The task force — set up to study the applications received as part of the “Support from Successful Businesswomen to Novice Businesswomen” initiative of the “My Step” Charitable Foundation and to find out who the winners are — has completed its activities.
“Based on the results of the meeting, we will know who the 42 novice businesswomen from Armenia’s different provinces are. Each of them will receive AMD 1,000,000 grant, for which we had a rather vociferous dinner with businesswomen and as a result of which we are very glad that we will distribute the AMD 1,000,000 to 42 women,” Executive Director of the “My Step” Charitable Foundation Anna Hakobyan stated in her opening remarks at the final meeting.
The seven-member task force, among the members of which were members of the Foundation’s Board of Trustees and staff members, independent experts and representatives of various government agencies, studied all 95 applications sent during the second stage and evaluated every application based on 8 criteria. The voting was independent, and there were no joint discussions. The task force didn’t select the 42 women arbitrarily. Based on the cumulative sum of the personal evaluations conducted by the task force members, the 42 novice businesswomen with the most points became program beneficiaries, as member of the Board of Trustees of the “My Step” Charitable Foundation, head of the task force Vahagn Tevosyan said in detail.
“This was personally very difficult for me because there were many interesting proposals and ideas among 90 percent of the applicants. It was very hard to make a selection, especially when you see how much those female applicants need the AMD 1,000,000 to help their businesses grow at a rapid pace. I believe the Board of Trustees will be enterprising and will suggest that the Executive Body make this program ongoing and also help women draw up their business plans the right way and present their ideas the right way because, unfortunately, this was exactly the reason why most applicants received somewhat low scores,” Vahagn Tevosyan emphasized.
Out of the 166 applications received during the first stage, the task force set aside the applicants who met the two mandatory conditions for participation in the program, that is, doing business in any one of the provinces of the Republic of Armenia and having status of legal person. However, in the second stage, the task force decided to make an exception for persons forcefully displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh and to exempt them from meeting the mandatory conditions, as a result of which 106 applicants made it to the second stage.
“The applicants received a new application form developed by the task force. They had to fill out this application form and send it back to the Foundation within a week in order for the task force to study and evaluate the applications. Out of 106 applications, we received 95, and the particular applicants continued to compete. The task force also developed an evaluation sheet in which they took as a basis 8 criteria, starting from competitiveness of idea and ending with the financial impact from the perspective of business growth and expansion,” Deputy Director of the “My Step” Charitable Foundation for Operations and Public Relations Davit Mkrtchyan said as he summed up the whole course of the program.
Cumulative points of 95 applications, based on the results of the second stage
List of 42 novice businesswomen who scored the maximum points as a result of the evaluation
In a few days, the “My Step” Foundation will conclude donation agreements with all 42 winners and will grant AMD 1,000,000 in financial assistance to each and every one of them. The ceremony of handing over the grant certificates will be held on 3 July in Parpi.
