Impact Amplifier (IA) is inviting applications for its US$1million Africa Online Safety Fund (AOSF) project through the support of Google.org.
The fund will be awarding grants to organisations throughout Africa, with focus on four countries: Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa.
According to a statement from Impact Amplifier, the fund has three categories: transformative, maturing and catalytic. The transformative projects are intended to be larger in scale, reach multiple geographies and/ or potentially large numbers of beneficiaries.
The maturing class is intended to test ideas at a larger scale, try new ideas within existing projects, and reach new audiences. Catalytic projects are intended to be smaller, targetted, and potentially only locally or culturally specific.
Transformative projects will attract a maximum grant of US$50,000, maturing projects up to US$25,000, and catalytic, US$10,000.
Prospective applicants have between March 1, 2023 and April 30, 2023 to submit their applications. Shortlisted applicants will be announced by May 31, 2023, and taken through the second stage of the application process. The finalists will be known by July 15, 2023.
“This is the second call for applications for AOSF; the first one having been last year. In the first set of awards, a total of 26 organisations received grants through the programme. The successful applicants in that first cohort came from a wide range of countries – including the Ivory Coast, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
“In its second call for applications, IA is seeking applicants from a wide range of backgrounds, ranging from child-rights organisations and technology firms to human-rights advocates. The common thread in all applications is that they must have an innovative programme for dealing with online safety,” the statement noted.
The statement added that: “As countries, businesses and individuals become more dependent on digital technology, they also become more vulnerable to cyber threats. The African continent is a soft target for internet-related vulnerabilities, threats and attacks. Impact Amplifier created AOSF in order to craft a holistic approach to the problem of online safety in Africa”.
About Impact Amplifier
Founded in 2011, Impact Amplifier has its headquarters in Cape Town, South Africa, with offices in Johannesburg, South Africa and Lagos, Nigeria. It is a social impact-focused accelerator and capital advisory business – blending research, business development services and funding to scale commercially viable social enterprises in Africa.
IA creates sustained impact by: Providing acceleration, investment readiness, capital raising and bespoke business development services to post revenue in high impact businesses; Supporting larger companies to enhance and measure their social and/or environmental impact; and creating a range of research solutions at various scales to support the knowledge gaps in the impact investment ecosystem.
IA conducts two to three multinational ecosystem/impact assessment research projects per year, trains up to 60 social enterprises, accelerates 30 over a longer period, and works actively across eight to 10 grant/investment deals per annum. It supports a blend of catalytic grants, debt, and equity from a variety of grantors and investors. Currently, IA is working across 23 African countries.
