In every entrepreneurial ecosystem, there’s a moment when the spotlight drifts away from the founders on stage and lands, quietly, on the people in the back of the room — the ones who built the runway the founders are standing on.
Most people never notice that shift.
But if you work in this space long enough, you start to see it everywhere.
It happens in Nairobi when a young entrepreneur explains how she finally understood her unit economics. It wasn’t a masterclass that helped her, but an incubator'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. manager who sat with her for three evenings in a row, red pen in hand, refusing to let her give up.
It happens in Kampala when a climate-tech founder lands his first pilot because an incubator'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. director makes a phone call to a sceptical government agency and vouches for him.
It happens in Dar es Salaam, when a women-led enterprise survives a cash‑flow crisis because an accelerator quietly renegotiated a grant milestone to give them breathing room.
These moments never make headlines.
But they are the moments that make ecosystems work.
And they all have one thing in common:
An impact incubator'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. sitting at the centre, holding everything together.
We are the ones connecting the dots, but we’re treated like one of the dots.
The Invisible Infrastructure
For years, we’ve told a familiar story: entrepreneurs are the heroes, and everyone else is the supporting cast.
But the truth is more complicated and even more interesting.
Impact incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. are not a supporting cast member.
They are the infrastructure that enables entrepreneurship.
They are the ones who turn ambition into action, bring order to chaos, and turn ideas into businesses that create jobs, change norms, and strengthen communities. They understand the hard, often overlooked, and very human work of building something from scratch.
And yet, they are often the least resourced, least understood, and least strategically supported actors in the ecosystem.
This contradiction, this gap between importance and investment, is what the William Davidson Institute’s new report reveals.
I’d love to see an industry where entrepreneurs get the right type of support when they need it, where they need it. That requires specialized incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. and accelerators to coordinate over the lifespan (or at least the early years) of an entrepreneur – from idea to growth. That requires specialized financing (rather than the current bias towards VC) – not every entrepreneur wants to raise a million dollars, and they shouldn’t have to! That requires development institutions to stop ticking boxes, and look at incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. and accelerators as experts and partners on the journey, co-designing programs, rather than just treating them as “implementing partners.
A Mirror, a Map, and a Mandate
When WDI released Reimagining the Future of Enterprise Support Organisations in East Africa, it didn’t just publish a research product.
It held up a mirror to the ecosystem.
The report captures what many incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. have been whispering for years:
- “We are asked to do everything, but funded to do very little.”
- “We can’t specialise because the system doesn’t allow us to.”
- “We build trust, but trust takes time, and time is the one thing donors rarely fund.”
- “We are the ones connecting the dots, but we’re treated like one of the dots.”
But the report does more than name the problem.
It maps the way forward.
It shows what becomes possible when incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. are treated as the centre of gravity — not an afterthought.
It documents solutions already emerging across East Africa.
It highlights the enablers that make those solutions work.
And it invites funders and ecosystem builders to join the story, not just as observers, but as co-architects.
Because if incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. are the infrastructure, then funders and ecosystem builders are the engineers who decide whether that infrastructure can stand.
A Different Kind of Future
Imagine an ecosystem where incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. aren’t scrambling to survive, but are resourced to specialise, collaborate, and innovate.
Imagine funders who invest not just in programs, but in the organisations that deliver them — their talent, their systems, their culture, their long-term resilience.
Imagine ecosystem builders who design with incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact., not around them.
Imagine entrepreneurs who don’t have to navigate a maze of disconnected support, because the organisations guiding them are connected, aligned, and strong.
This isn’t a fantasy.
It’s already happening in small ways: in peer learning groups, in performance-linked financing pilots, in collaborative service models, and in networks that share rather than compete.
WDI’s report captures these early signals.
Pollinate Impact’s network is amplifying them.
And the ecosystem is beginning to shift.
Why This Story Matters Now
We are at a turning point.
The challenges entrepreneurs face, like climate shocks, limited capital, and market volatility, are too complex for any one group to solve alone. The ecosystem needs a centre—a stabilising force where knowledge, trust, and long-term commitment come together.
That centre is — and has always been — the impact incubator'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact..
But recognising that truth is not enough.
We have to act on it.
We have to invest in incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. as infrastructure.
We have to design funding that strengthens organisations, not just outputs.
We have to build systems that reward collaboration, not fragmentation.
We have to treat incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. as the value proposition, not the delivery mechanism.
And we have to start with shared evidence — which is why WDI’s report is essential reading for anyone shaping the future of entrepreneurship in East Africa and beyond.
It’s having appropriate pathways for entrepreneurs that are understood clearly so everyone involved can make informed decisions. So entrepreneurs can move through what’s most suitable for them, so incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. can specialize in a recognizable structure, so investors can design financing for different types of growth paths.
The Story We Choose Next
Every ecosystem has a story about where its strength comes from.
Some say it comes from raised capital.
Some say it comes from innovation.
Some say it comes from entrepreneurs.
But the story that truly stands up to scrutiny—the one shown in data, in real experiences, and in every quiet moment of support that never makes the news—is this:
Ecosystems are only as strong as the incubators'Incubator' refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. at their centre.
If we want to build a future where entrepreneurs thrive, where communities benefit, and where impact is not episodic but enduring, then we must build that future around the organisations that make it possible.
The story is already unfolding.
The question now is who will join it.
Arielle is the principal weaver guru who spins our radical vision into reality while keeping us curious and joyfully rooted in the heart of impact incubation.
