The Social Impression Associate Highlight collection highlights numerous Cisco non-profit group companions which might be serving to remodel the lives of people and communities. This weblog options Cisco’s partnership with Agora Partnerships, Bridge Worldwide, CARE Peru, Centro Neighborhood Companions, Defy Ventures, and Hand in Hand Worldwide, highlighting the transformative work every of those organizations are doing within the entrepreneurial and financial empowerment area, particularly for underserved communities.

World Entrepreneurs Day 2024, noticed on August 21, celebrates the ingenuity and perseverance of entrepreneurs who’re the driving drive behind innovation and financial progress worldwide. This yr’s theme, “Empowering Entrepreneurs for a Sustainable Future,” underscores the very important function that entrepreneurs play in creating options to international challenges and advancing sustainable improvement. Find out how a few of Cisco’s non-profit accomplice organizations are enabling the transformative impression of entrepreneurs and fostering environments the place their concepts can thrive and result in a brighter, extra sustainable future.

Agora Partnerships

“Collaborating within the Eco problem has been a possibility to see my enterprise with one other perspective, not simply looking for innovation alternatives, however of a social and environmental legacy, that may transcend different generations and even different geographies.”
—Feminine entrepreneur chief of an expert audio providers firm

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contribute virtually 25% of Latin America’s Gross Home Product and make use of over 60% of the overall inhabitants. On the identical time, SMEs throughout the area face stagnating productiveness progress and rising vulnerabilities to local weather variability and pure useful resource degradations throughout the area face stagnating productiveness progress and rising vulnerabilities to local weather variability and pure useful resource degradation.

The significance of SMEs for each financial prosperity and environmental preservation means an funding within the greening and modernization of their enterprise fashions can have an outsized impression on the area’s total sustainability.

And but women-led small and medium enterprises (WSMEs) face technological, financial, cultural, and institutional obstacles to bettering the environmental footprint of their fashions – impeding sustainable and inclusive financial improvement.

Agora Partnerships strives for a world through which social and environmental sustainability turns into the true enterprise engine for SME progress. With instrumental early-stage ideation and planning funding from Cisco Basis, Agora designed the content material, methodology, structure, and prototype for an eco-innovation (environmentally constructive practices) repository aimed toward facilitating the combination of eco improvements within the enterprise operations of conventional WSMEs in Latin America.

The method entailed a number of levels. First, they built-in in Agora’s enterprise coaching a product that enabled firms to ideate, choose, and plan the implementation of eco improvements instantly linked to enhancements of their backside line. They then moved on to pilot the content material with precise enterprises to validate assumptions, akin to cross sectoral applicability and relevance throughout completely different enterprise improvement levels. From there, they created an Ecochallenge fund choosing awardees to fund their plans for testing and studying. Lastly, they translated the primary two levels right into a digital and self-guided format which is able to permit Agora to create impression at scale by making the content material out there to audiences past Agora’s present program members – permitting them to proceed to help feminine entrepreneurs all through Latin America to make their companies greener – and extra profitable.

How Agora Partnerships is making a distinction:

• 19% had mapped the adverse impacts of their companies and had not less than one technique to mitigate them
• 08% reported that the Eco-challenge contributed considerably to their progress and the event of environmental data of their enterprise
• 97% reported implementing social or environmental actions

Agora Partnerships has many alternatives to assist with their efforts. Particularly, the group wants:

• Consultants in gamification to enhance the present consumer expertise of the eco improvements repository.
• Environmental consultants that may evaluate piloted eco improvements to determine doable enhancements, potential factors of problem, and analysis methodologies/practices.
• Practitioners or entrepreneurial help organizations who wish to pilot eco improvements with their very own entrepreneurs to proceed constructing the eco innovation knowledgebase.
• Suggestions of databases or stories highlighting confirmed environmental practices that reap financial returns in SMEs.

