News Americas, GEORGETOWN, Guyana, Fri. July 15, 2016: A new crowdfunding initiative to help women entrepreneurs across the Caribbean raise much needed capital was recently announced in Guyana.
FundRiseHER™, the first ever Commonwealth-wide crowdfunding initiative, was announced on July 5th alongside the CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting, which took place in Guyana from July 4 – 6, 2016.
FundRiseHER™ is the flagship initiative of Valrie Grant, Founder of GeoTechVision and the Commonwealth Woman Entrepreneur of the Year. It is created and powered by pitchandchoose.com, the crowdfunding platform for the Caribbean that was founded by A. Cecile Watson.
Pitch and Choose seeks to leverage crowdfunding to attract new flows of capital to the region and ultimately to create new jobs and drive economic growth.
FundRiseHER™ was announced by Grant, Watson and Arif Zaman, executive director, Commonwealth Businesswomen’s Network, in collaboration with the Caribbean Export Development Agency.
The announcement was made in the presence of Dominic Gaskin, Minister of Business, Guyana; Catherine Hughes, Guyana’s Minister of of Public Telecommunications and Tourism; High Commissioner of Canada to Guyana Pierre Giroux; Deputy British High Commissioner Georgetown Ron Rimmer; the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry and women entrepreneurs. It was warmly welcomed by Heads of Government from across CARICOM as an innovative, important and much needed initiative to improve access to finance for women entrepreneurs to grow and scale their businesses and contribute to the economic development of the Caribbean.
The initiative will be spearheaded by Gr8Way Consulting Ltd. out of Jamaica, which will lead the charge throughout the region to deliver on the initiative’s 1:10:50 goal: $1 million grant funding target to be raised through a global rewards-based crowdfunding campaign by 10 participating Caribbean countries/territories and Commonwealth member states for the benefit of 50 women entrepreneurs. The size of grants will be between USD$10,000 and USD$25,000.
