Can you design a new business or NGO that delivers a proven poverty intervention at scale?
Submit your design for a new organization that solves one of our Proven poverty Distribution Challenges below.
- Health
- Water
- Education
- Agriculture
- Livelihoods
- Energy
- Public services
- Custom
We will award the most promising teams with up to $20,000 USD to launch their new organization wherever extreme poverty exists
Who We Are
Since 2013, D-Prize has used seed support to help activate more than 200 social ventures and NGOs. Every six months 1700+ teams apply to our global competition, and about 1-1.5% are selected for startup support.
Ventures we support consistently achieve early-stage scale. 13% have grown to serve at least 100K people within their first five years, or are on track to reach this milestone. Cumulatively the network has delivered more than a dozen proven poverty interventions and reached 5.3M people.
Our marginal impact comes from helping new leaders build organizations that we believe otherwise wouldn’t find support. 80% of ventures we award have raised less than $5K when we partner. We support talented people from across the globe, but especially target leaders operating in their home geography. 90% of the ventures we support have founders local to a developing region. 40% are female-founded.
Why we do it
The world has already invented products and services to end poverty. Yet we have found many proven interventions with large delivery gaps. Millions of people still don’t have access to basic poverty-fighting tools.
Who Can Apply?
- D-Prize is for aspiring entrepreneurs from anywhere in the world, of any age, and any background. The majority of our awardees have not launched nor raised any funding.
- We will consider funding existing organizations only if you are distributing an existing intervention and you have a need for high-risk capital that cannot be supported by your current donors or revenue.
- Existing organizations applying to D-Prize should have operated for no more than 18 months and raised no more than $30,000 in outside funding.
- We apologize, but at this time we are only able to evaluate applications submitted in English. However, your English does not need to be perfect to apply, and grammar and vocabulary errors will not be penalized. We only want to understand your idea.
- Round 1 Submit your concept note and resume(s). We generally receive 1700 submissions per competition.
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Round 2 Top 5% of entrepreneurs are invited to answer short written questions. You will have two weeks to draft and submit.
- Final Round Top entrepreneurs interview via phone and email. The top 1% will receive up to $20,000 to launch.
- Launch You will spend the next three months using your talent to start a venture that can grow and help millions of people.
Dates To Look Out For
Select a challenge above and be prepared for the following deadlines:
The Global Competition launches on September 5, 2022.
Early Submission Deadline: October 16, 2022 at midnight PT (pacific time)
Regular Submission Deadline: November 6, 2022 at midnight PT (pacific time)
Extension Deadline: November 27, 2022 at midnight PT (pacific time)
Download Application form here
