Acceleration Portfolio

“All that the Father gives to me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away.”

JOHN 6:37

In 2021 we launched the Acceleration Portfolio to increase our impact. The Foundation’s typical funding criteria – scalable, high leverage organizations, with budgets between $500k and $5M+ per year – meant we were missing the opportunity to partner with exceptional smaller organizations.

Through the Acceleration Portfolio, we invest in African nonprofit organizations that have annual budgets under $300,000 working in one of our four priority sectors: health, livelihoods, justice, and education. They have the opportunity to work with Mighty Ally through communications and strategy workshops and one-on-one coaching.

Our goal in launching the Acceleration Portfolio is to partner with high-potential organizations through unrestricted grants and support beyond the grant – to grow their impact, focus their programs, hone their message, and expand their funding base. Hopefully, some of these organizations will also move into our Scale Portfolio over time.

The 2023 application cycle is currently closed and in process for the 2023 Cohort - look for another open call in spring 2024!

2023 APPLICATION CYCLE

First-round applications for the 2023 Acceleration Cohort are now closed.

We are looking for prospective partners who:

  • are locally-led, African, nonprofit organizations

  • have been in operation for at least 2 years

  • are officially registered in their country(ies) of operation

  • have an annual budget under $300,000 to <500,000 USD (note: best-fit orgs are likely to have budgets over $100,000)

  • have an official Board of Directors or Trustees

  • have leadership (or a whole team) who are fluent enough in English to participate in capacity-building workshops (Unfortunately, we are only able to offer our capacity building workshops and coaching in English at this time.)

As an overview of our process, the Acceleration Portfolio conducts an “open call” for our first round of applicants during which any eligible organization can apply. From this pool of submissions, our team selects a limited number of finalist applicants who are asked to submit a second-round application and complete a brief interview with one of our team members later in the summer. Final offers of acceptance into the portfolio are made after that stage.

Timeline for the 2023 application cycle:

  • 22 May to 30 June: Application window open for Round One submissions

  • mid to late July: Finalist applicants notified to submit their second-round application

  • late July to mid August: Interviews conducted and Second-round applications due for finalist organizations

  • late August/early September: Final chosen 2023 cohort organizations notified & program year begins

Some additional notes on our selection criteria & process for the Acceleration Portfolio:

  • Read additional details on the grants and capacity building aims for this portfolio, and some FAQs here.

  • This portfolio is focused on strategic capacity building, and thus the strongest applications will be coming from an organization’s leader.

  • Due to the volume of applicants, we unfortunately will not be able to provide individual feedback on applications or reasons for decline.