by ODINAKA ANUDU
A Nigerian firm has set up a donation- based crowdfunding website to raise funds in the form of grants for start-ups, micro, small and medium enterprises in Nigeria and beyond.
The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation is set to officially launch www.fundanenterprise.org through which start-ups can access funds. The launch will take place in Lagos on 22 November.
MSME Crowd Funding Foundation is a new not-for-profit organisation in Nigeria aiming to provide relief to start-ups, small and growing businesses while changing the way Nigerians and the world support business operations.
“Given the imbalance in the Nigerian economy, and its recent rating as the poorest country in the world, it is high time individuals and groups joined hands together to make our economy work again. It is high time we began to support one another in every littlest way in order to expunge the poverty index and make our economy great again,” Vivian Chigozie-Nmonwu, trustee, MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, said.
Crowdfunding is an art of raising funds from a large number and spread of people all over the world, majorly through a website. It is a globally accepted financing method, practised as a much easier alternative to traditional fund raising through the capital markets and other financial institutions.
“The MSME Crowd Funding Foundation, Nigeria believes that by bringing this practice of crowdfunding for enterprises closer home, Nigerians can benefit from the much needed ease of funding / financial support for their personal and group enterprises,” Chigozie-Nmonwu said.
The mandate of MSME Crowd Funding Foundation is to help build thriving enterprises through skills training, crowd funding and handholding/ monitoring of enterprises.
“The Foundation provides its enterprise community members with the necessary financial and soft skills training to start, manage and grow their businesses. Most importantly, the Foundation works with intending start-ups to develop a business plan that is realistic and practicable,” she said.
“A compulsory one-year hand holding support is put in place to assist enterprises who are beneficiaries of grants or backers’ grants fromwww.fundanenterprise.org to put a proper legal and operational structure around their new businesses. Existing businesses are also offered the same business process improvement to ensure that they henceforth grow more, generate their own funding needs and also assist other start-up and struggling enterprises with donations.”
Chigozie-Nmonwu,,,,, a business consultant, said the Foundation targets to help the country and the world in many ways.
“People who love to engage in philanthropic activities (both in and outside the country) can now help build enterprises and change lives very easily by donating to enterprise building on www.fundanenterprise.org,” she disclosed.
