NM Junior Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises

 Partnership between The UNICEF & Nahdet El Mahrousa 

Need & Project Justification   

Young Adolescents’ vast potential and ability to innovate:

If well supported, guided and incubated, young people’s dreams and energy for the country’s development could be a very powerful means to empowering young people and strongly contributing to the country’s development. However, many young people in Egypt under the legal age (under 21 years of age) who are not able to establish NGOs or companies/social businesses have great development ideas and dreams that remain untapped due to the lack of support to their ideas. Despite the presence of few development organizations in the area of supporting social innovation and social entrepreneurship in Egypt like Nahdet El Mahrousa and Ashoka, youth of the age 15-24 and their social innovations remain highly neglected and underserved. (Please refer the diagram in Annex I for a full overview and analysis).  

No current mechanism to support social innovation among adolescents:

There are several NGOs and donor-led programs and initiatives that aim to empower young people to be proactive and serve their communities in Egypt. Some of the programs provide their beneficiaries with the necessary skills too. However, there is no mechanism to provide those youths with the institutional framework and ongoing support through incubation to ensure the success of their project initiatives and their groups if they happen to have dreams or ideas to serve their communities or country at large. This incubation and support is much needed as it ensure the success, continuation and hence empowerment of those adolescents or youth involved. According to the US National Business Incubation Association “80% of incubated companies survive their first three years of operation. Contrast this with the meager 35% survival rate of non-incubated firms.”  Therefore, UNICEF Adolescence Program and Nahdet El Mahrousa took the lead to establish a Junior Incubator of Social Enterprises. 

Goal: ·         To capture youths’^[1] energy and innovation, and empower them through supporting their and their groups’ innovative development projects and dreams towards Egypt’s development.·         To qualify the targeted youth to establish and manage independent and own NGOs in the future after reaching the legal age. ·         To promote group dynamics, team building and team empowerment·         To promote values of tolerance, acceptance of the other and embracing diversity

Objectives: 

• To incubate 8-10 successful projects/teams or groups within 2 years.

• Beyond the 2 years, to create a fully developed model to then be replicated nationally and regionally in the form of a policies and procedures manual and a proper training curriculum, and core training team.

• Empowered groups of adolescents with the necessary dynamics and strong team spirit.

• Values of tolerance, diversity and acceptance are articulated and practiced by team members

Target Group:

Egyptian Youth between ages 15 and 24 (with a special emphasis on age group 15-19). This initial phase will focus mainly on those who have already benefited from some initiatives like NM-incubated projects including Community Leaders’ Association as well as others from other NGOs like IIE or Dreamers of Tomorrow. These are either students in high school or in first or second year of university.

Scaling-up and Replicating the Model 

As future plans beyond the 2-year Pilot Phase and evaluation and documentation, it is envisioned that there will be a well-developed replication mechanism for the Incubator Model including: 

·         A manual developed for guidelines to youth on initiating successful projects.  

·         National Expansion: Beyond this, NGOs that want to copy the model will be trained on how to do that and provided technical assistance. This is to be done in collaboration with the Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs in a plan to build capacity of Youth NGOs as well. This will be done through the Federation’s National Fund for Youth Social Ventures which is currently funded by the EFG-Hermes Foundation.

·         Regional Expansion: There could also be possible means to replicate it regionally along with organizations such as the Dubai-based Young Arab Leaders NGO.   

·         Note: This is to be done in liaison with UNICEF’s vast regional and national networks.

Pilot Phase (May 2008-April 2010) 

Empowering Graduates of the Ford Foundation Egypt’s International Fellows Program by incubating their innovative development projects Partnership between AMIDEAST & Nahdet El Mahrousa   

 I.                General Aims and Goals:

·         Instill a culture of social responsibility and paying-back to the community, a main priority of the IFP program.·         Ensure motivating and energizing IFP alumni ·         Foster the culture of innovation in social development among different disciplines·         Support the culture of working together as Egyptians 

II.                Proposed Activities:

The project will start by an initial stage of identifying 2-3 innovative development projects proposed by graduates of the IFP through the planned innovation workshops. The NM Incubator of Innovative Social Ventures will then provide its full incubation support and services to the selected 2-3 projects and provide them with the necessary support until they become full-fledged national programs in 2 years. The later stages of scaling-up and sustainability could be supported by other international donors and corporate sector. The amount requested from the Ford Foundation covers the necessary support for the pilot phase for a 2 year period after which, through the incubator, the project teams will be able to secure additional funding for scaling-up and expansion.

The NM Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises Project Cycle & Incubation Rules 

  *Pilot Phase The pilot phase by definition is phase where the project starts on a smaller scale to get feedback on the project and decide on project continuation. It also serves as a probation period to assess team dynamics, and commitment of team members.  This phase starts right after the planning phase.