shopkeepers and sales agents.
    • Increasing livelihoods through revenue diversification, including social selling models in townships and rural areas and crop processing solutions that can increase revenues for smallholder farmers in the value chain.

Eligibility 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 thematic priorities (above).
    • Be implemented in South Africa (ideally townships or rural areas) or in Zambia.
    • Demonstrate at least one of the following:
      • A focus on serving beneficiaries and customers who are from marginalised communities:
        • Previously disadvantaged individuals in South Africa.
        • People living in extreme poverty.
        • Women.
        • Youth (18-35).
        • People with disabilities.
      • Businesses owned, founded or led by:
        • Previously disadvantaged individuals in South Africa.
        • Zambian citizens in Zambia.
        • Women.
        • Youth (18-35).
        • People with disabilities.
  • 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.
    • Note, intellectual property (IP) generated from the projects will be owned by the impact enterprise. Unilever, the FCDO and EY do not have exclusive use of this intellectual property. Only in the case that IP be abandoned or not used to benefit low-income communities, Unilever will take a worldwide, transferable license over the IP to transfer it to another party to use it to benefit low-income people.
  • 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 £70-100k to be used within 12-18 months.
    • 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 sites 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. TRANSFORM encourages enterprises to forge partnerships with both Unilever and other corporates.
    • Through TRANSFORM, EY professionals provide bespoke 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, business planning and investment readiness, people and HR strategy, sales and customer strategy, IT strategy, data analytics and more.

For more information, visit TRANSFORM.