pollinate logo svg

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. 

Share your tool →
Tool Category
Resource Type

Search

Women-Inclusive Return on Investment Calculations

  • 3 Views

This work addresses a gap in evidence from firms in lower—and middle-income countries (LMICs) on the ROI of women’s inclusion. This series profiles select small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that have implemented women-inclusive (WI) initiatives and can demonstrate returns on investment (ROI).

The case study series features:

1) Grean World: How an Ethiopian energy company utilized female sales agents to attract female consumers and tackle last mile distribution.
2) Okeba: How a Uganda agribusiness provided care support to its staff and ultimately reduced costs.

Other reports include:
3) Navigating Firm Selection for Women-Inclusive ROI—A Learning Note: Provides key insights MSP gained from the process of vetting and selecting companies for WI-ROI.
4) Closing the Gap: A Synthesis Report on the Cases for the ROI of Women’s Inclusion: This report includes the findings, benefits, and considerations of the WI-ROI approach, which can be applied during implementation and to continue building on the evidence for returns on women-inclusive investments.

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

Organization: William Davidson Institute at University of Michigan

Mentoring Skills & Practice Course

  • 2 Views

Learn and practice the science and art of impactful mentoring and coaching with our self-paced Mentoring Skills and Practice Course. You’ll learn how to build meaningful relationships and have purposeful conversations, provide constructive feedback, and create a safe and supportive environment where people can learn, grow and perform.

  • Category: Talent
  • Type: Trainings & Capacity Building

Organization: The Human Edge

Mentoring Question Toolkit

  • 3 Views

Compilation of a number of impactful mentoring questions for you to explore together, support each other during difficult times, deepen your mentoring relationships and enhance your mentoring conversations. These questions are also excellent if you wish to self-mentor yourself and identify and learn about your own interferences, needs and areas of opportunity and growth.

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

Organization: The Human Edge

Mentoring Entrepreneurs

  • 5 Views

Equip people with the skills, attributes, and behavious to be authentic and effective mentors.

  • Category: Enterprise Support & Portfolio Management
  • Type: Media Resources

Organization: The Human Edge

Incubation Replicaiton Guide

  • 5 Views

The Incubation Replicaiton Guide is organized in four modules: Setting up an Incubator, Incubation Lifecycle, Operating an Incubator, Governance. These modules help you in all aspects of establishing your incubator, setting up effective processes, and having good governance of the organization.

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

Organization: Villgro

Scaling Toolkit

  • 8 Views

The Scaling Impact Toolkit is organised in accordance with the three stages of our unique and proved methodology – strategy, model, and implementation.
Helps you achieve a particular objective, whether it’s getting your scaling plans off the ground, becoming financially sustainable, identifying your ideal pathway to scale and the partners you need to support your model or other challenges you may be currently encountering.

  • Category: Scaling & Growth
  • Type: Toolkits

Organization: Spring Impact

Preliminary Assessment Scoring Worksheet

  • 7 Views
  • Category: Pipeline Sourcing & Selection
  • Type: Templates

Organization: Villgro

ESO Mapping Database

  • 3 Views

Mapping and streamlining of what incubators are offering to entrepreneurs at various stages, sectors, and geographies. Sharing information about hubs themselves and other related data, such as who has incubated whom helps us:
1. Understand if the entrepreneur is approaching you in need of additional support for the next stage of their business.
2. Understand if the entrepreneur is accessing another similar program within the same stage of their growth.
3. Identify potential partners with complimentary skills sets.

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

Organization: Pollinate Impact

Best Practices for Alumni Engagement

  • 3 Views

A collaborative resource for ESOs to ensure continued engagement with alumni after the program. 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 engaging alumni after they have graduated from the program.

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

Organization: Pollinate Impact

Tool Category

Resource Type

Search

Missing Middle – Segmenting Enterprises to BetterUnderstand Their Financial NeedsSummary Report

  • 5 Views

SGBs typically seek external financing in the range of $20,000 to $2 million for a range of purposes—to support early stage growth, expand operations, finance working capital, and acquire new assets— but struggle to access forms of capital that meet their needs. According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), small and medium enterprises in low- and lower-middle income-countries face a $930 billion financing gap (see “Enterprise credit gap” graphic on page 5).1 Accessing financing is particularly challenging for certain types of SGBs, such as early stage ventures and businesses with moderate growth prospects, that are stuck squarely in the “missing middle” of enterprise finance: They are too big for microfinance, too small or risky for traditional bank lending, and lack the growth, return, and exit potential sought by venture capitalists. Such businesses often face a fundamental mismatch between available financing and their specific needs.

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

Organization: Collaborative for Frontier Finance

Youth Entrepreneurship Framework

  • 5 Views

To fully unlock the potential of youth entrepreneurship, we must craft policies and programs that are tailored to the specific needs of young people. When done effectively, youth entrepreneurship can become a driving force for inclusive prosperity. This report’s effort to provide a framework for such policy creation is
both inspiring and crucial. By empowering young entrepreneurs, we can catalyze job creation and economic diversification, especially in low-income countries where traditional employment opportunities may be limited.

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

Organization: Youth Business International YBI

STARTUP MENTORSHIP PRACTICES IN THE AFRICAN ENTREPRENEURSHIP ECOSYSTEM

  • 7 Views

This report serves to present the state of the mentorship and expert coaching landscape in the agricultural and food industry sector for
startups.

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

Organization: Impact Hub & GIZ

Scaling and Replication: A way to grow your impact

  • 8 Views

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

  • 3 Views

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

  • 8 Views

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, Strategy & Impact
  • Type: Toolkits

Organization: Instellar, Koalisi Ekonomi Membumi & SEED Indonesia

Smarter Systems Accelerator Implementation Guide

  • 4 Views

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

  • 5 Views

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

  • 7 Views

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, Strategy & Impact
  • Type: Best Practices & Lessons Learned

Organization: Impact Hub

Submit a tool

[tool_custom_submit]

Get in Touch!

Our Network is a community of stakeholders in the impact incubation ecosystem within the Global South.  We work together to scale change, so get in touch and don’t be a stranger.

Media Inquiries

Connect with Us

LinkedIn
Instagram
Facebook

We can't wait to chat!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Name*
Location
Organisation
Consent*