CASE Announces 4 Finalists for the F.M. Kirby Scaling Social Impact Prize

December 2022

Logos of 2022-2023 Kirby Prize for Scaling Social Impact finalists.
Connecticut Veterans Legal Center logo is a blue box with white text, six gold stars at the bottom of the blue box.
Kidogo logo is cartoon elephant drawing with text "Kidogo" to the right.
Essmart logo has three circles in a green gradient color scheme. On top of the circles is the name Essmart in the same gradient.
Hello World logo is two speech bubbles, one orange angled down with the world "Hello" inside and the other green angled up with the word "World" inside.

From a pool of 180, four social enterprises stood out above the rest in this year’s competition for the Fred Morgan Kirby Prize for Scaling Social Impact, which CASE has the privilege to manage.  One of these four will ultimately be awarded the prize – a $100,000 unrestricted grant to support their achievement of impact at scale.

The Four Finalists

The four finalists include both nonprofit and for-profit enterprises working across India, Africa, and the U.S., focusing on impact areas such as economic growth, education, and health and wellbeing. Over the month of January we will take the opportunity to share why we are so excited about the work and impact potential of each enterprise – so keep an eye out for those posts on our blog.  In the meantime, here is a brief snapshot of each:

Connecticut Veterans Legal Center (CVLC)

  • Mission: To help veterans recovering from homelessness and mental illness overcome legal barriers to housing, healthcare and income. 
  • Impact Area: Health and Human Services
  • Primary Geography: United States
  • Governance:  Nonprofit
  • Years in Operation: 12

Essmart

  • Mission: To empower rural retail shops to unleash the potential of rural India’s growth.
  • Impact Area: Economic Development
  • Primary Geography: India
  • Governance: For Profit
  • Years in Operation: 10

Kidogo

  • Mission: To improve access to quality, affordable Early Childhood Care & Education in East Africa’s low-income communities.
  • Impact Area: Education
  • Primary Geography: Africa
  • Governance: Nonprofit
  • Years in Operation: 8

Project Hello World

  • Mission: To bridge the digital divide by connecting hard-to-reach communities to online education and wi-fi connectivity.
  • Impact Area: Community Involvement
  • Primary Geography: Asia, Africa
  • Governance: Nonprofit
  • Years in Operation: 9

The Process: Getting to Four Finalists

The F. M. Kirby Impact Prize, named after early entrepreneur Fred Morgan Kirby and supported by the F. M. Kirby Foundation, recognizes one impact enterprise each year that is working to scale its impact on social and/or environmental problems around the world. The first F.M. Kirby Impact Prize was awarded to Healthy Learners in February 2021, the second prize was awarded to ServeMinnesota’s Math Corps in February 2022, and applications for the third year of the prize opened in August 2022.  

CASE has continued to adjust the application and evaluation process based on lessons from years one and two. We continued with a three-step application to reduce the amount of work required for applicants not selected to move onto the next rounds. The first round was an open call for qualifying enterprises to submit an organization “pitch deck” detailing the problem they are trying to solve, the solution to be scaled, and evidence of impact to date.  By the closing of the application window on September 5th, 2022, 180 enterprises had submitted a complete application.  

Each submission was reviewed by two members of the F. M. Kirby Impact Prize Selection Committee, which for the first time this year included the CASE Fellows – a select group of second year MBA students committed to social impact – in addition to CASE staff. After the initial review and discussion among the committee, 20 enterprises were invited to participate in Round 2 of the selection process which involved short answer questions related to scaling strategies, learning culture, partnerships, and financial viability. 

Each Round 2 application was reviewed by three Selection Committee members, and four enterprises (noted above) were selected to move on to the finalist round where they will be interviewed by the committee. Applicants not advancing past Round 2 were given the option to receive Selection Committee feedback to support their continued work.

The public announcement of the winner will take place on February 22, 2023, at the Fuqua Net Impact Club’s Sustainable Business and Social Impact Conference (SBSI).  Registration for SBSI will open soon.