Be taught extra about Agora Partnerships (en español video)

Bridge Worldwide

“We offer capacity-building consultations and coaching to create modern and catalytic approaches to entrepreneurs. We additionally present crowdfunding alternatives to extend entry to monetary assets and public visibility for the social companies that we help everywhere in the area of Asia.”
—Ahlim Kim, Program Director

The Bridge Worldwide helps underserved social innovators and rising entrepreneurs in South Korea and throughout the globe. By its on-line crowdfunding platform which merges the ideas of “donation” and “funding” into one, The Bridge Worldwide created a revolving donation mannequin that sustains and builds financial resilience for program beneficiaries and donors.

With Cisco’s Regional Answer Grant, The Bridge Worldwide was capable of reestablish its on-line platform. The platform goals to create a sustainable ecosystem of impression donations and extra assets which might be essential for enterprise sustainability of people’ dream to grow to be economically unbiased and be capable of give again to others in want. Lately, The Bridge Worldwide has enhanced the ‘Birthday Donation Marketing campaign’ characteristic, which allows people to launch their very own campaigns utilizing their birthdays. They will invite family and friends to donate in the direction of social causes they care about to have a good time. This enchancment has efficiently inspired extra individuals, each domestically and internationally, to take part in these campaigns. The impression of the grant is promising for beneficiaries, together with challenge VietHarvest in Vietnam, Ritma Inexperienced in Indonesia, and Jumpaa Comics in Laos.

How Bridge Worldwide is making a distinction:

• Variety of entrepreneurs served (North Korean Defectors and Creating International locations in Asia): 53
• Proportion improve in funds raised: 26%
• Charge improve in financial independence (re-donation charge): 11%

Bridge Worldwide welcomes neighborhood help via donations and volunteer involvement:

• Host a donation marketing campaign: Try fundraisers just like the “Birthday/Occasion Donation”, designate a challenge, and help celebrating particular events akin to birthdays, graduations, wedding ceremony anniversaries, and others.
• Enroll for mentoring and enterprise partnership constructing.

CARE Peru

“CARE has advocated for girls entrepreneurship at a nationwide scale. We goal to contribute to a resilient and inclusive economic system by unleashing the facility of growth-oriented ladies entrepreneurs. We help ladies entrepreneurs to really feel assured, resilient, in management, and geared up to develop their companies, in order that they acquire financial energy of their households, communities, and economies.”
—Marilu Martens, Nationwide Director at CARE Peru

CARE established a everlasting presence in Peru in 1970 following the devastating earthquake within the Ancash area, and in 2012, it was constituted as a Peruvian NGO. For over 50 years, it has carried out over 1000 initiatives centered on the nation’s social improvement, which have modified the lives of probably the most susceptible individuals. Within the final 5 years, CARE Peru has positively impacted the lives of over 7 million individuals.

CARE Peru’s Women with Alternatives (GWO) program creates an academic ecosystem that fosters the well-being and academic continuity of adolescent ladies, igniting their curiosity to be taught and potential to grow to be the most effective they are often to beat poverty. This system implements numerous instructional initiatives concentrating on stakeholders, akin to college students, academics, faculty directors, households, native authorities, and neighborhood leaders. CARE Peru gives a supportive surroundings, participating establishments and neighborhood leaders to again this system’s implementation. Academics and college directors bear capacity-building packages to combine the GWO curriculum into faculty administration devices, guaranteeing sustainability. College students take part in asynchronous and synchronous studying classes, creating expertise and competencies via initiatives just like the “Thought y Emprende” contest, which inspires entrepreneurship and STEAM training.

With Cisco’s Regional Grant help, CARE Peru developed its STEAM initiative which included a pilot of the Cisco Networking Academy course on “Get Related, ” instructional directions and expertise coaching to equip college students with important digital expertise and help their creativity for studying and put together a pathway for a constructive future in for underserved ladies in rural areas of Peru. Program success consists of elevated pupil engagement, data switch of information to academics, and program sustainability inside taking part public/authorities faculties.

How CARE is making a distinction:

• 16 secondary faculties’ members of the GWO Program taking part within the methodological switch
• 60 instructional actors from secondary faculties, Native Schooling Unites (UGEL) and Regional Directorate/Unit of Schooling (DRE/GRE) from numerous areas together with of Cajamarca, Bambamarca, Lambayeque, and Amazonas that take part within the methodological switch course of from GWO Program
• 50 academics who improve data in thematic areas from GWO Program
• 50 academics with certificates/recognition achieved for taking part in GWO Program signed by UGEL/DRE/GRE

Be part of CARE Peru’s trigger and make a distinction. Your help will allow over a thousand college students from the Women with Alternatives challenge to proceed their instructional journey and obtain targets they by no means thought doable. To donate, go to their web site or give by way of PayPal.

