The Hope Factory Stakeholder Day celebrates entrepreneurs, funders

Non-profit enterprise development organisation The Hope Factory brought together funders, entrepreneurs and other stakeholders at its aptly named Stakeholder Day in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Held this week, the event was also open to the public while entrepreneurs were given the opportunity to exhibit their products and services.

With the vision of assisting South African entrepreneurs from previously disadvantaged backgrounds, The Hope Factory is said to have equipped over 1 000 individuals with the skills needed to achieve their goals.

Read more: The Hope Factory: empowering women entrepreneurs

The non-profit trains potential entrepreneurs in business, technical and life skills while also giving them network opportunities, workshops, investments and access to markets.

CEO of The Hope Factory Annie McWalter noted that it’s important to connect entrepreneurs with their supporters:

Sometimes the thin line between success and failure for an entrepreneur is to know that someone believes in you and your vision. That’s what our funders are doing and saying to our entrepreneurs with their immeasurable contributions.

The Hope Factory is part of the Nation Building division of the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants (SAICA). Terence Nombembe, the CEO of SAICA, added:

On this day The Hope Factory is able to bring together partners who work together every day to touch lives, the funders, business mentors and entrepreneurs. In this way they contribute towards a thriving economy and job creation — this is what we need to build a better South Africa for all.

McWalter said the event is important to motivate entrepreneurs to work even harder and empower them to become the big corporates of the future. “Hopefully they in turn will also invest in the entrepreneurial space and assist other small business to become successful.”

Pictured above: Chantyl Mulder from SAICA, Elizabeth Thabethe from the Deputy Minister of the Small Business Development Ministry and entrepreneur Andiswa Silinga.