We began yher with the aim of creating a more feminine approach to accelerating social impact businesses and an equal platform. One that provides a welcoming space for women to come together, inspire each other, and most importantly address the unique challenges female entrepreneurs face.

The facts:

• Globally less than 3% of VC funding goes to women led businesses.
• 94% of decision makers at VC firms are men.
• Of 131 corporate accelerator programs, 87% are run by men.
• Women do 2.6 times more unpaid care and domestic work than men.

We aren’t just talking about these statistics, we are doing something about them.

So far we’ve supported 63 female led social ventures across Africa, the Pacific and Bangladesh.

In 2019, we are excited to be expanding our Bangladesh program to South Asia – and to introduce an improved support program including access to small grants, financial advice and mentorship, as well as exciting perks and support from our partners.

Right now, we are looking for the next cohort of 15 of the highest potential female entrepreneurs with a game-changing venture to participate in our yher Pacific Program.

Our Vision is a world where male and female founders have an equal platform to launch and grow their social ventures.

The First Gens Showcase event was held at the Immigration Museum earlier this month. It was a full house of support for these outstanding individuals who have come to the graduation moment of a challenging, transformative three month training program.

We are offering an opportunity for the next group of ambitious, game-changing impact ventures led by migrants and refugees in Australia to participate in our third ygap First Gens Program.

The First Gens initiative supports migrant and refugee led social impact ventures that are improving the lives of people living in disadvantage in Australia. Successful applicants participate in an award-winning accelerator week, have access to a range of tailored support and have the opportunity to pitch for up to $25,000 in funding.

Applications close on the 28th of April and the accelerator kicks off on the 10th of June.

Last year over 15K people were a part of a powerful movement of men and women who polished up, stood up and said ‘no’ to violence against children.  We’re so delighted to share with you the record-breaking success of the 2018 campaign that raised $1.7m.

ygap are leading the development of a Gender Lens Incubation and Acceleration (GLIA) Toolkit as part of our partnership with Frontier Incubators, by working with over 45 global partners to understand best practices. We have developed over 80 highly practical and applicable strategies for intermediaries to apply across their organisation, program and ecosystem. We can’t wait to share this with you and, importantly, apply it formally to our work.

It was with great honour that we were invited by Matthew Boyd, CEO and founder of Vollie, to speak at the Social Impact Forum Rotary Event on the topic of how we are leading the discussion of gender inequality and inequity in the social impact space. The point we emphasised was: if we really believe in creating deep and effective sustainable impact, then we must make gender equality a top priority. Issues and statistics around this can be confronting, but by not addressing these we will cause further harm, not only to individuals but social impact itself.

We had the opportunity to speak at the Vic Forum Event, by Polaron, about how ygap has a deliberate approach to designing and delivering our program so it is understood by entrepreneurs from non-english speaking backgrounds.

In Australia, we speak over 300 languages, practise over 100 religions and are the product of a unique blend of established traditions and new influences.

Literacy in entrepreneurship is critical if entrepreneurs want to create effective change. This is particularly relevant in our work – we exist to support entrepreneurs, most who come from non-english speaking backgrounds.

We were invited to speak at a Salesforce event on the theme of Equality, titled “Women Empowerers”, with Div Pillay from Mind Tribes, Kim Anderson from SheEO and Jon Yeo from Tedx Melbourne.  

We discussed the power of supporting not only female entrepreneurs, but being deliberate about all genders, addressing intersectionality and what we are all doing to create an equal platform for the most marginalised in our community.

A big thanks to Salesforce for hosting an incredible panel and event.

ygap has developed an exciting partnership with the Global Innovation Exchange (GIE), who are offering our social entrepreneurs the opportunity to attend a conference for the United Nations at their Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) forum in New York!

All ygap entrepreneurs are automatically entered into the Call for Innovations, which asks for change agents worldwide to submit workable solutions addressing Sustainable Development Goals 4, 8, 10, 13, and 16. We are excited to provide another opportunity for international recognition to the ventures we support! The GIE partnership will allow our entrepreneurs to be connected to exciting events like the STI Forum, along with potential funders and donors looking to back innovative solutions to international development.

‘Harambee’ is Kenya’s official motto. In Swahili, it means “let’s all pull together” and is used to refer to moments where communities come together to accomplish something individuals couldn’t do alone.

Just like ygap, ENDA is all about Harambee.

ENDA was founded with a mission of bringing Kenyan athletic greatness to runners everywhere and fueling economic development in Kenya.  Their mission seemed impossible until a community of family, friends, strangers and ygap came together to help raise the initial funds needed to get their venture going.

Today, thanks to this support, they’re creating jobs, they’re giving portions of sales back to the community and they’re changing the way the world sees Kenya – by showcasing themselves as not only the experts at running, but also designing and manufacturing running shoes.

Today they need your support to launch their new game changing shoe, the ENDA Lapatet.

A $100 donation towards their Kickstarter will not only get you a pair of the sweet kicks, but also the pride of supporting this outstanding local Kenyan social impact venture.

• Launching our new segment focused accelerator, EVAC
  (A special prize for anyone that can guess what it stands for…)

• Receiving an influx of applications for First Gens and yher Pacific
  (Help us spread the word by forwarding on the email to anyone that might be interested)

• Announcing a brand new fundraising campaign!
  (Yes it’s time we raised some much needed funds to help expand access to our accelerator)

• Partnering up with a PR Agency to help us spread the word of our work
  (Currently on the lookout – help us out if you know anyone)
• The official launch of the GLIA – ready to transform the way we manage the topic of gender in the workplace!

I am first to admit that I was one of those people REALLY excited when I knew #FEARLESSGIRL was coming to Melbourne. For me, she represents who I strived to be my whole life (sometimes I succeeded, sometimes I failed) and who I continue to strive to be today. My kids were probably bored to death of me ranting about what she symbolised, but  my son got the pose down pat!