IKEA Social Entrepreneurship

NESST together with IKEA Social Entrepreneurship have joined forces to support 12 social enterprises working in Chile, Colombia, Peru and Brazil.  

Applications open until December 18.

Features to Consider

By means of this call we will select social enterprises that show potential to scale your business and its social and environmental impact. Additionally, they will be considered companies with a lack of financing options due to the high impact nature of the company and opportunity for NESsT-IKEA to add value.

Social Impact

Potential to generate employment, placements, or improve income for a minimum of 100-200 vulnerable groups over the next 3 years.

Support for communities of interest:

• Young people at risk
• Women
• Ethnic minorities
• Small producers
• People with disabilities
• Refugees/migrants

Clear growth opportunity

An attractive product/service with evidence of demand for one or more of the following ways:

• Market that is expanding, or opportunity to enter a new market (customer segment, new geographic area, etc.).
• Opportunity to double your sales over the next 18-24 months.
• Not yet in balance, potential to reach it and become profitable in the next 18-24 months.

Background to the social enterprise

Competent management team, with strong ethical values (preference to teams with a minimum of 4-6 people)

• Sales between USD 100 thousand to 2.5 million annually
• Well-regarded/respected company/team integrated in your local community

Available Financing

• Available instrument type: donations and recoverable donations (equivalent to soft, long-term, interest-free loans, among other features)
• Social enterprise amount range: USD 20,000-50,000.
• Examples of financing use:
• Business model validation
• Product/service improvement
• Definition/improvement/installation of the operations model
• Expansion of sales and marketing capacity
• Establishing systems to track social impact

General Postulation Process (November 2020-March 2021)