Centro Neighborhood Companions

“At Centro, we consider entrepreneurship is a strong catalyst for financial transformation and social mobility. By equipping underserved entrepreneurs with tailor-made technical help, entry to capital, and devoted teaching, we empower them to show their visions into sustainable companies. Our dedication lies in nurturing their daring concepts into thriving enterprises that not solely profit the entrepreneurs themselves but additionally enrich their communities.”
—Arturo Noriega, Founder and CEO

As we have a good time World Entrepreneurs Day, it’s important to spotlight the transformative initiatives which might be making important impacts on the entrepreneurial panorama, particularly for the underserved. Cisco has been a pivotal accomplice in Centro’s journey to empower underserved entrepreneurs globally. By their beneficiant help, Centro has expanded its capabilities and attain, touching the lives of over 1,000 entrepreneurs yearly.

Cisco’s investments in Centro’s expertise and capacity-building initiatives have been game-changers. With Cisco’s backing, Centro has invested within the Centro App, a complete software that has revolutionized how entrepreneurs entry assets, teaching, and capital and helps observe impression. One other important milestone within the partnership has been the adoption of Salesforce because the centralized database administration system. This transfer has streamlined Centro’s operations and information administration practices, guaranteeing that each choice the group makes is knowledgeable. The inception of Centro Labs, additionally funded by Cisco, served as an incubator the place the groundbreaking thought for the Centro CEO App was conceived. As an AI-driven platform, the Centro CEO App guarantees to be a cornerstone in Centro’s technique to equip entrepreneurs with good instruments they should succeed.

Cisco’s help extends past monetary help—it’s a partnership that embraces imaginative and prescient, innovation, and the relentless pursuit of empowering those that aspire to make a distinction via entrepreneurship. As Centro seems to be in the direction of the long run, the group is grateful for Cisco’s unwavering help and excited concerning the infinite potentialities that lie forward. On World Entrepreneurs Day, Centro celebrates not simply the spirit of entrepreneurship but additionally the partnerships that amplify this spirit. Due to Cisco, Centro shouldn’t be solely dreaming of a extra inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem however actively constructing it.

Since 2021, the help from Cisco has been instrumental in serving to Centro leverage expertise and construct modern options to develop its packages and providers to achieve underserved entrepreneurs. The next are some key highlights of Centro’s impression over the previous three years:

• Assisted 2,500+ underserved low-income ladies and entrepreneurs of shade with its packages and providers.
• Facilitated entry to $4.7M++ in capital, serving to entrepreneurs begin or develop small companies to realize monetary independence.
• Supplied 1,400+ hours of one-on-one enterprise teaching providers to assist entrepreneurs overcome enterprise challenges and join them with native small companies assets.

Centro believes in trust-based philanthropy and affords quite a lot of alternatives for help and engagement:

• Advocate Centro to Entrepreneurs: Join entrepreneurs to Centro’s packages and providers to assist them begin and develop their small companies.
• Take part in Graduations: Centro welcomes visitors to take part in Centro program graduations to supply suggestions to entrepreneurs on their enterprise fashions/pitches.
• Assist Entrepreneurs Entry Capital: With as little as $25, individuals will help an area entrepreneur entry an interest-free Kiva mortgage of as much as $15,000.

Defy Ventures

“I’ve by no means felt fairly so full, empowered, educated, safe, and assured about opening my very personal enterprise. I used to be beforehand incarcerated, and a former drug addict and my enterprise concepts have been simply that— concepts and desires. . . till I got here into Defy Ventures’ entrepreneur program!”
—Carol Anne Madonia, Founder and CEO of That Meatball Collective

Defy Ventures is a nationwide nonprofit whose mission is to shift mindsets to offer individuals with felony histories their greatest shot at a second probability via entrepreneurship, profession readiness, well-being, and private improvement coaching packages delivered each in jail and in the neighborhood.

