Reflections on IAP’s Challenge Fund Third Round

Lessons from Supporting 600 Applications 

The IAP Challenge Fund’s third application window was open for about two months. And yet half of all submissions arrived on the final day. 

Breaking Assumptions

The third round of Innovations Against Poverty (IAP) launched in late 2024, offering grants of up to €200,000 to inclusive businesses in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Zambia.  

As applications closed, one early insight became clear: Procrastination knows no borders! 

The project team had assumed early applications would signal the most serious candidates. Instead, fifty percent arrived in the final twenty-four hours, with entrepreneurs using every last minute to refine their proposals. 

IAP applications 

How Market Gaps Create Natural Innovation

While applications will now go into a rigorous review process, it is already clear that innovation can be found in unexpected places.  

In Uganda’s eastern region, a poultry company had built something remarkable without realizing it: a network of regional centers providing free veterinary services to small farmers. They did not set out create an ” innovative and inclusive business model” — they were just building a business that worked for everyone involved. 

In Ethiopia, another company saw that dairy farmers could not get loans because banks did not accept herds as collateral. Their solution? Combining livestock insurance with digital tracking to turn livestock into bankable assets.  

Two samples of businesses solving real problems in innovative and inclusive ways. 

Smart Support: Turning Application Challenges into Opportunities

The comprehensive nature of IAP’s application process revealed both challenges and opportunities. While hundreds of businesses started applications, many initially struggled with the detailed business plan and understanding the co-investment requirements. The project team noticed this and took action. By sending targeted support emails to applicants who had stalled in specific sections, the team helped several businesses cross the finish line. What started as a challenge in completion rates turned into an opportunity to build stronger proposals through timely, targeted intervention. 

Shorter Webinars Get Better Results: The Power of Single-Topic Training

This pattern of finding the unexpected, questioning internal assumptions, and learning across country teams has been a theme over the first few months. The team assumed more support would mean better applications, so early outreaches started with comprehensive webinars covering everything from business models to financial projections. But something interesting happened when the Ethiopia team tried breaking these into focused modules: more specific sessions meant less total support needed. 

“Delivering one webinar for a specific sector or specific part of the business plan makes us more effective,” explained Engidashet, Ethiopia’s Country Project Manager.

When businesses could self-select into topics they struggled with, they came better prepared. It was a reminder that sometimes the best way to tackle complexity is to embrace it – but in smaller pieces. 

Experience Takes Time to Translate 

And as for those procrastinating entrepreneurs?

What the project initially labelled as procrastination turned out to be something else entirely. Those last-minute submissions were from businesses taking time to translate years of practical experience into short clear descriptions. Applicants were doing all they could to articulate market signals, customer feedback, and the practical demands of their environment to make the most compelling case possible.