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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. 

Share your tool! If you have a tool, template, or resource that others could benefit from, submit it for review. 

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Make the Most of Mentoring

  • 11 Views

Whether you’re actively seeking a new mentor or simply curious about the benefits of mentoring, our “Make the Most of Mentoring” course will equip you with the tools and strategies needed to succeed.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: The Human Edge

Tips for Sourcing a Diverse Accelerator

  • 14 Views

Vilcap and IBM share the intentionally inclusive process of reaching founders outside their traditional networks, and using an inclusive and equitable diligence process in their cohorts. Here’s what we did differently – and what any decision-maker in tech: any investor, accelerator leader or corporation, can do to reduce implicit bias when they’re working with early-stage entrepreneurs.

  • Category: Pipeline Sourcing & Selection
  • Type: Best Practices & Lessons Learned

Organization: Vilcap & IBM

Creating an Impact Investment Ask

  • 12 Views

Diagnose a venture’s business growth readiness using a structured seven-element framework

Build a four-step impact management process aligned with investor expectations

Integrate business and impact insights to craft a compelling and credible investment ask

Communicate investment needs in a way that aligns with both financial and impact goals

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: CASE

Impact Investment Finance

  • 21 Views

What are impact investors looking for? This course offers a practical introduction to the impact investing marketplace. You’ll learn how the market is structured, including the roles of asset owners and asset managers, and how capital flows between them. The course explores how impact investors pursue both financial and social or environmental returns, and the different types of investors involved along with their motivations, constraints, and preferred investment vehicles.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: CASE

Identifying & Qualifying Deeply Aligned Funders – Tools & Strategies

  • 15 Views

Explore tips on how to shape funder research priorities and criteria to assess funder fit and uncover the information your organization needs to support this step in the fundraising process.

  • Category: Donor & Investor Relations
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: Black Fox Global

Actionable Strategies for Engaging your Board

  • 12 Views

When boards are equipped with clarity, confidence, and joy in their roles, fundraising stops being a burden and starts becoming a team sport. The session walks through the core modules leaders can use to design and run their own fundraising retreat.

  • Category: Governance
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: Black Fox Global

Grant Ready Communications

  • 18 Views

Tried and true strategies to ensure your organization is ‘grant ready’ when you do secure invitations to submit proposals and letters of inquiry (LOIs).

  • Category: Governance
  • Type: Handbooks, Playbooks, & Guides

Organization: Black Fox Global

Building a Fundraising Board: Recruiting and On-Boarding New Board Members

  • 12 Views

How do you then save your nonprofit and board from this quagmire? By creating a culture of success by recruiting members who can be effective, then giving them the tools to be successful.

  • Category: Governance
  • Type: Handbooks, Playbooks, & Guides

Organization: Black Fox Global

Building Authentic Funder Relationships and Maximizing Opportunities for Funding

  • 32 Views

Explores ways to build authentic funder relationships through professional persistence.

  • Category: Governance
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: Black Fox Global

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Unlocking Pipeline Africa. A Playbook for Entrepreneur Support in Africa

  • 18 Views

The Unlocking Pipeline Playbook compiles lessons, case studies, and trends gathered from our pioneering Village Capital’s Communities Africa program, which brought together leading African entrepreneur ecosystem builders to share best practices.

  • Category: Pipeline Sourcing & Selection
  • Type: Handbooks, Playbooks, & Guides

Organization: Village Capital

SMARTER SYSTEMS: How Tweaking Your Diligence Process Can Unlock Overlooked opportunities ACCELERATOR IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

  • 30 Views

We found that there are discrepancies in how investors evaluate men-led and women-led
startups, potentially leading them to overlook promising startups and overestimate less
promising startups. 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, Playbooks, & Guides

Organization: Village Capital

Capital Explorer

  • 7 Views

The objective of Capital Explorer is to equip and support entrepreneurs in exploring which funding options may be a good fit for their business and help them identify capital providers offering those options.

  • Category: Financial Sustainability
  • Type: Technology Platforms & Software

Organization: Village Capital

Product improvement tool

  • 10 Views

Use behavioral science principles to share user insights

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

Organization: Maha Accelerator

SCALE Framework

  • 15 Views

Small and growing businesses (SGBs) profoundly impact economies and
livelihoods, particularly in emerging markets. A growing body of evidence demonstrates that enterprise support organizations (ESOs) create jobs and increase the productivity of SGBs.
However, the impact of ESO programs varies considerably.

In 2013, Argidius set out to identify what works best in BDS to enable SGBs to
grow and create employment. In doing so, they drew not only from their own
portfolio but also from extensive academic literature and the experience of
outside programs.Five fundamental considerations emerged that distinguished high-performing Enterprise Support programs (those that cost-effectively delivered SGB growth). These five considerations have been codified as SCALE.

  • Category: Incubator Design, Strategy & Impact
  • Type: Templates

Organization: Argidius Foundation

Enable

  • 21 Views

Making entrepreneur support affordable through the Enable platform. A platform that equips ESOs to provide targeted and personalized support to hundreds of MSMEs simultaneously.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Technology Platforms & Software

Organization: ONOW

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