Echoing Green Fellowship 2023 for Innovative Leaders ($80,000 Seed Funding)


Deadline: February 7, 2023

Applications are open for the Echoing Green Fellowship 2023. Echoing Green supports bold leaders from all over the world who see possibility in the face of the most existential challenges of our day. Together, they strive to build a world that has yet to exist: a future free from racism and its far-reaching consequences where all people can thrive.

This Fellowship is for people whose enterprises are at an early stage and who are experts on the challenge they’ve chosen to confront. They seek leaders who reflect the community they serve and bring deep knowledge of the issues into their work as they co-design solutions with and for their communities.

Benefits

Capacity Building

  • Leadership Development: A comprehensive programme to build and grow leadership skills and develop the strategies needed for ideas to thrive.
  • Wellness and Wellbeing Support: Ongoing support focuses on mental and emotional wellbeing along with self-care workshops designed specifically for the struggles of entrepreneurship.

Capital

  • Expert Resources: The programmes team facilitates the Fellow experience and connects these leaders to experts and opportunities according to their needs.
  • Seed Funding: A stipend over 18 months ($80,000 USD). Funding offered to for-profit organizations is in the form of recoverable grants.

Coommunity

  • Virtual and In-Person Convenings: Gatherings to connect Fellows within and across classes, regions, and communities to build strong ties among Fellows over their entrepreneurial journey.
  • Expert Support: A suite of pro-bono support from leading professionals to build organizational capacity and help navigate the social innovation field. Opportunities to connect with experienced business leaders committed to supporting positive social change globally.

Eligibility

Applicant Eligibility

  • Echoing Green Fellowship applicants must be 18 years or older by August 8, 2022.
  • To be eligible for the Fellowship and fully participate in programming and support offerings, you must be able to communicate in English proficiently. Support throughout the Echoing Green Fellowship is offered in English.
  • You cannot have assumed a leadership position within the organization after its founding. To be eligible, you must be a leader with decision-making power within the organization and be either a sole founder or a leading founder on a team of people who created the organization.
  • Applicants must be the primary decision maker and have the ultimate authority over your organization’s growth and strategic vision.
  • If selected for an Echoing Green Fellowship, you may hold other professional responsibilities, but you must work full time, defined here as 40 hours a week, on the work outlined in your Fellowship application, and it must remain as your main professional priority.

Organization Eligibility

  • Organizations that are independent but have fiscal sponsors are eligible for the Echoing Green Fellowship as long as the fiscal sponsor has no authority over the organization’s work and decision making.
  • To be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, you must be able to make and act on organizational decisions of your own choosing. If other organizations or entities manage or hold decision-making authority for your proposed organization, you may not be eligible. Organizations that are independent but have fiscal sponsors may be eligible as long as the fiscal sponsor has no authority over the organization’s work and decision making.
  • Echoing Green seeks applicants in need of funding to initiate or scale their organizations. They generally describe early-stage organizations or ideas as those that have operated with full-time staff for less than five years or still need resources to grow and sustain their operations.
  • Per the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, Echoing Green cannot distribute funds to organizations whose primary purpose is lobbying.
  • The organization cannot engage in recruitment, promotion, or conversion for a specific religious faith to your constituency.
  • For you and your organization to be eligible for an Echoing Green Fellowship, no founding team members and no people in a leadership position can be an Echoing Green Fellow.

Application

Below is an outline of information you’ll be asked to provide in the Echoing Green Fellowship application:

  • General information about you
  • Information about your organization including but not limited to: general overview, financial overview, and how you think about and categorize your work
  • A series of short answer questions asking about your leadership, work, and the organization you are building.
  • A collaborative analysis where you will be asked to identify other organizations similar to yours and how you might work with them toward shared goals.
  • A resume that should demonstrate your qualifications
  • You will be asked to upload a 60-second video answering the question “Why do you do what you do” while sharing your personality, energy, and passion.

Click here to apply

For more information, visit Echoing Green Fellowship.