Defy’s imaginative and prescient is to chop recidivism charges in half by leveraging entrepreneurship to extend financial alternative and remodel lives. This yr, Defy will work with greater than 1,000 at the moment and previously incarcerated women and men to defy the percentages in 9 states.

They accomplish this via entrepreneurship and profession readiness coaching packages facilitated each in jail and in the neighborhood, with the objective of supporting profitable reentry and financial alternative. Their community-based entrepreneurship packages embrace enterprise coaching, government mentorship, planning grants, and seed capital to assist previously incarcerated people obtain their desires of launching a small enterprise.

Their cornerstone CEO of Your New Life (CEO YNL) jail program gives members, (known as Entrepreneurs in Coaching or EITs), with entrepreneurship expertise, private improvement, profession readiness, and reentry preparation via a five-volume, 2000-page set of printed textbooks and the submission of assignments by way of assortment of paper copies.

With help from Cisco Basis, Defy is remodeling this curriculum right into a tablet-based program, which is able to allow a major leap ahead. With the flexibility to ship studying by way of tablets, they may be capable of enhance their program with   wealthy content material (akin to supplementary movies), digital information assortment, and elevated communication with program members each throughout and after this system. Tablets may also allow them to develop their attain to serve extra individuals and in additional areas – which means extra justice-impacted women and men will now have a good probability.

Since inception, Defy has achieved the next impression:

• 7,900+ EITs served
• 200+ companies launched
• <10% recidivism for program graduates inside 1 yr of launch (vs 30% nationwide common)

become involved:

Hand in Hand Worldwide

“The ladies we work with face a number of restrictive norms and attitudes that preserve them from incomes their very own incomes, and so usually tend to be digitally excluded. Due to our partnership with Cisco, we will unlock the facility of expertise to equip much more ladies entrepreneurs with the talents and assets they should launch thriving companies, lifting extra households out of poverty.”
—Amalia Johnsson, Deputy CEO, Hand in Hand Worldwide

Worldwide, round 10% of ladies – 400 million – reside trapped beneath the poverty line of simply $2.15 a day. Within the locations Hand in Hand works, akin to Kenya, Tanzania, India, and Afghanistan, there are few alternatives for formal employment. For these ladies, entrepreneurship is the one route out of poverty. Nonetheless, in lots of of those communities, over 60% of ladies can’t make on a regular basis choices with out their husband’s permission. Others yearn to start out small companies however lack entry to the coaching, loans and assets wanted to start.

When ladies lose, everybody loses. Households, communities and even nations grow to be trapped in a cycle of poverty.  However given the chance, ladies can break these cycles and form the long run they need.

Hand in Hand equips under-served ladies with expertise and assets to earn extra money and ignite native economies, lifting nations out of poverty. By a confirmed mannequin centered on expertise acquisition, credit score entry and market connections, Hand in Hand has reached 9 million ladies entrepreneurs by way of its international community. Nonetheless, till now the talents acquisition part of Hand in Hand’s mannequin has centered completely on in-person coaching. In rural areas specifically, native enterprise trainers spend an enormous period of time on the highway – limiting the variety of ladies the NGO can attain.

How Hand in Hand is making a distinction:

This yr, Hand in Hand has partnered with CISCO to develop and check a focused, inclusive e-learning platform in Kenya – to enrich its in-person enterprise coaching.

• To date, Hand in Hand has reached 9 million ladies 20 million members of the family.
• Sometimes, ladies entrepreneurs double their incomes.
• 84% of ladies are actually capable of make choice concerning the issues that have an effect on their lives.
• The brand new e-learning system will help Hand in Hand to satisfy its objective of reaching 265,000 Kenyan entrepreneurs by 2027.
• Hand in Hand’s entrepreneurship coaching delivers a median ROI of 475%.

become involved with Hand in Hand:

• Donate right now: A daily reward of £35 a month may equip three ladies with the talents and assets to launch their very own companies.
• Associate with Hand in Hand: In case your group is trying to improve its impression and remodel the lives of ladies entrepreneurs, please contact Anna Davies, Head of Philanthropy and Partnerships.

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