Acceleration Portfolio
“All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”
JOHN 6:37
In 2021 we launched the Acceleration Portfolio to increase our impact. The Foundation’s typical funding criteria – scalable, high leverage organizations, with budgets between $500k and $5M+ per year – meant we were missing the opportunity to partner with exceptional smaller organizations.
Through the Acceleration Portfolio, we invest in African nonprofit organizations that have annual budgets under $400,000 working in one of our four priority sectors: health, livelihoods, justice, and education. They have the opportunity to work with various training consultants —including Mighty Ally through all three years, and IDinsight, RaiseUp, Spring Impact, Vanreusel Ventures — on communications, finance, fundraising, M&E, and strategy through workshops and one-on-one coaching.
Our goal in launching the Acceleration Portfolio is to partner with high-potential organizations through unrestricted grants and support beyond the grant – to grow their impact, focus their programs, hone their message, and expand their funding base. Hopefully, some of these organizations will also move into our Scale Portfolio and others’ portfolios, over time.
2024 APPLICATION CYCLE
First-round applications for the 2024 Acceleration Cohort are now closed, we will be reaching out to those selected for second-round applications as noted in our timeline.
We are looking for prospective partners who:
are locally-led, African, not-for-profit organizations
have been in operation for at least 2 years
are officially registered in their country(ies) of operation
have an annual budget under $400,000 (note: best-fit orgs are likely to have budgets over $100,000)
have an official Board of Directors or Trustees
have leadership (or a whole team) who are fluent enough in English to participate in capacity-building workshops (Unfortunately, we are only able to offer our capacity building workshops and coaching in English at this time.)
As an overview of our process, the Acceleration Portfolio conducts an “open call” for our first round of applicants during which any eligible organization can apply. From this pool of submissions, our team selects a limited number of finalist applicants who are asked to submit a second-round application and complete a brief interview with one of our team members in June - July. Final offers of acceptance into the Acceleration portfolio are made after that stage.
Timeline for the 2024 application cycle:
5 April to 6 May: Application window open for Round One submissions
late May: Applicants notified on Round One decision, Round Two applicants notified regarding selection for finalist application
late June to early July: Round Two Interviews conducted and second-round applications due for finalist organizations
late July: 2024 cohort organizations selected & notified
September: program year begins
Some additional notes on our selection criteria & process for the Acceleration Portfolio:
Read additional details on the grants and capacity building aims for this portfolio, and some FAQs here.
This portfolio is focused on strategic capacity building, and thus the strongest applications will be coming from an organization’s leader.
Due to the volume of applicants, we unfortunately will not be able to provide individual feedback on applications or reasons for decline.
Round One Application link open through May 6, 10am East Africa Time
(Note that applications are submitted via the Airtable platform)
2023 COHORT ORGANIZATIONS
2024 COHORT ORGANIZATIONS
Alliance for Action Aid (AFAA)
Association Jeunesse pour la Paix et la Non Violence
