Sunlight supports and celebrates women taking bold steps towards following their ambitions and realising their full potential. Women who despite home or work-life challenges stay firm in their desire to be more than people expect.
There are many women entrepreneurs who are doing this every day, with the goal of building successful and thriving women-owned businesses. Businesses that contribute to the financial well-being of their families and communities in impactful ways.
Start-up Accelerator
Our partnership with Lionesses of Africa to launch a Start-up Accelerator to mentor women entrepreneurs was a key way to turn our support into action. Giving women entrepreneurs the tools they require to break barriers and begin to build sustainable and profitable ventures they can be proud of.
The 256 women who joined us for the free 13-week program were trained about business fundamentals and given personal growth mentorship to groom both their business acumen as well as their self-leadership.
Although all the businesses were women-owned, they ranged in type to include even NPOs; varied across industries with the inclusion of construction, technology, agriculture as well as food and beverage and even varied in formality.
The network of experienced female business owners and female business coaches taught modules ranging from business planning and e-commerce marketing to negotiation and people management, to provide the entrepreneurs all the avenues and skills the needed to scale their businesses to meet their ambitions.
The modules took place online so the initiative could reach women entrepreneurs across the country and the modules were made available online after classes so that the women could get further value in their own time.
Online workspaces and digital forums where businesses and plans could be refined between the women were key in the cohort helping each other to become unstoppable businesswomen.
Sunlight is proud of our first cohort of Sunlight x Lionesses of Africa Start-Up Accelerator graduates who worked hard to lay strong foundations for the impending growth of their businesses. The returns of which many are already seeing:
I found that I'm getting a lot more enquiries and sending out a lot more proposals and quotes than before. – Beverly Babu
I'm actually quite confident because I did present my business plan to a funder and I was able to be funded R50 000. – Christine Mulolo
This year, within the first three months, I've made more sales than I've ever made since I started my business. - Nolubabalo Ngwanya
I finish work at work because I'm properly organized, I'm always at the right place, at the right time, my family is no longer competing with my laptop and home and work are both successful. - Disemelo Makhanda
My followers are growing daily, my customers are growing weekly, which is very good for my business. - Loveable Shiro Dadla
I assisted a client of mine with a business plan for a project and I'm happy to say that that project was approved and funding was provided - Nolubabalo Ngwanya
We look forward to seeing your business become more than anyone ever expected and to driving more impactful change with the Sunlight x Lionesses of Africa Start-Up Accelerator in future.