Miller Center Investment Readiness Accelerator

Deadline Date: March 15, 2024

Donor Name: Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship

Grant Size: Not Available

If you lead a mission-driven social enterprise looking to scale a proven impact model, you’ve come to the right place! Miller Center’s Silicon Valley-based, globally recognized, investment readiness accelerator helps leaders develop pathways to scale and prepare for next-level investment.

They focus on social enterprises working on women’s economic power and/or climate resilience. With proven curricula and accompanied by the outstanding executive mentors and leadership coaches, together they’ll uncover and address gaps and opportunities in your business, and develop an action plan so you can achieve your vision for organizational growth.

Definitions

• Climate Resilience
  • Social enterprises address the needs of those living in poverty who suffer disproportionately from climate change. Their climate resilience focus areas fall into one of the following three categories:
    • Clean Energy — providing access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy
    • Safe Water — ensuring availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation
    • Climate-Smart Agriculture — implementing sustainable food production systems and resilient agricultural practices to increase productivity and production
• Women’s Economic Power
  • Social enterprises that have a focus on women’s economic power can be identified through one or more of the following areas (ideally all four):
    • Social Enterprise Leaders: The primary participant identifies as female and is a founder, CEO, or other top-level leader with decision-making authority.
    • Employees: The business model intentionally creates more jobs for women within the enterprise.
    • Value Chain Contributors: The organization creates increasing business opportunities for women along its value chain (e.g., using a village sales agent model that is more amenable to women villagers’ lifestyles or buying products made by women).
    • Customers: Predominantly female customers by design. In this case, “customers” refers to those who are positively impacted by the enterprise.

Program Details

• Mentor Accompaniment
  • Work closely with two of our 300+ executive mentors, comprising diverse start-up founders, serial entrepreneurs, and senior executives who have honed their expertise in companies such as Apple, Google, Intel, Paypal, Cisco and others
  • Leverage dedicated mentoring: 180 hours of executive mentoring that is focused, immersive, and customized to your unique business needs
• Tailored Post-Accelerator Support
  • Access funding opportunities, investment facilitation, bespoke mentoring, leadership coaching, peer-to-peer leadership circles, dedicated support from undergraduate and graduate Santa Clara University students, and more
• The Proven Approach
  • Apply the proven methodology that combines advanced curriculum with accompaniment by experienced mentors for 6-months of structured programming — like a “mini MBA” for social entrepreneurs
  • Deep dive into feedback sessions that fully prepare you to present your plans to investors
  • Prepare mock investment memos to provide investor perspectives and honest assessment of your investment readiness

Eligibility Criteria

• Application Requirements
  • A senior leader (e.g. CEO, Executive Director, Managing Director)
  • Fluent in English or Spanish
  • Has consistent and reliable access to internet connectivity
  • Proficient in Excel
  • Has the availability to participate in the 6-month program requiring:
    • Weekly 1-hour calls with mentors
    • Commitment to work a few hours per week on plan to become more investable
• Organization Requirements
  • Committed to creating positive benefits for people living in poverty, addressing one or more of the UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Intentional about supporting women’s economic power, climate resilience, or the intersection of both (see below for how Miller Center identifies women’s economic power
  • and climate resilience).
  • Committed to scale its solution far beyond current operations
  • Operational for at least a year and delivering products/services to customers
  • Has at least $20,000 USD (or local currency equivalent) in annual earned income and is not entirely dependent on contributions or grants
  • Working financial model forecasting cash flow, balance sheet, income statement
  • Minimum 3 full-time staff (or equivalent)
  • Minimum 3-month cash runway

For more information, visit Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship.