The Charity Entrepreneurship Incubation Program (CEIP) is well known for having a twist on the traditional incubation model – we provide our participants with top shovel-ready ideas we think are ready to start work on and are promising (see our research here). However, we remain open to the occasional top idea or organization that wishes to be incubated by us – this is how we managed to support excellent ventures such as HealthLearn, Lafiya Nigeria, Taimaka, Vida Plena, and several others.
This short article goes into more detail about what we often look for in applications coming in with ideas from participants, or even early-stage organizations.
When should you apply with your idea or project?
The CEIP accepts applications from both:
Applicants that have their own idea, which they have considered and explored but not put in motion yet.
Early-stage nonprofits (under four years old).
We are particularly excited about earlier versions of the latter - founders who have executed initial scoping or proof of concept work and are looking for support in building a scalable organisation from here.
Applying with your own idea or project makes sense if you meet at least two of the following criteria – we think that the more of these you meet, the likelier it is that our program can help you. These are listed in order of importance for program fit:
You need a co-founder and hope to find someone through the CEIP
Your organization is at a pivotal point, such as considering options to scale up or different strategies to focus on
You wish to skill up in decision-making, organizational management, and strategy
You have a great idea for an organization doing impactful work but don’t know where to start
We only want to accept projects or ideas we think we can do great work with and be of value to. We, therefore have a few notes on what we think is a bad fit:
You are looking for funding as a main priority. Instead, consider sending an application to funders or our philanthropic circles.
Your organization is over four years old.
You are very convinced about how your idea should work and are not interested in co-designing or changing aspects of the intervention.
Your project is in an area we are unlikely to work in - historically, we have worked in Global Health and Development and Animal Welfare.
To avoid doubt, we are highly likely to reject applications that fit the above.
What are we looking for?
Put simply, we like cost-effective, evidenced, neglected, and scalable solutions to problems affecting human and non-human beings. We want to start the most bang-for-buck impactful organizations, which scale to become field–leaders and norm settings for what impactful, responsible, and sustainable non-profit work looks like.
When we review an application that includes an idea or project, we also consider the applicant’s personal fit to start a non-profit organization and their qualities as founders. More on this can be found elsewhere on our site.
Our research process and team work to identify and stress-test ideas. After each research round, we recommend a few— the idea or project you apply with must be on equal footing with those we recommend. Put more simply, in your application materials, we encourage you to evaluate and communicate to us how the idea or project does on the following criteria:
Cost-effectiveness: To be recommended, a non-profit intervention must be expected to beat a certain bar for impact. For Global Health and Development ideas, the historical bar for cost-effectiveness has mostly been below USD 60 per consumption doubling or USD 150 per Disability Adjusted Life Year (DALY) – the more cost-effective below that bar, the better. For Animal Welfare ideas, the bar is over 30 Suffering Adjusted Days (SADs) averted per USD. To have the highest chances of being recommended, you can accompany your application with a quantitative model detailing the level of cost-effectiveness of your idea or project.
Maximal impact: We aim to maximize the expected value of the potential non-profits we can start; this involves balancing cost-effectiveness considerations with others, such as the potential scale of the intervention (e.g., the number of people a non-profit could reach to treat a certain illness).
Well-evidenced: A non-profit intervention idea must have robust evidence to support it. You should be able to provide us with robust studies demonstrating effectiveness and/or strong theoretical arguments for why your idea works (if there is no effectiveness evidence yet).
Strong Theory of Change (ToC): We favor clear and concise ToCs with few speculative assumptions and a rational connection from inputs to impact. To give your application the best chance of success, consider and report your ToC.
Clear additionality: We recommend non-profit ideas when we have identified a clear role and space they would fill within their ecosystem and, most importantly, would lead to counterfactual impact by not duplicating efforts. This means you should tell us where you are considering working and why you think your work is neglected.
Risk: As a default, we are very risk averse when risking harm against service users, meaning we will likely decline to recommend non-profits with ambiguity about potential harm to service users. We also consider the security risk of working in volatile or unsafe environments and prefer non-profit intervention ideas offering safer work environments.
When you apply, consider the following advice
Tell us explicitly which of the criteria above your idea and project is strongest at and which ones it is weaker in - we do not expect ideas or projects to be 10 points out of 10 on every criteria
Show us your working - we love digging into spreadsheets and analysis. The strongest applications have often shown us their analysis and provided us with an opportunity to audit it
Don’t duplicate work - if you have material that more or less fits the questions we are asking, feel free to copy it over or link to it (following proper attribution and transparency norms)
Tell us what you are uncertain about, what you need help thinking through, and what you are most certain about
Discuss your motivation for joining the program and make it clear what you think you or your project will gain from incubation