Submission Guidelines
"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed." Proverbs 16:3 NIV
Prerequisites for every project that we take on board:
As part of our Submission Preparation for each project, we must do a site visit to meet with the Management Team, verify the site and do other pre-submission checks with the team. We will then work with the client to help them make their project ready for a full submission.
The client is expected to pay for a return business class flight for our Consultant, and arrange for hotel and all local transportation. In addition, client is also expected to pay a nominal fee to cover our professional cost and time to do the visit and other pre-submission work.
These guidelines have been produced after many years experience of handling submissions from project leaders worldwide. It is vitally important to understand that funders and their gatekeepers, like us, receive many submissions each day and those that get looked at are those that take account of the workloads experienced by all those operating in the market.
Do NOT make the common mistake of sending all information in your first email. This will most likely result in a rejection or be ignored and deleted. The entire market is flooded with proposals and no one has the time to go through hundreds of emails with a long list of attachments.
All we need to see at the outset is an Executive Summary (ES) of your project or proposition. In its most simplistic terms, producing an executive summary as a lethal weapon in your capital raising campaign amounts to utilizing a long established PR principle. Every press release needs to get the five-W’s into the opening paragraph in order to capture the attention of the journalist.
So, you need to get these five-W’s: Who, What, Where, When and Why into your ES. And 'H', i.e. 'How much', which can be presented as one sentence and you have all the ingredients to ensure that you capture the attention of the gatekeeper and, hence, the funders.
These are the 5-W’s in more detail as applied to your ES, which should not run to any more than two or three pages:
WHAT
Describe what it is you are planning to do. Be it starting a software company, building a toll-rad or solar farm describe it in as few words as possible. The shorter the description, the better it will work. Remember, the best propositions are always the simplest and easiest to explain. There is nothing wrong with including an illustration or other image of your project in this section.
HOW MUCH
This, after all, is what any funder wants to know right up front and, be absolutely assured, no gatekeeper or funder is going to read an entire business plan (or even a poorly produced executive summary) in order to unearth this key piece of information. DO NOT present how you want this funding structured. Always leave the funding structure ‘open to negotiation’.
By proposing a funding structure you will immediately close down dialogue with prospective funders whose structure does not match what you are looking for, and who might well be able to offer you an alternative, better deal.
WHERE
Is your enterprise going to service a particular country, region within a country or is it being prepared for world domination?
WHO
Edit your management CV’s from your business plan back to no more than 50 to 100 word bio’s for each of your key management. Be sure you have the three pillars of any successful enterprise covered: technical/ product knowledge, sales/marketing and financial control.
If you are an established company, say as much, and give a little information about your track record and summarize your most recent years' financial results and your forecast post-investment performance.
Whether you are a new or established company finish off this section by saying how much you have already invested in the project.
WHEN
Are you already operating, are you planning a specific start date or is your future growth or launch dependent on funding? Make your time frames
clear.
WHY
Why do you believe that what you want funded is actually going to produce enough profit to provide an equity investor with attractive enough returns or a
lender to be assured the loan is going to be repaid? Present here the most relevant points of your market research and/or other evidence of the viability of your project.
Also, a word of caution. NEVER state at the outset that you are not going to pay ‘up front’ fees.
This displays an attitude that shows the client will be difficult to deal with from the outset and, perhaps, naivety in the matter of how the markets operate.
No-one can come to market expecting to raise $100,000,000 or more and not expect to pay a contribution to the necessary costs. This contribution is also required as a demonstration of commitment to the transaction process. Do not expect the funder to start spending money on these costs without any sign of commitment to the closing process from you.
It is also important to understand that EVERY funding program carries legitimate due diligence, legal and banking fees that are usually due at closure. All Crossway Capital Programmes present these fees clearly in their respective guides.
Finally, we work only with our favoured, trusted funders and so only engage with clients where we know we have a funder who will wish to move forward with your project. If we respond to your Executive Summary to say that we cannot assist you, regretfully that will be the case and will not be open to negotiation.
Do NOT make the common mistake of sending all information in your first email. This will most likely result in a rejection or be ignored and deleted. The entire market is flooded with proposals and no one has the time to go through hundreds of emails with a long list of attachments.
All we need to see at the outset is an Executive Summary (ES) of your project or proposition. In its most simplistic terms, producing an executive summary as a lethal weapon in your capital raising campaign amounts to utilizing a long established PR principle. Every press release needs to get the five-W’s into the opening paragraph in order to capture the attention of the journalist.
So, you need to get these five-W’s: Who, What, Where, When and Why into your ES. And 'H', i.e. 'How much', which can be presented as one sentence and you have all the ingredients to ensure that you capture the attention of the gatekeeper and, hence, the funders.
These are the 5-W’s in more detail as applied to your ES, which should not run to any more than two or three pages:
WHAT
Describe what it is you are planning to do. Be it starting a software company, building a toll-rad or solar farm describe it in as few words as possible. The shorter the description, the better it will work. Remember, the best propositions are always the simplest and easiest to explain. There is nothing wrong with including an illustration or other image of your project in this section.
HOW MUCH
This, after all, is what any funder wants to know right up front and, be absolutely assured, no gatekeeper or funder is going to read an entire business plan (or even a poorly produced executive summary) in order to unearth this key piece of information. DO NOT present how you want this funding structured. Always leave the funding structure ‘open to negotiation’.
By proposing a funding structure you will immediately close down dialogue with prospective funders whose structure does not match what you are looking for, and who might well be able to offer you an alternative, better deal.
WHERE
Is your enterprise going to service a particular country, region within a country or is it being prepared for world domination?
WHO
Edit your management CV’s from your business plan back to no more than 50 to 100 word bio’s for each of your key management. Be sure you have the three pillars of any successful enterprise covered: technical/ product knowledge, sales/marketing and financial control.
If you are an established company, say as much, and give a little information about your track record and summarize your most recent years' financial results and your forecast post-investment performance.
Whether you are a new or established company finish off this section by saying how much you have already invested in the project.
WHEN
Are you already operating, are you planning a specific start date or is your future growth or launch dependent on funding? Make your time frames
clear.
WHY
Why do you believe that what you want funded is actually going to produce enough profit to provide an equity investor with attractive enough returns or a
lender to be assured the loan is going to be repaid? Present here the most relevant points of your market research and/or other evidence of the viability of your project.
Also, a word of caution. NEVER state at the outset that you are not going to pay ‘up front’ fees.
This displays an attitude that shows the client will be difficult to deal with from the outset and, perhaps, naivety in the matter of how the markets operate.
No-one can come to market expecting to raise $100,000,000 or more and not expect to pay a contribution to the necessary costs. This contribution is also required as a demonstration of commitment to the transaction process. Do not expect the funder to start spending money on these costs without any sign of commitment to the closing process from you.
It is also important to understand that EVERY funding program carries legitimate due diligence, legal and banking fees that are usually due at closure. All Crossway Capital Programmes present these fees clearly in their respective guides.
Finally, we work only with our favoured, trusted funders and so only engage with clients where we know we have a funder who will wish to move forward with your project. If we respond to your Executive Summary to say that we cannot assist you, regretfully that will be the case and will not be open to negotiation.