Advisory Support

There are a few Conditions Attached to Funding for each of our shortlisted projects. 

These are aimed at creating a market for each project and helping them all to become sustainable.

Mentors/ Sponsors/ Advisers will be allocated to all of our shortlisted projects set out below.  They will provide advice & assistance in planning & developing your project and in making a successful application for funding.

Below are also  Tips for Planning Your Project which would make it likely to succeed.  

Conditions attached to Funding

To ensure at least one market for each of our shortlisted projects below, we require projects to adhere to the following :

1.  Market Dynamics Table

2.  Commercial Kitchen
Unless able to make a strong case to the contrary, each Project is to rent the services of the Commercial Kitchen by the hour at reduced economic prices and observe health & safety standards in force.

3.  Competition
Each project is to avoid duplication of, or setting itself up in direct competition with, another in the list or with an existing business in Montserrat that is operating either as a local producer, local manufacturer or retailer of locally produced/ manufactured goods & services.

4.  Breaches of These Conditions
Any project found to be in breach of any of conditions 1-3 above within a period of 3 years of either being established, and found to be without reasonable justification, will risk forfeiting further support by the Charity, whether on these projects or in future. 

Who Are The Mentors/Sponsors/Advisers 

Once we have received and considered Expressions of Interest in relation to individual projects, we will respond as necessary with details of a Mentor/Sponsor.  

In the meantime, we allocated an adviser to each project.  These advisers are the first point of contact, who will be able to help you to understand our thinking so that you may then develop yours further as to what direction you might want to take on your project.  

Our list of Advisers for each of our current shortlisted projects are as follows:

Tips for Successful Selection - Individuals

In putting together your project idea, give consideration to as many of the 12 areas & questions below as possible.  

• Be honest with yourself in relation to your answers.  
• Do take note that you are not required to have answers for every question.  
• We may not need answers from you specifically to these questions, having answers would help you to complete your expression of interest and thereby help us to gauge how much support you will need and who would be best placed to be your mentor, as necessary.  
• And please rest assured that your information will be treated by us in confidence.

TIPS -  Twelve Questions to Consider

1. Consider what would be the outcomes from your project.  Are they clear and achievable? And what timelines would you be working to.

2.  Consider whether your outcomes would be duplicating that of another project or existing business.  If your outcomes are similar to those of other businesses, how different are yours?  Is there a gap in the local market for the product or service you would like to deliver?  Are you aiming at a completely different market to that of other businesses?  And what is your evidence?

3.  Consider how what you would like to do on your project would benefit the local community and economy.  Are you setting up primarily as a supplier to the local market?  Or are you building the foundations for an export business?  If you are working towards an export business, what elements of the project are you hoping to achieve in the first phase? And, what would your next phase involve?  What logistical issues would need to be addressed?  Would that next phase also benefit from the availability of cheap electricity, and if so, how? 

4.  Consider how your project can benefit from another project on the list or an existing business, either by your being a supplier to that project/business or a client or partner of it.

5. Consider how you would be taking account of the conditions attached to funding for your type of project.  Would the conditions overly restrict your project? If so, how and why?

6.  Taking account of the conditions attached to funding for your project,  consider what is the most economic yet effective way to achieve what you would like to do on your project.  Have you developed a budget? Is it well thought through, realistic, itemized? Is your budget value for money?  

7.  Have you already taken advice from the relevant government department(s)? 

8.  How amenable are you to working with a mentor?

9. Consider what experience, resources and level of personal determination and input you would bring on the project.  How much time would you be able to dedicate to your project? And how would you account for your time and expenses as your project matures?  Would you be relying on the project to pay any amount of your living expenses before the project matures to producing outcomes?

10.  Consider what are your strengths in relation to your project.  What type of resources, training or experience are needed to help you make a success of your project?  Would a partnership help?  Do you already have a candidate in mind?  What would you want from the partnership?

11.  Consider what level of return on your time and investment you would need to achieve, and in what timescale, to ensure you can commit to the project for another round or a second phase involving expansion.

12.  Consider whether your project would become self sustaining with a single lump sum amount in funding.  And consider whether the potential rate of return/ profit on your project would justify you are funded by way of a grant or a zero-interest loan.