Tool Helps Social Entrepreneurs Pick The Right Accelerator For Them

The tool was developed by Conveners.org, a nonprofit that works to make the world of social impact more efficient. “Many of the entrepreneurs I talk to said that one of the things that took a lot of their time–sometimes as much as 100 hours–was figuring out what accelerator to apply to,” says Avary Kent, the nonprofit’s executive director. “I feel like entrepreneurs should be spending time building their businesses, not figuring out which program can provide the right support.”A future version of the tool may also include lists of the startups that have gone through each program. [Illustration: agsandrew/iStock]In many cases, she says, entrepreneurs apply for a particular program–for example, Echoing Green or Uncharted or the Global Social Venture Competition–because a program is well-known, not because it’s a necessarily right for them. “If you’re a growth-stage enterprise looking for capital, you don’t want to be applying to a business plan competition,” she says.