Conservation Finance Alliance Incubator Program
The CFA launched the Incubator (“CFA Incubator”) to foster idea development and early stage pilots for creative solutions to conservation finance in order to demonstrate the economic feasibility of providing new financial innovations that advance the CFA’s conservation mission, benefit the public, and contribute to the understanding of the potential effectiveness of these creative solutions. The CFA Incubator supports a wide range of innovations including conservation finance ventures that can generate a financial return, and conservation finance concepts that lead to policy, regulatory or non-profit finance solutions.
All projects that enter the Incubator must be innovative approaches to conservation challenges that use finance or economic tools to create clear conservation outcomes or sustained conservation financing. Concepts can be from any sector (public, private, etc.) and can include ideas generated directly by CFA members, partner organizations, and independent organizations and entrepreneurs. Projects may or may not seek to return a profit yet must return long-term financing or clear conservation impact. Solutions can be designed as independent companies, financial products, or other mechanisms. Submissions can also include policy or regulatory innovations that create enabling conditions for profitable conservation investments, including such ideas as new regulatory markets. All accepted Incubator proponents will participate in an intensive training program and mentorship support.
The focus of the CFA Incubator is “idea” and “early-stage” projects. Strong candidates for these solutions are entrepreneurs or non-profits willing to invest their time and their own money to succeed. Desired outputs for the incubation period might include the preparation of a business plan, financial model, an investors’ deck, a completed feasibility study, an implementation guide or outside financing.
Incubated projects and companies receive mentorship from the CFA Incubator co-leads, Dr. David Meyers and Dr. Ben Guillon, as well as mentorship and targeted expertise from the CFA Incubator Manager, CFA members and partners.
The CFA Incubator has now launched 3 rounds: