Funding Opportunities

Executive Summary

The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves seeks proposals from organizations to provide capacity building planning and delivery, as well as grant management support, in Nigeria. This work will be carried out during the period of January 2017 to mid-2017 under the Alliance’s new Catalytic Small Grants Program.

Background

The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a public-private partnership hosted by the United Nations Foundation to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and protect the environment by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.

Part of the Alliance’s strategy to create a thriving global market is to strengthen the supply of clean cooking solutions by attracting more finance and investment into the sector. In order to increase investment to grow the sector, the Alliance is working to prepare the market for scale, support the development of commercially viable and scalable enterprises, and raise awareness in the investor community of opportunities within the sector.

The Alliance has developed several financial products to support the development of commercially viable and scalable enterprises. These range from the Pilot Innovation Fund to finance innovations across the value chain, to the Spark Fund to finance the scale up of proven concepts, to the Working Capital Fund to provide affordable working capital loans for early growth stage companies. The diagram shows the suite of financial products the Alliance has designed to enable enterprises at different stages of development to grow and leverage further investment.

The Challenge

Global financing mechanisms are not sufficient to foster thriving clean cooking markets in the Alliance’s focus countries. There is a need to for country specific mechanisms that fund capacity building and growth of start-up and venture stage companies not eligible for global financing mechanisms like the Spark and Pilot Innovation Funds. These enterprises, particularly those that are locally owned and operated, often find it difficult to improve their operations and implement growth initiatives to better position themselves for future investment.

The Solution

In 2014, the Alliance piloted the Catalytic Small Grants program (CSG) in Ghana and has already rolled out the program in Kenya, Uganda and Bangladesh in the last two years. There are three (3) key components to the program:

1. Investment readiness analysis will be conducted on strategically placed enterprises in the clean cooking sector in each focus country to identify key capacity development and growth initiatives to catalyze the sector. The analysis will involve 2-3 day site visits to assess all aspects of each enterprise selected, including meeting with suppliers, distributors, and end consumers, as well as with the management team to review their operations, growth plans, sales and marketing strategies, and financial positions.

2. Small grants to selected companies from the investment readiness analysis to fund catalytic enterprise development and growth initiatives that will increase likelihood of investment, enrich the value chain through more efficient production and enhanced distribution and foster strategic partnerships to strengthen the sector. Such grants, which would be issued directly by the Alliance to grantees, will average $20,000-35,000.

3. Capacity building provided by the Capacity Building Partner will supplement the small grants to assist the small grant grantees with maximizing the use of grant funds and develop grantees into strong, scalable companies. The support for each enterprise is expected to average $8-10,000 which would most likely be sufficient to fund two initiatives and would be disbursed to the Capacity Building Partner for implementation of capacity building initiatives.

Activity description

The Alliance will roll out the CSG in Nigeria on January 2017 by selecting six enterprises through a two day workshop; these enterprises will undergo investment readiness analysis from which three enterprises will be selected to receive both the small grant and capacity building support (grantee/s), as outlined above.

The Alliance seeks a qualified organization (Capacity Building Partner) to provide capacity building planning and delivery and grant management support in 2017 for the CSG program in Nigeria. The Alliance has already identified a partner to conduct the investment readiness analysis. The Capacity Building Partner will primarily have these key functions.

1. Delivering the Boost workshop: To shortlist the initial list of 6 enterprises that would undergo investment readiness analysis, The Alliance plans to conduct a 2 day workshop in Nigeria in January 2017 on the curriculum developed in partnership with the Global Social Benefit Institute (GSBI); “Boost” targets social entrepreneurs who wish to document and articulate key aspects of their enterprise business plan. Participants work through a series of “learn by doing” modules that enable entrepreneurs to learn concepts while they develop business plan elements specific to their social enterprise and modules on social impact model, target market and value proposition, marketing, sales and partnerships, financial model, and growth strategy. The Boost workshop will have tentatively 15-20 enterprises from which 6 enterprises would be selected for the Investment readiness analysis (due diligence).

2. Creating a capacity building plan: Based on the investment readiness analysis of selected grantees, The Alliance would host workshops where in the Capacity Building Partner (CBP) will work with the enterprises to develop capacity building work plans to deliver individualized support to the enterprises and develop milestones for grant disbursement.

