On 22 November 2018, Lagos, Nigeria will witness the official launch of www.fundanenterprise.org at Best Western Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos. Fundanenterprise.org is a donation based crowdfunding website (first of its kind in Nigeria) built specifically for fundraising activities, solely in form of grants to support start-up, micro, small and medium sized enterprises in Nigeria and beyond.
The website is owned and operated by the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Crowd Funding Foundation, a new not-for-profit organisation in Nigeria.
Given the imbalance in the Nigerian economy, and its recent rating as the poorest country in world, it is high time individuals and groups joined hands together to make our economy work again. It is high time we began to support one another in every littlest way in order to expunge the poverty index and make our economy great again.
The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, through www.fundanenterprise.org, is here, not only to provide the much needed relief to start-ups, small and growing businesses, but to change the way Nigerians in particular and the world in general support business operations.
Crowdfunding (raising funds from a large number and spread of people all over the world, majorly through a website) is a globally accepted financing method, practised as a much easier alternative to the traditional fund raising through the Capital Markets and other Financial Institutions. Crowdfunding has been used globally and successfully to fund a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures / activities and community-oriented projects, as well as test the community’s reception of a particular project or business idea to find out if it will be successful before embarking on such business.
The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, Nigeria, believes that by bringing this practice of crowdfunding for enterprises closer home, Nigerians can benefit from the much needed ease of funding / financial support for their personal and group enterprises.
The mandate of MSME Crowd Funding Foundation is therefore solely to help build thriving enterprises, as many as can possibly be; to guarantee a meaningful life and livelihood for Africans, and Nigerians in particular. This mandate is carried out through three (3) key functions as follows:
Skills Training: The Foundation provides its enterprise community members with the necessary financial and soft skills training to start, manage and grow their businesses. Most importantly, the Foundation works with intending start-ups to develop a business plan that is realistic and practicable.
Crowdfunding: www.fundanenterprise.org is a crowdfunding website designed to link enterprises that need funding, with good people who love engaging in philanthropic activities and changing lives.
An African proverb says “If you think that you are too small to make a difference, you have not spent a night with a mosquito”. Every small donation, from any volunteer would make a big difference in our community and by extension, in our country.
Handholding / Monitoring of Enterprises: A compulsory one-year handholding support is put in place to assist enterprises who are beneficiaries of grants or backers’ grants from www.fundanenterprise.org put a proper legal and operational structure around their new businesses. Existing businesses are also offered the same business process improvement to ensure that they henceforth grow more, generate their own funding needs and also assist other start-up and struggling enterprises with donations.
It is all intended to be a communal enterprise building circle, to empower our people and build our economy.
The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, through www.fundanenterprise.org, is here to help our country and our world, in the following ways:
- People who love to engage in philanthropic activities (both in and outside the country) can now help build enterprises and change lives very easily by donating to enterprise building on www.fundanenterprise.org
- Donors can get the products and services they love, through rewards that campaign creators are encouraged to offer on the website
- People with entrepreneurial drive and energy, can now very easily get the funds they need, to start up or scale up their businesses, through their well thought out fundraising campaigns to be published on www.fundanenterprise.org
- Young businesses will get it right from the start, as the Foundation and its handholding partners will set up the right legal and operational structure around their businesses for free
- Prospective and existing business founders will find the much needed knowledge sharing partners / mentors for free, in the Foundation and its consultants
- Campaign creators will have their business plans critiqued and reviewed by professionals, to ensure that they are good enough to turn out viable enterprises
- Campaign creators can pre-test the public’s reception of their intended products or services through the pattern / level of donations and reactions they get on their campaigns on www.fundanenterprise.org
- The Foundation can help build the consultancy industry by engaging as many qualified consultants as possible, to render professional and training services to our enterprise community on www.fundanenterprise.org
- Our people and their dependants can have meaningful livelihood and live their dream
- The country will increasingly become an entrepreneurial hub and our economy can grow to reach its full potentials in the ranks of developed economies
