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Incubator Tool Library

A collection of vetted tools and resources to help impact incubators run smarter, scale bigger, and better support their entrepreneurs.

Pollinate Impact Tool Library

Welcome to your shortcut to the good stuff.

When we say “tool”, we mean anything that helps incubators thrive—software, templates, handbooks, or any resource that lets you level up your game. We’ve curated the best for impact incubators across the Global South, so skip the search, grab what you need, and get back to making magic happen. 

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Scaling and Replication: A way to grow your impact

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In this toolkit, you will find useful concepts and indications that can help you navigate
the replicability and scalability worlds. On the one hand, we’ve realized there is a need
for social entrepreneur support organizations (SESOs) to acquire techniques and tools to
integrate in their offer of technical services specific tools and methodologies to support
the social entrepreneurs (SEs) that are ready and mature enough, in their growth path.
On the other hand, this tool wants to be of support for the SEs that are interested in
understanding the different essential steps that need to be undertaken, to assess their
readiness to start a replicating or scaling strategy and to choose the best option to
achieve one of two growth options.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Toolkits

Organization: Impact Hub & MedUp!

Toward Inclusive Access: Navigating Gender and Disability Barriers in Entrepreneurship Support and Financing

This publication focuses on women entrepreneurs with disabilities’ access to business
support and financial resources. The objective is to increase economic opportunity for all
and foster inclusive growth. This report may be particularly useful for business development
organisations and financial service providers and investors, as well as policymakers seeking
to understand the interplay between gender, disability, and entrepreneurship.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Research

Organization: UN ESCAP & Impact Hub

Incubator Toolkit

Launching an incubation program for Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) requires a strategic approach to nurture and accelerate their growth. The incubator Toolkit is designed to guide incubators in developing comprehensive programs tailored to the unique needs of these MSMEs. From initial assessment to post-incubation support, this toolkit equips you with methodologies and best practices, to foster innovation and improve their business capabilities. This toolkit empowers incubators to not only guide MSMEs towards success but also to adapt and evolve with the ever-changing business landscape, ensuring long-lasting impact & resilience.

  • Category: Incubator Design
  • Type: Toolkits

Organization: Instellar, Koalisi Ekonomi Membumi & SEED Indonesia

Smarter Systems Accelerator Implementation Guide

This implementation guide outlines three steps we found that accelerators
can incorporate into their selection processes to consistently evaluate all startups more
accurately.

  • Category: Pipeline Sourcing & Selection
  • Type: Handbooks

Organization: IFC / Vilcap / WeFi

Lessons from accelerators supporting women-led startups in emerging markets

This publication contains case studies, strategies, and practical advice from five accelerators and entrepreneur support organizations awarded by ScaleX for their successful efforts to help women-led startups in emerging markets overcome barriers and secure capital post-acceleration.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Best Practices & Lessons Learned

Organization: IFC

Enabling inclusive and empowering workplaces for migrant women through entrepreneurial support. A guide for Business Support Organisations

This toolkit is about equipping BSOs with principles, tools, activities and
methods that they can use with the entrepreneurs and ventures they support,
so that enterprises can make their workplaces more inclusive and empowering
for migrant women.

  • Category: Incubator Design
  • Type: Best Practices & Lessons Learned

Organization: Impact Hub

Embedding Circularity

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A practical learning journey for incubators and accelerators to integrate circular design principles into their entrepreneur support services. This online curriculum will help you identify ways to enable a more circular and sustainable economy by supporting startup and growth stage ventures to apply circular design principles early on.
You will also be generating a pipeline of innovation for key industries and value chains that need to become more circular to build for a just and sustainable society.

  • Category: Incubator Design
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: Impact Hub

The Circularity Toolkit

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This toolkit offers insights, tools and methodologies for Entrepreneur Support Organizations (ESOs) to take a Circular Economy lens to their entrepreneur support programs, particularly incubators and accelerators, in order to mainstream circular design principles across small and growing businesses regardless of whether they are social, environmental or profit-driven.

