Applications For 30K Stipend to Pursue Social Entrepreneurship Open

(KNSI) – An organization will award $30,000 a year for the next two years to eight people to develop them into leaders and social entrepreneurs. 

The Initiators Fellowship, launched by the Initiative Foundation in 2017, begins taking applications on Monday.

Program Manager Chris Fastner explained what social entrepreneurship is.

“It’s a business that has both a profit motive and a purpose motive. It’s a business that has a mission. A social mission of some sort or an environmental mission of some sort. And, you know, is trying to make a profit, or at least support itself.” 

He says the $30,000 is intended to help the recipients pursue any idea they want, even if it means possibly dialing down their full-time work. The stipend helps with living expenses and training expenses to get their plan off the ground.

“People who are selected as fellows make a commitment to working on their social enterprise in this program, for average, at least 20 hours a week, for those two years. And that that $30,000 stipend is really intended to kind of help people have the bandwidth.” 

Fastner described the kind of people they look to support with this Fellowship.

“We refer to them as community sparkplugs, but they’re catalysts. They’re people who can get things done, the movers and shakers. And so that’s the kind of the foundation of what this Fellowship is about. And we do it sort of through the vehicle of social entrepreneurship. We’re looking for social entrepreneurs in their earliest stages, you know, five years or less.” 

Applications will be accepted in a 53 county area of Central and Western Minnesota, including Stearns, Benton, Sherburne, Wright, and Morrison County. 

Fastner says the Fellowship tries to pick people they feel will make a significant positive difference in their communities.

“We know these people are out there working in their small towns all across Greater Minnesota, you know, how do you do community building that is welcoming to all, and supportive of kind of thriving prosperous communities.”

Fellowship winners get expert training, an executive mentor, professional coaching, connections to small business consultants, and a vast network of resource connections.

Learn more about the program at initiators@ifound.org or (320) 631-2019. Click here for an application.