Broadened Innovator Grant Kit
A service that helps grant funders change their rules so community groups can apply for money.
A service that audits public innovation funders' grant calls for barriers excluding non-traditional innovators — cooperatives, community groups, informal practitioners — and rebuilds eligibility, applications, and metrics to widen who receives innovation support.
Concept
A fixed-scope service for public innovation agencies, development organizations, and foundations: (1) audit their current funding calls for structural barriers that exclude non-traditional innovators — cooperatives, community groups, informal practitioners, small mutuals; (2) rebuild eligibility rules, application formats, and outcome metrics around social and ecological results rather than growth; and (3) deliver an outreach plan to innovator populations the funder has never reached. One deliverable, one wedge: widen who actually receives innovation support.
Why now
The new chapter explicitly argues that transforming the entrepreneurial state "requires a more social, ecological and inclusive vision of innovation and who the innovators are in society" — a direct statement that current funding channels narrow the innovator pool. Corpus evidence reinforces the cost of ignoring this: Algerian rural development policies that marginalized their intended farmer-users provoked negative reactions and failed [4], and entrepreneurship-sustainability scholarship frames broad participation as a condition of successful transitions [1]. Funders under pressure to show inclusive outcomes now have an evidence base for redesign.
Written by GLM · 9 Oct 2026
AI assessment
A focused consulting wedge that converts theoretical inclusive innovation goals into operational grant criteria for public funders.
- Evidence strength 3/5
- The idea draws a logical line from the 'Entrepreneurial State' text and the Algerian case study, though the evidence is more conceptual/sociological than a proven technical methodology.
- Market pull 4/5
- Public agencies and foundations (like GIZ or Ashoka) have strong mandates and budget for 'inclusive growth' and 'EDI' initiatives, creating a clear buyer profile.
- Novelty & moat 3/5
- While similar to the 'Farmer-Inclusion Audit', this expands the scope to a broader set of non-traditional innovators and focuses on the structural redesign of the grant call itself.
- Feasibility 5/5
- This is a service-based offering requiring expertise in policy and grant-writing rather than complex technical development, making the MVP immediate.
- Wedge clarity 5/5
- The 'fixed-scope audit and rebuild' is a sharp, high-value entry point that avoids the trap of a vague 'platform' approach.
- Simplicity / focus 5/5
- The product is a single, well-defined service with a clear deliverable: a redesigned funding call.
Scored by Gemma 4 · 9 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.
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Who benefits
- Ashokaorganization
Supports social entrepreneurs worldwide; a barrier-audited, redesigned funding pipeline would let it reach innovators outside the usual firm and university channels its model targets.
- Barcelona Activaorganization
A municipal economic-development agency running innovation and entrepreneurship programs; broadening who qualifies as an innovator aligns directly with its inclusive local-development mandate.
- GIZorganization
Runs innovation and transformation programs on behalf of donors; evidence-based grant redesign would improve the reach of programs whose intended beneficiaries are often informal or cooperative actors.
- Mondragon Corporationcompany
A federation of worker cooperatives whose members are non-traditional applicants in most innovation calls; redesigned eligibility would open public innovation funding to its network.
Research it builds on
- Journal of African Studies and DevelopmentBenabdellah Bendjeffal, Kheloufi Benabdeli · 2026 · 257 citationsAll ideas from this paper →
- Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues2026 · 189 citationsAll ideas from this paper →
- The Entrepreneurial StatePeter Newell · 2025 · 178 citationsAll ideas from this paper →