You can use this toolkit to develop a program explicitly focused on supporting ventures with Circular Economy solutions, or to embed circular design principles into other programs that aren’t explicitly focused on the Circular Economy.

  • Category: Incubator Design
  • Type: Toolkits

Organization: Impact Hub

Incubation Tools and Templates

A collection of tools and templates that guide you in the process and activities of incubation as laid out in the Innovation Playbook by Villgro Philippines

  • Category: Incubator Design
  • Type: Toolkits

Organization: Villgro Philippines & USAID

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Impact Measurement & Management for the SDGs

The course was designed around the fundamental elements of the SDG Impact Standards, the only management standards that embed sustainability at the core of an organization in the holistic way intended by the creators of the SDGs. The course demonstrates how the SDG Impact Standards help organizations align with responsible business principles, other standards, and best practices in impact management.

  • Category: Incubator Design
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: DUKE

Accubate

Accubate is a cloud-native enterprise-grade innovation management platform which offers an advanced suite of features every step of the way from ideation through to implementation.

  • Category: Scaling & Growth
  • Type: Technology Platforms / Software

Organization: Cunomial

Babele

Babele is the online platform to manage your mission-driven innovation ecosystems & effectively engage stakeholders

  • Category: Scaling & Growth
  • Type: Technology Platforms / Software

Organization: Babele

Angel Networks in Emerging Markets: A Guide for Development Institutions

Even as these ecosystem-building efforts generate progress, accessing sufficient
financial capital remains a critical challenge for entrepreneurs at this early, high-
risk stage. Increasing the flow of private capital into early stage enterprises to help
them bridge the pioneer gap is a key pillar of PACE’s work to drive broader economic
development in emerging markets. This guide was commissioned by PACE to identify
specific leverage points for USAID and other development institutions to support an
instrumental source of early-stage capital – local angel investor networks.

  • Category: Donor & Investor Relations
  • Type: Handbooks

Organization: SEAD @ DUKE & CASE

Decoding the ABCs of Effective Enterprise Acceleration: 10 Lessons from SEAD

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Like learning a new language, scaling an enterprise is full of unknowns, imperfect attempts and lessons for the future. Enterprise accelerators often serve as translators between their participants and the outside world. In doing so, accelerators must decipher between what they assume will be effective and what the enterprises they serve want and need. How can enterprise accelerators crack the code?

  • Category: Incubator Design
  • Type: Best Practices & Lessons Learned

Organization: SEAD @ DUKE & CASE

ESO Mapping Fatigue In Kenya

Are we experiencing ‘Mapping Fatigue’ with the BIG question being what is the mapping end game?. Is it just a question of counting heads or is there a bigger play in terms of informing policy or identifying gaps?

  • Category: Pipeline Sourcing & Selection
  • Type: Media Resources

Organization: Victor Otieno Agolla

Social Investment Toolkit

In 8 modules, the toolkit guides entrepreneurs on each step of the way, from how to define your social mission to creating a compelling investor pitch. It also shows entrepreneurs how social investors think and what they are looking for. There is also a social investment readiness test to help entrepreneurs work out which areas to focus on.

  • Category: Financial Sustainability
  • Type: Toolkits

Organization: Social Investment Toolkit

Financial Sustainability of Startup Incubators

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The primary objective of this report is to
outline various revenue streams (not to be conflated with funding sources) accessible to
startup incubators and recommend a revenue mix which ensures that the incubator remains
focused on its core activities related to provision of entrepreneurial support to its incubatee
startups.

  • Category: Financial Sustainability
  • Type: Research

Organization: Atal Innovation Mission & Niti Aayog

Best Practices for Designing Inclusive Programs & Support

This resource is a collection of both the key challenges and the best practices that have been effective in addressing the common challenges faced by ESOs globally in designing inclusive programs to support the diverse entrepreneurs in the ecosystem.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Best Practices & Lessons Learned

Organization: Pollinate Impact

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