SDG Accelerator for established SMEs

The innovation program cycle has 5 main phases (framing, ideation, enriching, acceleration, integration) with upwards of four weeks between each while the company internalizes the business case with staff and optimizes it based on inputs from the various organizational verticals (Sales/marketing, HR/recruitment, strategic planning and finance) to leverage teamwork collaborations so the entire organization is in line with the project. Main overall activities are to: - Identify program focus and capacity (nr. of SMEs) to support, estimate resource needs; - Employ missing resources (gaps) to complement the available resources; - Adapt the methodology to the local context; - Organize competitive recruitment of SMEs; - Establish program phases timeline; - Implement the program; - Ensure oversight, monitoring, visibility, reporting and scale-up - Graduation visibility event. The minimum necessary resources to run a program cycle with 5 SMEs are: - 50,000 USD project budget for all phases to cover management, expertise, translation, organizational, communication and visibility costs. Participation fees from SMEs can be considered; - 3 to 5 people (part-time) involved in running the program: manager, business analyst, partnership and communication specialists, logistics and operation person. - 3 to 10 people involved from each participating SME. - Niche consultants, depending on the identified needs/gaps. - Promotional materials related to the SDGs for businesses. A program cycle is between 1–1,5 years, depending on the established priorities and the capacity of the participating SMEs, which have homework to do before each of the following phases, and also during the multi-day phases. Thus, a tight monitoring component is covered through homework checks, visibility events and materials.