Acumen East Africa Fellowship 2025 for Social Entreprenuers

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Applications are open for Acumen East Africa Fellowship 2025. Acumen invests in social entrepreneurs across the capital continuum and accompanies them on the journey to create transformational change. At Acumen Academy, we identify and prepare these leaders with the hard skills required to build scalable solutions to poverty and the harder skills of moral leadership to re-imagine and build a better world.

Their East Africa Acumen Fellowship is a transformative program that brings together a cohort of extraordinary individuals with an entrepreneurial mindset and a commitment to solve problems of poverty. We equip them with the tools and community to strengthen their leadership, scale their impact, and create meaningful change in East Africa.

About The Fellowship

Acumen program is grounded in two decades of experience accompanying social entrepreneurs on the journey from seed to scale. The Fellowship provides new leadership frameworks and through a supportive cohort, Fellows pressure test the new skills they’re learning in real time, and build peer relationships that keep them accountable to their values and commitments as they grow and scale their impact.

Acumen East Africa Fellowship Curriculum

Polarity Management
- Learn to operate in a world of opposing views and to cross lines of difference to mobilize others towards a shared cause or problem.
Good Society Readings
- Explore the meaning of a just society and the moral and historical foundation of social change through classic and contemporary texts by thinkers such as Plato, Ursula K. LeGuin, Chimamanda Adichie, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Amartya Sen.
Adaptive Leadership
- Learn to understand stakeholders, map their needs, and navigate uncertainty to catalyze change.
Authentic Voice
- Learn to tell stories that compel and inspire others to take action in pursuit of a bold idea. Build audience awareness to improve your pitch, talk to investors, form partnerships, and make connections.

Program Structure

Fellows remain in their jobs and participate in a 6-month hybrid program consisting of virtual sessions, in-person immersives, and self-paced learning.

This is a high-level program overview:

One 3-day virtual Orientation
Two 5-day full-time in-person immersives (8 hours of assignments for each immersive consisting of self-paced learning and group calls)
Three Learning Labs (4 hours each along with assignments)

Acumen East Africa Fellowship Benefits

Leadership Experience: Through the program curriculum and a supportive cohort, participants peel back notions of themselves as leaders and build greater self-awareness. They hone their skills to become better team leaders, authentic storytellers, and navigate values in tension. They leave the program with the ability to negotiate across differences, motivate themselves and others, challenge traditional ways of working, and reshape the people, organizations, and systems around them.
Once you are selected as an Acumen Fellow Candidate, Acumen covers all program-related expenses during the Fellowship. This includes all costs associated with the immersives including lodging and food. Reimbursements are available for travel to immersives if the participants wish to claim them.
Once you complete the program, you are invited into Foundry community. They provide opportunities may include access to funding (by application or referral), mentorship and coaching, and pro-bono services like consulting.

Eligibility Criteria

Open to East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Burundi, South Sudan, Somalia)
You are a social entrepreneur or senior decision-maker solving problems of poverty.
You have 5 years of work experience (minimum) and are able to demonstrate commitment towards solving issues of poverty. On average our Fellows have 10-15 years of work experience with 10 years working on problems of poverty.
You have a reliable internet connection and will be fully available to participate throughout the entirety of the program.
Women and individuals who identify as or who serve Forcibly Displaced Persons (FDP) are encouraged to apply.
Acumen Academy defines FDPs as builders who have lived experience of forced displacement due to climate or conflict – this can include refugees, internally displaced persons, asylum seekers, communities experiencing climate-related displacement, and more.
You must be over the age of 18 to apply for the Fellowship.