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No fewer than 7,000 applicants are seeking a share of N13million Grooming Endowment Trust (GET) Compass grant to grow their businesses such as education, health and social entrepreneurship and others.
Entry for the 5th edition has opened and would close on August 20th while the award ceremony is scheduled for October.
According to organizers of the Get Compass grant, five beneficiaries would go home with N2 million each while ten others would receive N300,000 each.
The Chief Operating Officer, Centre for Research in Enterprise and Action (CREM), Mr. Clifford Onyeike explained that the centre would not determine the beneficiaries, stressing the technical committee would decide the fate of the best business entrepreneur.
Onyeike said three technical committee members would advise the beneficiaries how to run their businesses, keep records, monthly sales transactions and tax returns.
On education and health, Onyeike disclosed that the beneficiaries can use the grant to run their schools.
The CREM COO said figures from the National Bureau of Statistics on MSMEs support the GET Compass initiative and appealed to other stakeholders to look into the area, which he described as the engineer of the nation’s economy.
Onyeike said apart from the technical committee assessing the proposals, they will submit a list of selected beneficiaries, grade the entries, serve as judge during pitching and meet with CREM for clarification on any issues
At the unveiling of the 5th edition of Get Compass, the Senior Operations Associate, Mr. Chike Ugwu, said over 7,000 persons have submitted their proposals for the grants.
Ugwu disclosed that the total beneficiaries since inception of the GET Compass stood at 60 and grant awarded in the last four years is N50.5million.
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In his presentation, the Project Officer of GET Compass, Mr. Kenechukwu Ohaeri, said the initiative would provide grants to people involved in education, health, social entrepreneurship, humanitarian works and enterprise and community development worth N13million.
According to him, the business should be above three years, registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), applicants must be above 18 years, ready to attend a business clinic and send business proposals.
He confirmed that over 7,000 applications have been received, adding, the TC will screen and select the best 100 and reduce the number to 15 in which five beneficiaries would get N2 million each and the remaining ten go home with N300,000 each.
Ohari disclosed that the technical committee, which is independent of CREM would screen the submitted proposals and shortlist the best 100 proposals.
He explained that from the 100, the committee, made up of seasoned experts in the startup business, Dr. Joseph Mfon, Dr. Chinyere Nnabugwu and Noela Nwakwo, would further shortlist the number to 15 best entries.
According to him, five beneficiaries will emerge and home with N2 million grant each and the remaining ten contestants get N300,000 each.
Ohaeri explained that the GET Compass grant is focused on empowering startup MSMEs, meant to provide financial support and relevant skills to business owners to scale up.
Ohaeri listed the conditions to include applicants who must be 18 years old, business must be a maximum of three years in operation, founder must be available to attend two weeks business clinic in Lagos, business must be registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), owner must be a Nigerian, have a viable business and have an impact story.
He disclosed that the top five beneficiaries will go home with N2million and N300,000 as consolation prizes for the ten beneficiaries.
Mfon, one of the judges pledged that the committee would handle the assignment based on the stated guidelines.
