Yahoo! Maktoob in partnership with Nahdet el Mahrousa (NM) (please join our Facebook group: Social Innovation Starts with You http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=117301234947967 )

The seed grants will be disbursed and managed by Nahdet El Mahrousa and are made available by Yahoo! Maktoob

•Fostering a culture of social entrepreneurship in Egypt
•Inspiring Egyptian youth through featuring successful Egyptian social entrepreneurs as role models
•Illustrating the potential of internet usage in creating positive impact on society

There are many programs that offer financial support for entrepreneurs, but the Social Innovation Starts with YOU campaign supports social entrepreneurs by offering monetary grants as well as technical support through NM’s Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises.
See Components of the Award for more information

Egyptian individuals, Egyptian not-for profit organizations and Egyptian for- profit organizations with ideas (or existing social enterprises) can apply to the competition. The competition is open to both new ideas that need support for start-up as well as existing social enterprises looking to scale up their efforts and impact.

These would include NGOs, foundations and non-profit companies.

These would include companies that are purely for profit.

Due to legal requirements, only Egyptians residing in Egypt can apply to the competition.

None of the staff and members of the administering partners are eligible candidates.

Entities or organizations that are completely or predominantly funded by government entities (Egyptian or foreign) are not eligible to apply to this competition. Government entities for this purpose do NOT include public universities or educational institutions, or international aid agencies.
Government owned entities are also not eligible for this competition.

An entity or an organization predominantly funded by the government is one that receives 60% or more of its funding from a local or international governmental entity, with the exception of public education institutions, and international aid organizations.

Yes, your enterprise could be profit-making as long as it is mainly driven by achieving its social impact not by its profits only.

•Register for the application process (you will receive a password)
•Read terms and conditions (Hyperlink)
•Fill online application (Hyperlink)(Note: you can save your progress on the application) •Submit application before deadline
•Link to application will be deactivated after deadline (Midnight, Egypt
time July 19th 2010)
•You could also download the application and email it to us at itsyou@nahdetmasr.org before (Midnight, Egypt time July 19th 2010)

•The applications will be available on-line starting June 28th , 2010
•The latest you can submit your application is July 19th , 2010

•You are obliged to answer all mandatory questions for your application to be accepted. Those are the questions marked as “required”. We encourage you to fill all questions on the application. They are there for a reason!

The application is available in both Arabic and English

•November 3rd 2010

Applications can either be submitted online or downloaded, filled and emailed to us at itsyou@nahdetmasr.org
The application can be accessed at http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.net. The application link will be active until the deadline after which we will no longer be accepting any applications. Post the deadline the link will be deactivated.

The competition is open to anyone as long as the applicant can demonstrate that he/she can allocate the necessary time required for their social enterprise’s start-up or scaling-up. The competition is open to students, unemployed and fully employed individuals.

Since this competition aims mainly to promote social innovation, we did not want to rule out any great innovative ideas out there that do not fall under our 3 main categories. Hence, this category is dedicated to great and innovative ideas or existing social enterprises that fulfill all the criteria but do not fall under any of the 3 other categories (Education, Health,and Environment).

You shouldn’t worry as to which of those you should apply under. For social enterprises that combine two or more of those listed areas, for instance, in the case of a social enterprise that promotes environmental awareness through the use of innovative educational tools, which could go under either the education or the environment or both, the applicant should choose one of the categories. This will not affect the selection and combining more than one area in your social enterprise might actually strengthen your application.

For the applicants who pass through the three stages of selection, the competition provides both monetary funding of at least USD 10,000 as well as technical assistance and incubation to maximize the chances of success of the selected social enterprises. The funding limit and amount will vary between the start-up and the scale-up categories. While the funding is provided by Yahoo! Maktoob and the program is managed by NM, technical assistance will be provided by both the NM Incubator for Innovative Social Enterprises as well as Yahoo! Maktoob corporate volunteers.

Incubated and incoming social enterprises will enjoy access to a wide range of services and shared resources by NM including: (i) capacity building, (ii) technical support, (iii) infrastructure, and (iv) performance management.

(i) Capacity Building:
NM will provide capacity building through mentoring, including:
•Results based-planning, management, and monitoring and evaluation;
•Close follow-up and monitoring: ensuring successful implementation of activities, achievement of objectives, and adherence to commitments, timeline and budget;
•Promoting sustainability of programs/projects and mobilizing additional resources;
•Identification, coordination and management of local and international consultants capable of providing technical assistance.

(ii) Technical Support:
•Branding and communications support
•A database and a wide network of contacts and potential partners
•Strategic planning, project proposal writing, and social enterprise/business planning volunteers and facilitators

Individual winners (with no organizational affiliation) will also have access to: (iii)Infrastructure:
•A legal umbrella (NM registration under the Ministry of Social Solidarity)
•Pro-bono legal support
•Financial management and accounting support
•Human resources support
•Shared equipped office space, including access to visual aids like projectors, shared computers, printing, scanning, file sharing and free wireless internet access
•NM IT infrastructure, including e-mail accounts for projects members, mailing lists, and website hosting

No, you remain the sole owner of your idea/social enterprise, though under the award contract you will grant Yahoo! Maktoob a chance to negotiate with you should you choose to commercialize a product or idea developed during the competition (a “right of first refusal”).

