CALL FOR PROPOSAL
for microfinance practitioners and organizations supporting microfinance
The Regional Foundation for Enterprise Promotion for the Town of Székesfehérvár
(®Fejér Enterprise Agency – ®FEA), Hungary
consortium leader of the Hungarian Microfinance Network,
consortium leader of the FEA Group Hungary,
lead partner of the international Access To Microfinance for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Interreg Europe project
is launching a call for proposals for microfinance practitioners and organizations supporting microfinance in the field of INTERNATIONAL GOOD PRACTICES IN MICROFINANCE, in the following categories:
- Technological innovation in microcredit (digitalisation)
- Financing innovation
- Outstanding social performance
The purpose of the call for proposals is to provide a platform for microfinance institutions and donors, who place social goals above financial goals, to present their good practices. The goal is to learn from one another and, in doing so, to help and strengthen each other and all those who wish to participate in this activity selflessly to help others, wherever they are in the world.
DETAILS
The application is open to non-profit microfinance institutions and non-profit organizations supporting (financing) microfinance or donors that can demonstrate that their microfinance activities have a proven social impact.
Eligible applicants:
Microfinance practitioners: ANY legal entity that performs practical microlending or other microfinance activity, which can demonstrate that the positive social impact of its activities takes precedence over for-profit aspects. It uses its income from microfinance to fund the scheme (it does not pay dividends).
Organisations supporting microfinance: ANY legal entity (e.g. local government, bank or company) or private individual that does not expect financial benefits for the support of microfinance provided thereby. It provides support to achieve positive social goals, that is, to be able to improve the living conditions of disadvantaged people by helping them to gain income from self-employment through microfinance.
The applicant may submit an application in more categories!
Territorial scope: there is no territorial scope, in other words, applications may be submitted from any country in the world
Deadline for submission: 31 March 2021
Address for submission: info@microfinancecommunity.com, applications must be submitted in electronic form.
Pre-registration:
Deadline for pre-registration: 25 March 2021. Pre-registration does not involve any obligation to submit an application.
FORM AND CONTENT REQUIREMENTS OF THE APPLICATION
Language of the application: English
Content of the application:
Upon pre-registration, the application must be sent in electronic files in the following forms to the info@microfinancecommunity.com email address. (technical information will be defined later)
- A video of a maximum of 3 minutes (FULL HD quality, landscape, mp4 file), containing the introduction of the applicant;
- A video of a maximum of 5 minutes (FULL HD quality, landscape, mp4 file), presenting the project with which the applicant intends to apply.
- The application documentation according to the downloadable form and its annexes must be attached in scanned form as pdf files.
The first characters of each file name must contain the identification code received during pre-registration (for example “EU2105-12_goodpractice.mp4”).
Content requirements:
3-minute video introducing the applicant:
- organization – applicant (name, year of establishment, legal form, non-profit status, purpose of establishment, founders, initial capital)
- mission
- operation (activities, products, financing of activities, size of funding needs per annum)
- key people
5-minute video introducing the project:
- name of the project
- Names of the organizations (including the applicant) implementing the project
- The social impact of the project with quantified data
- Creation of the project (goals, circumstances, organizations)
- Operation and implementation of the project
- How it is ensured that the social goals prevail over profit-making objectives during the operation
- Innovative elements of the project
- How the project can be adapted
- Why the project is recommended to be adapted by others, what results can be expected by those who adapt it.
- Presentation of at least three clients as reference (clients talk about in what way the project has improved their lives)
Application documentation and its annexes:
The application documentation must be completed in accordance with the explanatory notes of the form to be completed. (The form will be available later.)
Main evaluation criteria
- the presented good practice sets a good example: the extent to which the aspect of positive social impact takes precedence over profit,
- the extent of positive social impact presented,
- adaptability of the presented good practice,
- innovativeness of the good practice presented,
- the complexity of the good practice presented (combined use of financing, training and business development services).
Evaluation committee
FEA set up an international evaluation committee to evaluate the applications, which consists of the following persons:
Chairman of the committee:
Tibor SZEKFÜ, president of the Hungarian Microfinance Network, managing director of the Regional Foundation of Enterprise Promotion for the Town of Székesfehérvár; university lecturer, Hungary
Members:
Péter VONNÁK, vice-president of the Hungarian Microfinance Network, managing director of Veszprém County Enterprise Promotion Foundation; university lecturer, Hungary
Jaime DURÁN NAVARRO, honorary president of the Asociación Espanola de Microfinanzas (AEM), university lecturer, Spain
Esther PUERTAS CRISTOBAL, Vice President for Internationalization, Office for International Cooperation, University of Cádiz, Spain
Giampietro PIZZO, president of Rete Italiana di Microfinanza (RITMI), Italy
Joerg SCHOOLMANN, Deutsches Mikrofinanz Institut (DMI), member of the Board of Directors, Germany
Unni Beate SEKKESÆTER, president of Microfinance Norway, Norway;
Jorge RAMIREZ PUERTO, general director of the European Microfinance Network, Spain
Announcement of results: to be announced later
The winning applicants selected by the Evaluation Committee will receive an honorary certificate, and the good practices will be presented on the international websites www.microfinancegoodpractices.com and www.microfinancecommunity.com.
Prizes offered by other donors are possible.