The Social Innovation Fund is an acceleration fund which is open to all previous winners of the Social Innovation and Disability Empowerment Awards. It allows social innovators to access a business accelerator and further funding to enable them to grow.

The fund was established in response to there being a national ‘missing middle’ of growth phase funders for social innovation in South Africa. It aims to address key challenges experienced by social entrepreneurs including, amongst others, identification of and securing access to target markets; a clear revenue generation model, a financial plan and strategic direction; and difficulty in securing access to capital to fund growth in either capacity or different geographies.

We hope that the impact achieved through this fund will encourage other organisations to provide growth phase funding for this important work. The aim is to ensure that once this intervention is completed, social innovators will be ready to attract other more commercial investors. Encouragingly, feedback from the South African Venture Capital Association and other early-stage finance providers indicate that this strategy is working.