Visa • IFundWomen
Grant Program for Black women-owned businesses
Visa has extended its partnership with IFundWomen to support Black women-owned small businesses in the United States through a new grant program and educational resources. These grants provide an opportunity for recipients to grow their businesses and continue to offer much needed services to their local (and global) communities. Applications are being accepted from June 30, 2020 through July 31, 2020.
Empowering women in business
Through this program, Visa is committed to providing Black women entrepreneurs with access to the capital, coaching and connections they need to grow their businesses during this challenging time. Ten (10) qualified recipients will each be awarded a $10K grant + a 1-year IFundWomen Annual Coaching Membership.
In order to qualify for this grant opportunity, you must meet the following criteria:
• Black women-owned business
• Must be located in the U.S.
• Must have a minimum annual revenue of $24K or more
• Must have been in business for 2+ years
• Must be a business that has a product or service in market and generating revenue
• Must be a growing business
• Must be a consumer product or service (B2C)
• Must have a compelling digital presence and supporting media
Businesses are growing with Visa
According to Visa’s 2020 State of Female Entrepreneurship Report, 66% of women entrepreneurs surveyed cite that funding is still difficult to obtain. To that end, another report found that the average small business requires about $10,000 of startup capital in order to get off the ground. To address this issue, Visa and IFundWomen kicked things off by running a grant program in March 2020 that awarded four $10K grants to promising U.S. small businesses.
Source: Visa 2020 State of Female Entrepreneurship Report, conducted by Logica Research & Wells Fargo Small Business Index
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Download these tools
From fundraising planning to mapping out your network, this playbook will guide you through all the critical building blocks that you need to work through as an early-stage entrepreneur.
Join IFundWomen's Community Slack network where entrepreneurs from around the world are collaborating, commiserating, and celebrating on all things startup life.
Watch these educational videos
In this video, you will learn how to craft the perfect elevator pitch to explain your product or service.
In this video, you will learn how to find out who your key customers are and how to identify new ones.
In this video, you will learn how to use your smartphone to capture beautiful, compelling video content to promote your business.
More tips & resources for capturing pro video
Before even pressing record make sure you are clear on what the goal of this content is, where you will be sharing it, and exactly what you want viewers to think, say and do after watching.
If you are filming video content for most channels/platforms, you will want to position your phone horizontally. If you are filming for Instagram Stories, for example, you will want to position your phone vertically to fit the IG story frame.
Have a good understanding of what you want to say before the camera is rolling. Engaging content is concise and to the point. If you are recording a marketing video for your business and delivering your pitch, you will want to make sure it is no longer than 3 minutes. People just don't have time to watch anything longer. If it takes you longer than 3 minutes to succinctly explain your idea, you need to stop and work on that pitch before even thinking about making a video. Download the Founder’s Playbook in the Visa • IFW Toolkit and fill out the pitch honing template as the first step in your pre-production process!
We know that small business owners are working with little-to-no budget when it comes to video production, so we have put together a list of suggested, reasonably priced equipment that will increase the quality of your smartphone-based production studio!
Ready to take your small business to the next level?
To learn more how Visa supports women-owned small businesses, visit: visa.com/shesnext
Check out the Program Terms & Conditions