Samlara Baah, the founder of Loo Works based in Ghana, and Kwami Williams, the founder of True Foundry also based in Ghana, have been announced to be amongst 26 recipients of the follow-on funding investment as Echoing Green Fellows.
Echoing Green, a non-profit organization that supports social entrepreneurs, has announced 26 new follow-on funding investments in Fellow-led organizations. These investments are aimed at addressing systemic issues that perpetuate racial and ethnic disparities in their communities.
The organization has been investing in Fellow-led organizations during their 18-month Fellowship since 2021, but data shows that these organizations have limited access to capital to scale their operations. Therefore, Echoing Green is now distributing follow-on funding to promising leaders and enterprises from the community to support their work towards racial justice in the U.S. and globally.
The grants for this round of follow-on funding total $2M, which will support 26 Fellow-led organizations. The grant categories include catalytic grants to support pilot projects and invest in operations, collaborative grants for joint initiatives, and transformational grants to scale proven models. By the end of 2024, Echoing Green aims to make 400 follow-on investments into alumni social enterprises in their network. Over the past two years, the organization has distributed 106 follow-on funding investments, totaling $4.5M.