For those under 21, financial support will not be possible. However, there are a lot of resources available on the competition’s website (the Toolkit section) that you can use to familiarize yourself with social entrepreneurship and get ready for future competitions when you are 21. You can also submit an internship request and we will try to have you intern with one of the winning enterprises.

•Applicants must be Egyptian (and residing in Egypt)
•Age of Applicant: must be between 21 to 35 years.
•The idea must have a positive developmental impact on the lives of Egyptians
•The idea must have the capacity to be financially sustainable.
•The idea must use the Internet in some capacity to help achieve its social mission.
•The application must be 100% complete with all questions answered.
•Applications may be submitted in Arabic or English?

A selection committee composed of seven judges will evaluate all applications that meet the submission criteria listed above.
The members of the selection committee are neutral individuals with experience and background in social innovation and/or entrepreneurship and who have no affiliation with or preference for the submitted projects.
The selection committee will be comprised of various stakeholder groups including business and education, health, environment, etc.

•The selection committee will evaluate all received applications against the same selection criteria to ensure fair judgment.
•We will specifically look at 2 levels; the social entrepreneur (including team where applicable) and the social enterprise:
1.The Profile of the Social Entrepreneur and team:
We are seeking social entrepreneurs who are agents of change in their communities. Candidates will be graded on the following:
•Demonstrated social entrepreneurial skills.
•Demonstrated leadership skills and ability to work with and mobilize others.
•Strong passion for and appreciation of Egypt and its diversity.
•A track record of active community involvement e.g., student activities or NGO volunteer work.
•Relevant education and technical knowledge of their idea is a plus.
•Respect, abide by and demonstrate NM and Yahoo! Maktoob values: Diversity, Tolerance, Accepting the other, Transparency, Accountability, Pro-activity and Social responsibility.
•Commitment to the development of the social enterprises.
•Diversity and inclusiveness of team.
2.The Profile of the Social Enterprise:
The applicant’s proposed social enterprise will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
•Root causes: Projects must address root causes of societal issues rather than addressing the symptoms.
This includes the seriousness of the social problem they will address.
•Scalability: Projects must have a clear vision on how to affect large segments of society. Project can start small but must have a clear vision of how to expand to have national impact.
•Innovative Projects must take an innovative approach to the need they are addressing.
•Utilize the internet: Projects must leverage the internet in some capacity to meet their mission.
•Sustainability: Projects must consider sustainability as a priority ensuring that the project would continue and would have the necessary means and resources, human, financial and otherwise, to be able to continue and expand.
•Mission: Project must have a clear and specific idea with a well defined mission and objectives
•Impact: sTangible impact on target beneficiaries or clients.
•Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E): Applicants must list quantitative and qualitative performance indicators (e.g. number of beneficiaries reached, quality of services provided, improved, etc...) How do you plan to collect the information or data? How often will the data be collected?
Additional criteria that apply to Existing Projects seeking scaling-up funding
•Applicants must demonstrate that the existing social enterprise is achieving its intended purpose.
•Applicants must demonstrate how the provision of additional funding would further the ability of the existing social enterprise to achieve sustainability and reach a larger target audience .
•Applicants must provide documentation of the percentage of their social enterprise’s income that is generated by the project-related activities and how this percentage will increase as a result of the funding and support received

The rules of the competition, referred to as the Terms and Conditions, will be posted online at http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.net/

There are three phases to the selection process:

Phase 1:
Applications are submitted on-line through competition website (link: http://eg.socialinnovation.yahoo.net/) and no other documents are required at this stage. The selection committee will screen all received document and will create a short-list of applicants.

Phase 2:
1.Short-listed applicants will be contacted
2.Short-listed applicants will be asked to develop full-fledged social business plans and any supporting documents that might be needed.
3.Short-listed applicants will have to provide additional information to ensure that they meet the guidelines of the campaign.
4.Selection committee meets short-listed individuals or groups that successfully developed a social business plan and makes the decision on the list of awardees.

Phase 3:
1.Selection committee informs the awardees.
2.Awardees accept grants and terms and conditions that apply.
3.Disbursement of grant processed to awardees .
4.Incubation of social enterprises at Nahdet el Mahrousa, where relevant and needed.

If shortlisted the NM/Yahoo! Maktoob team will contact you if any additional documents are required.

Every application received will receive a fair share of review and attention. However, due to huge number of expected application we cannot respond to individual requests on rejected applications.

'Social Enterprises' are defined as revenue-generating, economically viable ventures that are able to deliver against financial as well as quantifiable social and/or environmental performance targets, i.e. have a double or triple bottom line. In our definition, we include both non-profits that use business models to pursue their mission and for-profits whose primary purposes are social. Their aim – to accomplish targets that are social and/ or environmental as well as financial – is often referred to as the triple bottom line.

For the sake of this competition, financial sustainability is defined by the fact that the majority of the social enterprise’s financial resources are generated by income from its social mission-related activities. This means that a social enterprise that is currently mainly depending on or planning to depend on grants or donations from other entities will not be considered as financially sustainable. The competition aims to support those that have either achieved that or those that have the intention, passion and possibility of achieving both the social impact as well as the financial sustainability.

Nahdet El Mahrousa, through its Incubator of Innovative Social Enterprises, will offer winners technical support, management support, office space, program design guidance, as well as its legal umbrella. The incubation services will be offered for a maximum of 2 years by the end of which the incubated social enterprises will be spun off as an independent entity (whether an NGO or a company). Please refer to question “What support services will awardees receive?” for a full description of the incubation services