When it comes to running a business, one of the major challenges a lot of business owners face is having inadequate finance. In 2015, GeoPoll surveyed 200 entrepreneurs per country in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, and financing was identified as one of the biggest challenges facing small businesses.
Lack of funds to get a business started and keep it sailing often leads to business failure, and to help minimise the effect poor financing has on small businesses, a number of organisations put together programmes that would enable entrepreneurs secure funds.
We’ve listed a few of them. These funding opportunities are made available every year, and as a business owner, all you have to do is keep yourself constantly updated, and be lookout for when applications open.
The Bank of Industry Limited (BOI) is Nigeria’s oldest, largest and most successful development financing institution. It has a number of funding opportunities for entrepreneurs of all levels and in diverse industries.
There’s the Graduate Entrepreneurship Fund (GEF) for Corp members, Cottage Agro Processing (CAP) Fund for small and medium agro processors; Nollyfund for the Nollywood industry, Fashion fund for entrepreneurs in the fashion industry, the Youth Entrepreneurship Support (YES) Programme, aimed at equipping young people to start and manage their own businesses, and a host of others.
The Lagos State Employment Trust Fund was established by the Lagos State Employment Trust Fund Law 2016 to provide financial support to residents of Lagos State, for job, wealth creation and to tackle unemployment.
LSETF serves as an instrument to inspire the creative and innovative energies of all Lagos residents and reduce unemployment across the State. The Fund has the mandate to directly invest N25bn in helping Lagos residents grow and scale their Micro Small and Medium Enterprises.
For micro businesses, they can access up to N500,000 loans with an interest rate of five percent. In the small business category, businesses can get up to N5m for a period of three years.
Shell LiveWIRE is a social investment programme that aims to help young Nigerians explore the option of starting their own business as a real and viable career option.
It provides support, access to training, guidance, and business mentorship to young entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs between the ages of 18 and 35.
The programme operates mainly in the Niger Delta region and aims to inspire, encourage and support young people aged 18-35 to start up their own businesses through the provision of finance and training for young entrepreneurs.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme is the flagship entrepreneurship programme of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
Launched in 2015, the foundation has a decade-long commitment to use $100m to Identify 10,000 African startups and African entrepreneurs with ideas that have the potential to succeed; Grow the businesses through business skills training, mentoring, access to seed capital funding, information and membership in our Africa-wide alumni network; and Create businesses that can generate at least 1,000,000 new jobs and contribute at least $10 billion in revenues across Africa.
MarketMoni, also known as the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Program (GEEP), is one of the social intervention programs of the Federal Government, and is being executed by the Bank of Industry.
It was created to provide financial aid for the under-banked and unbanked.
This objective is being achieved by providing easy and quick interest-free loans to market women and traders, artisans, youth and farmers. The beneficiaries receive loans ranging from N10,000 to N100,000 per applicant for as long as 6 months.
YouWiN! Connect is a multimedia enterprise education initiative of the Federal Ministry of Finance (FMF) which aims to support young entrepreneurs as they plan, start and grow their businesses.
The programme targets growth in the Agriculture/Agro-processing, Construction, ICT, Fashion, Manufacturing and Retail sectors, encourages expansion, specialization and spin-offs of existing businesses in Nigeria, and nurtures ideas and innovation from young entrepreneurial participants from Universities, Polytechnics, Technical colleges, and other post-Secondary institutions in Nigeria.
Diamond’s Bank Building Entrepreneurs Today (BET) is a programme designed to support budding entrepreneurs.
Every year, 50 entrepreneurs are selected from the pool of the numerous applications received and these entrepreneurs undergo a six (6) months intensive entrepreneurial/business training. At the end of the training period, the Top Five (5) Entrepreneurs are awarded financial grants as seed capital for taking their business to the next level.
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