A 10-week programme that offers an intensive curriculum with exclusive networking opportunities. The programme includes two intensive periods in Berlin and culminates in a funding-focused Pitch Day. Selected participants each receive a grant of up to $5,000 to cover travel and accommodation costs for the mandatory in-person sessions in Berlin. Further information can be found on the website at provegincubator.com/kickstartingforgood.
Create more high-impact nonprofits and programs that help farmed animals and reduce greenhouse gases. Our team of founders, funders, mentors, and researchers will help participants identify the best approaches and right co-founder(s). Evaluate and validate participants’ ideas, set up a budget, dive into cost-effectiveness, develop a theory of change, and learn the fundraising ropes.
We’ll match participants up with experienced mentors and advisors from our international network and our team at ProVeg International. We are experts in non-profit management and dedicated to supporting participants on their entrepreneurial journey.
Seed funding for promising high-impact nonprofits. With full funding, we can implement this without any limitations. However, any amount below that will still contribute to the growth of the newly established organizations, meaning no minimum funding requirement has been set.
Team
Sebastian Joy, Founder and President of ProVeg International
Albrecht Wolfmeyer, International Director of the ProVeg Incubator
Che Green, Research and Impact Consultant
Prakrit Sachdeva, Impact Programme Manager
Yasmine Schrey, Operations and Events Manager
Furthermore, we also have a large network of experts who serve as mentors for the program.
Track record
During the pilot program in 2023, Kickstarting For Good has successfully incubated several initiatives, including the following:
Vegan Thesis: Connecting academia and animal advocacy to empower research for a more human future by bringing together students, supervisors, and research topics. Founded by Joel Christoph and Yuxi Xia. Joel is currently the director of Effective Thesis, PhD researcher and speaks 8 languages, while Yuxi is a Master student and is awarded the Thomas J. Watson fellowship to travel the globe to research veganism.
Open Paws: An open source AI for the animal rights movement, providing free technical support to nonprofits and working with major AI labs to ensure that AI benefits all sentient beings. Led by Sam Tucker with 3 other co-founders. Sam founded 3 different vegan social enterprises in the technology space, worked full time at Vegan Outreach for 5 years and even developed websites and hosted a radio show about animal rights at just 11 years old.
The Freedom Food Alliance: Equipping consumers with science-backed information through reports, a fact-checking website, and international campaigns aimed at shedding light on industry malpractices. Founded by Robbie Lockie, with 24 years in digital media and the co-founder and board member of Plant-Based News, the largest vegan media organisation.
Will-Kirche-Tierschutz?: Challenging church-led institutions (kindergartens, schools, hospitals, etc.) – with their almost 40 million members in 23,000 congregations in Germany – about their animal welfare standards and plant-based offerings through campaigns. Led by Carsten Halmanseder, an animal rights activist for 20+ years, founder of Berlin-Vegan and prior head of volunteer management and pressure campaigning at Albert Schweitzer Foundation.
Insufficient funding could threaten the success of the nonprofits graduating from our program.
We only have funding to run the program for this year, not to provide any seed funding for the most promising nonprofits graduating from our program.
Sasha Cooper
4 months ago
My partner and I made notes on all of the projects in the EACC initiative, and both agreed this was a standout :) Our quick and dirty notes:
Seed funding novel ideas seems v counterfactually valuable, and giving it to the best-evaled by an experienced team = win
<3
Neel Nanda
4 months ago
The focus on animal charities is a key detail and easy to miss, I'd recommend putting it in the title and project summary
Thomas Manandhar-Richardson
4 months ago
I love this idea but would like to see more consideration to support of these orgs after they launch. Last I checked both Open Paws and Freedom Food Alliance, whilst both being great ideas, have yet to secure any funding.
SebastianJoy
4 months ago
Thank you for the feedback, Thomas. Last year was our pilot cohort and we've been working hard to improve all aspects of the program (targeted promotion, selection process, pre-program, program content, engagement with funders throughout the process, program evaluation, post-program support, etc). Our graduates from last year have secured around $500,000 in funding so far and we do offer regular mentoring calls to all of them. The goal of this Manifund project is for us to be able to provide direct seed funding so that graduates are less dependent on quickly securing funding from other sources.
@EvolvingRichie
Thomas Manandhar-Richardson
4 months ago
@SebastianJoy That does sound more encouraging! Thanks for the update.
Felix Werdermann
4 months ago
Really cool initiative! Excited to see many new charities fighting for a change in the global food system!
Tom O’Haire
4 months ago
Interested to donate. Can you elaborate on success rates and outcomes from previous pitch sessions?
Chris Popa
4 months ago
@Tomohaire Kickstarting For Good only started last year and therefore only had one cohort so far that has run through the programme. The track record in the description lists some of the most promising incubated charities.