Applications are now open for the Social Impact Matching (SIM) Grant worth RM10 million for social enterprises (SE).

The Malaysian Global Innovation Creativity Centre (MaGIC), in a statement, said it will be administering the SIM Grant, which was announced under the Short-Term National Economic Recovery Plan (PENJANA).

"MaGIC is getting full support as an agency under the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI) whilst also administering the SE Accreditation," it said in a statement today.

MOSTI Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the grant was aimed at supporting local SEs and other social impact businesses to sustain their initiatives and programmes, harnessing their capability to fundraise, increasing public awareness in social innovation, and scaling their solutions for good social and environmental outcomes.

“We want to build more social impact driven businesses that contribute to the economy and at the same time improve lives.

"That really is the objective of this grant, to promote inclusive and responsible businesses. SEs are a great tool to help rebuild the livelihood of communities, and more recently those impacted by the pandemic,” he added.

The grant is designed to prioritise applications that provide innovative solutions in five impact areas, namely community livelihood; food security; health and social wellbeing, environmental protection; and heritage preservation.

It will be deployed via a 1:1 matching mechanism, and made available to eligible applicants with successful crowdfunding initiatives.

SIM provides a minimum of RM5,000 and up to a maximum of RM500,000 matching grant per application.

The threshold for maximum grant disbursement differs based on the types of applicants, being, an accredited SE, non-accredited SE, and any other individual or entity.

MaGIC chief executive officer Dzuleira Abu Bakar said the SIM Grant Joint Approval Committee will assess the applicant’s feasibility, effectiveness and intended outcome, and review due diligence findings towards making a decision.

“Submissions will undergo a three-step qualifying process, and applicants can expect to receive disbursements within a period of two months from submission, if all documents are in order. The selection process is stringent as we want to ensure the programme’s objectives are met,” she said.

She said applicants will need to show how their solutions are innovative, in addition to viability to scale in the impact the solutions create.

"Their proposal for the grant will need to detail the effective and feasible use of proceeds, as executed by a capable management team.

“The purpose of the grant is not only to double the impact social enterprises create, but to also encourage public participation by being involved in delivering solutions to society through their donations," said Dzuleira.

She said to further assist our social enterprises in their crowdfunding initiatives, MaGIC has also partnered with six crowdfunding platforms, who will provide support for social enterprises to raise funds.

"Successful SIM Grant applicants will benefit from a 20 per cent rebate on platform fees, for the first RM1 million raised on each of these crowdfunding platforms -- GIVE.asia, LaunchGood, NGOhub, Sedunia, SimplyGiving, and SocioBiz by Alliance Islamic Bank," she said.

In addition, MaGIC will also be working with several partners, including Lazada, in the coming months to roll out a #buyforimpact campaign to drive awareness and demand for goods and services offered by social enterprises.

Applications for the SIM Grant can be made at https://mymagic.my/penjana-sim-grant or email [email protected] for enquiries and more information on SE Accreditation available at a href="https://central.mymagic.my/sea"https://central.mymagic.my/sea/a.

-- BERNAMA