3. Implementation of Capacity Building Plan: The CBP would be expected to deliver, or sub-contract the delivery of, capacity building as agreed in. The CBP will support selected grantees during the grant agreement process with the Alliance, which should begin in March 2017, verifying that disbursement-related milestones are met and reporting on the general progress of the grantees throughout 2017. It is expected that two (2) disbursements will be made for each grant, each upon completion of grant-stipulated milestones (e.g. executed contracts, purchase agreements, etc.). Examples of the uses of grant proceeds include: (1) purchase of equipment and machinery to increase production capacity, (2) purchase of a new vehicle for distribution, and (3) initial funding of key positions, such as a sales manager, finance manager etc.

Individual capacity building projects for the selected enterprises should begin in March 2017 and the duration of support will vary by enterprise and type of capacity building needed. All work must be completed by December 31, 2017.

Duties & Deliverables

The consultant will support three companies in Nigeria, depending on the selection of grantees post due diligence. The consultant will:

Grant Management Support

1. Provide input to the Alliance on CSG grantee selection and proposed capacity building for grantees;

2. Facilitate the establishment grant disbursement milestones for grant agreements with each CSG grantee;

3. Verify that grantee milestones have been met so that milestone-tied grant disbursements can be made (note: there will be two disbursements for each grant;

4. Otherwise monitor grantee performance and work with grantee to send to the Alliance grantee reporting documentation.

Capacity Building for Investees

5. Lead the development of a capacity building work plan for each grantee based on the CGS investment readiness due diligence and in consultation with the grantee and the Alliance;

6. Deliver capacity building to the grantees as per the capacity building work plan, outsourcing as needed (note: it is expected that there will be sufficient funding for two such capacity building projects).

Data Collection Tools

The capacity building partner will be provided access to the following information to begin the support process:

• Investment readiness analysis for each enterprise, complete with enterprise information in the following areas:
  • Operations
  • Sales and Marketing strategy
  • Management
  • Financials (historical and projected)
  • Historical funding requirements and future funding need
  • Capacity building needs
• Interviews with the enterprises
• Alliance templates for milestone setting
• Alliance reporting templates for Catalytic Small Grant recipients

Application Instructions

Applicants are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Alliance investment strategy before submitting a proposal. The proposal should not exceed fifteen (15) pages and should describe the following:

General

1. A cover sheet with the firm’s information. This should include the point of contact, email address, phone number, website (if applicable), and addresses of office(s) related to the consulting work.

2. A statement of qualifications for the proposed work. Organizations should provide detail on the areas they are able to provide the strongest capacity building support and areas that they may choose to sub-contract out if the need arises. If the consultant plans to sub-contract a portion of the work, a letter of support from each sub-contractor with qualifications is recommended.

3. CVs of lead team members. It is required that consultant(s) have a lead team member who is proficient in English. Local teams are strongly preferred.

4. Professional references. This should include at two social enterprises / Small or Medium Enterprises (SME) that has received similar capacity building services from your firm and specify what the engagement entailed.

Financial Proposal

1. Boost Workshop Cost

a. Cost to conduct 2 day Boost workshop in Lagos / Abuja, the content would be provided by the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, but will have to be tailored for local context.

b. Expected direct expense such as travel for consultant, cost of venue and refreshment (lunch, tea & snacks) cost for the 2 days.

2. Capacity building delivery cost

a. General daily rates for senior, mid-, and junior level staff that would be required to deliver capacity building to grantees based on the capacity building plan;

b. Assumptions for any required direct expenses, particularly for travel.

3. Key assumptions for budgeting include

a. Three grantees in Nigeria;

b. Average grant amounts of $20,000-$35,000 for each grantee with two disbursements for each grant, one at inception and a second based on milestones reached (e.g. contract executed or purchase agreement signed);

c. A budget of up to $10,000 to fund direct capacity building costs for each grantee, which should fund two capacity building initiatives for each grantee.

d. All cost to be given in US Dollars, inclusive of all taxes and regulatory deductions and to be kept realistic.

Appendices may be provided for supplementary materials as relevant, but review will be based mainly on the information provided in the proposal.

Any questions regarding the RFP should be submitted to Amit Antony Alex at aalex@cleancookstoves.org no later than 6.00 pm GMT on December 16th, 2016.

A compiled FAQ would be provided to the organizations that have raised queries by December 19th, 2016. The final date for submission of proposal is 6.00 pm GMT, December 23rd, 2016 with the selected Capacity Building Partner to be announced by December 30th, 2016. The final proposal to be emailed to Amit Antony Alex at aalex@cleancookstoves.org.