Projects
Investment in micro, small and medium enterprises
03 November 2011The SAB Foundation invests in micro, small and medium businesses through grant capital investment in partnership with Endeavor; ‘benevolent’ private equity capital investment and a business support fund providing grassroots support to non-profit organisations, co-operatives and micro-businesses.
The SAB Foundation invests in micro, small and medium enterprises through a variety of different approaches.
1. Grant capital investment
The SAB Foundation provides support and financial assistance to high-impact, black-owned businesses. This is achieved through its partnership with Endeavor, a non-profit organisation dedicated to transforming emerging markets by establishing high-impact entrepreneurship as the leading force for sustainable economic development.
2. “Benevolent private-equity” capital investment
The SAB Foundation works as a ‘benevolent private-equity fund’, investing in small to medium-sized businesses with high potential, in a combination of debt and equity depending on the businesses’ needs. These businesses qualify by being black-owned and managed, and they also need to show potential to innovate and the potential to grow or be scalable.
3. Business Support Fund
The SAB Foundation manages a small-scale grassroots support for non-profits, co-ops, micro-businesses and other ventures which invest in entrepreneurial development and provide income generation and employment. Focus is on co-ops, and rural, women-owned and youth-owned enterprises.
The first project this has benefited is a co-operative set up with women in the Taung area, which works off a community glass collection and recycling project. The women produce beautiful hand-crafted glass objects from the glass which is smelted down in kilns and made into glass platters, coasters and glass-beaded items such as salad servers.
