PROGRAM OVERVIEW

With the impacts of COVID-19 disproportionately impacting the Black-led businessmen , CILAR recognizes the importance of responding to urgent community needs, while taking a long-term approach to putting together pathways to greater business sustainability. CILAR and its partners, Pitch Better and Black Opportunity Fund will provide cash grants in response to the continued impacts of COVID-19 on Canada’s Black-led businessmen .

Black-led businesses in Canada who are driving innovation in their businesses are going to be granted between $2,500 to $10,000. For eligibility criteria, see the eligibility criteria below.

This grant program is formed possible because of the contribution of Facebook Canada to CILAR. We warmly invite members et al. to hitch us on this journey to support the Black-led businessmen , as we work towards building additional, sustainable pathways to the innovation economy through network and revenue opportunities.

Apply Now →
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Our Partners and Why

www.blackopportunityfund.ca
Black Opportunity Fund

Black Opportunity Fund (BOF) seeks to determine a sustainable pool of capital to support economic and social empowerment for Black Canadians to assist disrupt the impact of systemic anti-Black racism. BOF fulfills this mandate by:

providing multi-year funding to initiatives that impact the standard of life for Black communities
facilitating access to capital for Black businesses, to drive economic empowerment
BOF is committed to dismantling the barriers to opportunity facing Black community members, including a commitment to make sure gender parity.

BOF works to launch its granting and lending programs later this year and has partnered with CILAR and Pitch Better on this exciting program to bring much needed support to Black led businesses who are experiencing disproportionate impacts thanks to the pandemic.

www.pitchbetter.ca
Pitch Better

Frustrated by the shortage of support for Black founders start-ups within the Canadian business eco-system, minimal support from incubators/accelerators and other localized innovation platforms, Pitch Better works to deal with data gap issues and therefore the lack of market information available for diverse and specifically Black-led / Black-serving women’s organizations in Canada. Since 2019, we’ve offered support to over 700 Canadian companies and helped almost 10% of our community access funding.

We are pleased to partner with CILAR and BOF on this undertaking to really ignite change by financially supporting Black women led businesses as we move through and beyond the impact of the COVID 19 pandemic.

Funding provided by Facebook Canada

Program Timelines
Jul. 23
2021

Application Launch Date: July 23, 2021

Aug. 20
2021

Applications Close:
August 20, 2021

Sep. 20
2021

Grant Recipient
Notification Date:
September 20, 2021

Eligibility Criteria
Through this fund, support are going to be provided to support as many Black-led businesses as possible. Support ranges from $2,500 to $10,000. Our goal is to supply capital resources needed to support your business through the continued impacts of the pandemic. We respect the challenges the Black-led businessmen has faced and aim to make sure the appliance process is straightforward , transparent and easy .

In order to use , applicants must:

Be a corporation that’s Black-owned and/or Black-led – this suggests that the bulk of your owners and/or leadership team identify as Black
Be a registered Canadian business with a legitimate business license number
Share how the impacts of COVID have impacted your business
Provide an summary of how funds are going to be wont to help sustain your business through the pandemic (e.g., technology support, certifications, skilling, digitizing, etc.)
Submit a full and accurate application
Those ineligible to use include:

Registered charity or non-for-profit organizations
Organizations that display or have displayed insolvency
Have owners/directors that are undischarged or bankrupt
Organizations that aren’t majority Black-owned and/or Black-led
Public bodies performing a function of state in Canada
Organizations that don’t suits applicable anti-corruption laws and regulations
Organizations involved within the sponsoring or administering of the grant program (e.g., members of the choice committee)
Employees or immediate relations of the choice committee and anyone otherwise connected with administering the program
If you’ve got additional questions on your eligibility, please contact: inquiries@cilar.ca.

Selection Process
In efforts to make sure a good and equitable process, selection and assessment of applicants will occur together with CILAR’s selected partners, as follows:

CILAR will facilitate the appliance process
Based on applicants self-selected community partner – Black Opportunity Fund or Pitch Better – applications are going to be distributed to the respective selection committee
Black Opportunity Fund and Pitch Better will conduct the assessment and selection process supported the Assessment Rubric (below)
Black Opportunity Fund and Pitch Better will distribute the awarded funds supported their respective assessment and selection processes
Black Opportunity Fund and Pitch Better will inform all applicants of the choices
CILAR will facilitate the chance to participate in future programs led by CILAR, Pitch Better and/or Black Opportunity Fund
Participant Notification Method: Via email address provided within the application

Contact Information:

CILAR: opportunities@cilar.ca

Pitch Better: info@pitchbetter.ca

Black Opportunity Fund: info@blackopportunityfund.org

Assessment Rubric
For transparency and clarity, we are providing some information on how your application are going to be evaluated. Evaluations will include the three steps noted also because the Assessment Rubric included below

CILAR, BOF and Pitch Better will remove duplicate applications and/or applications from charities and NFPs (see eligibility criteria)
Each partner will complete their own adjudication process using an equivalent Assessment Rubric
Review committees are pan-Canadian
Assessment Component

Impact the pandemic has had on your business

Level of Innovation to the business, sector or industry

Impact of your Business (e.g. jobs created, building wealth for underrepresented communities, etc…)

Level of impact to support continued operations or scale of your business

What is the market opportunity for your business

2019, 2020 vs year-to-date financials

Expected use of Funds

More Details And Application HERE
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CCN

Kehinde Abiola have been a certified Google digital marketer, a pro blogger and a KICK-ASS Freelance Wizard for years. He’s on a mission to help individual make sustainable income doing legitimate works online and business owner improve their profit making. He’s the publisher and team lead at CCN. He’s the author of different training material at notable places including CCN. He’s the Web manager [Adim] and content producer at SOJWORLDNEWS to mention a few.