Hey
Happy New Year!
Despite the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, our community of queer womxn entrepreneurs showed great resilience throughout 2020. We wanted to give you a little update on our goal to Coach 30 African queer womxn founder and fund 5 project last year.
In 2020, 29 queer womxn entrepreneurs experienced an improved version of the Startups Pitch Challenge program over a 7-weeks. The top 5 successful participants were then selected by an audited selection committee to pitch for business funding at our final QWB+Allies Demo Day Event which took place virtually on the 28th of November 2020.
"The 2020 Startups Pitch Challenge has been a life-changing experience that has helped me think more strategically about my business. I was exposed to a number of highly experienced individuals and the experience made it easier for me to implement high thinking concepts into the business." - Tshepiso Sibisi, founder of Mwari Pizza House, the 2020 winner of the Startups Pitch Challenge.
Mwari Pizza House is South Africa’s fastest township-based growing pizza brand delivering quality service by living up to its tagline, “Taste the Fresh Creation”.
Last year we recruited a more diverse group of founders and businesses, with 45% of the businesses being at idea/registration stage and 55% at pre-seed stage with a 97% completion rate.
The team at QWB+Allies will like to express our heartfelt gratitude to you for your support in 2020!
Keep Well and Stay Safe.
QWB+Allies Team
Guess what? We did it together!
Nothing excites us more than seeing queer owned businesses doing amazing things and thriving! We are thrilled to update you on what the team at Neferu Natural Hair Care, our 2019 Startups Pitch Challenge winners, have been up to.
Remember that generous donation you made towards our campaign last year? It has certanly made an impact on Neferu's business, specifically during the global pandemic. Through our monthly mentorship and their sheer brilliance, they have remained resilient and innovative to keep their business afloat during this time. We will not spend too much more time on this email telling you about it, have a look at their new website and see what Tumi and Ru have to say about their business:
https://www.neferuhaircare.co.za/
THANK YOU for choosing to help us accelerate 60 queer womxn-owned businesses!
Remember, $100 (ZAR1,700) goes a long way to ensuring that a business owner gets one on one business mentoring and resource support. Don't have $100 to give? You can always start with as little as $20 (ZAR350)!
You're amazing!
Keep well and stay safe,
Kebone, Siya and Jocelyn
AKA, The Chief Queer Women in Business
Links:
You’re probably wondering who Neferu is right?
Neferu Natural Hair Care is our 2019 Startups Pitch Challenge winner! That’s right, the startup that you provided coaching and funding for! Thanks to your generous giving, two amazing queer womxn cofounders, Gloria and Ned, walked away with funding for their business and a years’ worth of mentorship.
Thank you to our Inspiring Fifty mentors for giving our entrepreneurs their time!
In 2019, we coached 30 queer womxn-owned businesses and we are excited to coach 30 more this year! Please see the attached one pager for a project summary.
Best Wishes,
The Chief Queer Women in Business
Ps: our program was featured in Ventureburn! See the story here: https://ventureburn.com/2019/10/qwba-startups-pitch-challenge/
Links:
Hi there,
We hope that you are well!
GlobalGiving has politey given us a deadline to write a report regarding our fundraiser.
We are currently wrapping up the year and will be sharing the exciting news about progress on the Startups Pitch Challenge in the coming week in line with our final annual report. We are thrilled that all of the startups that applied to the program were able to receive two weeks worth of business development training from top experts, seasoned entrepreneurs and investors in our network!
So, this is just a note to say THANK YOU for your support this year and that we will be in touch soon!
Best,
The QWB+A Team
Dear Valued Donor,
We hope that you are well! This is a just a short update on our project progress thus far. A more detailed update will follow in the month to come.
We are thrilled that our application process for the QWB+A Startups Pitch Challenge is finally open. It seems our entrepreneurs have been eager to apply since we already have applications rolling in. We have also worked hard to secure some talented coaches for the online accelerator that will take place 4th - 15th November.
Some of our coaches are:
Ellen Fischat - A successful serial entrepreneur, currently founder of Story Room, previously named one of the top 50 women in tech by Inspiring50!
Sivuyise Nomana - A Marketing and Communications specialist who runs an accelerator at the top graduate school in Africa, the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.
Malvin Nkomo PhD - Founder of Hailer Technologies, a thriving South African comptetitor to Uber. Malvin is also a Data Science lecturer.
We will be sharing more about our coaches and the online business development program soon! If you would like to get involved in any way, please do not hesitate to contact our CEO, Kebone Moloko on: kebonemoloko@qwballies.com.
Global Giving also gives us an opportunity to receive a monthly donation from our donor community. This gives us the opportunity to sustain the day to day runnings of our programs. If this is something you would like to commit to, please do not hesitate to let Kebone know.
Once again, we appreciate your generous contribution to our program! Have a great week ahead!
Best Wishes,
The Chief Queer Women in Business
Kebone, Siyabonya and Gaopaleloe
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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