What is Community
Empowerment Program (CEP)?
Spreading the culture of generosity and creating sustainable and meaningful impact has always been what we aim for at BEAGIVER. With social impact at the core of what we do, our program has now expanded from giving of school bags with raincoats to providing economic benefits to partner communities through livelihood programs, clean water source in remote villages, school boats to carry school teachers to reach distant islands, solar lamps for off-grid communities and scholarship program for underprivileged but hardworking students. All these are funded from the 25% of the enterprise’s net profit.
Thinking of bringing more long-lasting change to our communities, we took our efforts up a notch through the Community Empowerment Program – a four-month long initiative with monitoring planned for a 2-year period that empowers leaders and in turn, empowers their communities as a whole. Community changemakers nationwide are invited to undergo a mentorship program designed to give them training on Sustainable Leadership and Enterprise Development. Through this program, the company hopes to establish social enterprises that acknowledge and make use of the strengths in our localities to bring solutions to the problems and needs that they have.
The main objectives of the program are as follows:
- To develop community leaders who embody the sustainable type of leadership
- To teach the basics of marketing, operations, finance, and strategy to the participants
- For chapters to launch a successful social enterprise based on the needs and strengths of their community
We see empowering leaders and teaching their communities how to be sustainable as the highest form of generosity since we guide them and help them stand on their own. We at BEAGIVER are very excited about what the chapters come up with. We have high hopes that through the Community Empowerment Program, seeds of development and progress will be planted and nurtured in our localities.
5 COMPONENTS OF CEP
- Sustainable Leadership Program
Empowered communities are led by empowered leaders. Thus, before our community changemakers can move forward and take part in creating change that matters, we designed the first phase of the program to focus on developing the innate leadership skills and strengths of our participants and how they can further realize their potential as community leaders.
- Enterprise Development Program
The Enterprise Development Program is designed to help our core leaders, together with the members of their chapters, learn about the process of creating efficient and well thought-out opportunities that fit the conditions of their community under the principle of shared-economy.
The purpose of this program is to share important skills and knowledge in building a social enterprise to community leaders who do not have a business background. Thus, through this phase, the participants shall be taught the basics of marketing, operations, finance, and strategy.
- Mentorship
To further help our participants build their social enterprises, they will also be mentored by respected entrepreneurs who will be matched to them depending on the chapter’s enterprise idea and the mentors’ specialization. The mentors shall guide them from the onset of the Enterprise Development Program through a weekly one hour consultation that shall be conducted via Zoom until the demo day. Their mentors shall help the participants in the conceptualization, development, and prototyping of their chosen enterprise idea.
- Prototyping
Once the chapters have submitted the first complete draft of their enterprise proposal, the team will be given the go signal to process the funding allotted for their prototyping activities. This is to financially support the prototyping stage of their enterprise ideas.
Since the participating chapters are expected to come up with different social enterprise ideas unique to the context and the needs of their community, the way they will prototype their enterprise idea is different as well. Thus, the guidance of their experienced mentors shall continue until they finish the stage.
- Demo Day
After the set schedule for prototyping, the chapters will be given the time to present their results through an event called the Demo Day where organizations and corporations will be invited for potential funding, capacity building, and other partnership opportunities.
Chapters will be given the time to exhibit their community enterprise through a pitch presentation consisting relevant details from their enterprise proposal and prototyping documentation.
To know more about how CEP 2020 went and to get to know the five community enterprises we’ve built during the first run, please proceed to this link.