Call for Partnership Concept Papers for the Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) Initiative | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Call for Partnership Concept Papers for the Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship (PACE) Initiative is a USAID funding opportunity issued as an addendum to the 2014 Global Development Alliance (GDA) Annual Program Statement. It is designed to attract partnership-driven concept papers that strengthen entrepreneurship ecosystems and, most importantly, help unlock and accelerate private investment for early-stage enterprises operating in developing countries. The core idea behind the opportunity is that USAID wants to work with partners to reduce barriers that keep promising startups and growth-stage ventures from accessing capital, markets, and the support they need to scale, with a strong emphasis on mobilizing private sector resources alongside development funding.

This opportunity directly ties to a broader U.S. Government commitment announced at the 2014 Global Entrepreneurship Summit: sparking more than $1 billion in new investments into business and social entrepreneurship by 2018. In practice, that means proposed concepts should not just provide technical assistance or isolated programming; they should be structured to catalyze investment flows and demonstrate how USAID support will help bring additional private capital off the sidelines. The opportunity sits within the U.S. Global Development Lab, specifically the Global Partnerships Division, reinforcing that this is meant to be partnership-oriented and leverage-driven rather than a traditional grant focused only on direct service delivery.

Administratively, this is a discretionary grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number RFA-OAA-15-000001) under the funding activity category of Science and Technology and other Research and Development. USAID anticipated making up to 50 awards, with an estimated total funding amount of $2,000,000. The listed award ceiling is $2,000,000 and the award floor is $500,000, which indicates the agency was open to proposals of meaningful size but still within a relatively targeted funding range for partnership pilots or scalable models. The CFDA (now commonly referred to as Assistance Listing) number is 98.001, USAID Foreign Assistance for Programs Overseas.

Eligibility is described as unrestricted, meaning the call is broadly open to different types of entities, with the caveat that applicants must still comply with any specific eligibility clarifications included in the full text of the announcement. Notably, the opportunity states there is no cost sharing or matching requirement, which lowers a common barrier to entry for organizations that may not have flexible funds available. That said, because this is under the GDA partnership framework and explicitly focused on catalyzing private investment, competitive concepts would typically be expected to show strong partner engagement and credible pathways to leveraging private sector participation, even if not formally required as a match.

Key dates for the opportunity were a posted date of December 3, 2014, with a closing date of February 27, 2015 (original and current closing dates match). The archive date was March 29, 2015. For support accessing the full announcement, the listed point of contact was Roderick Watson, Contract Specialist at USAID, reachable by phone at 202-567-5346.

Overall, this grant call can be understood as a mechanism for USAID to source partnership concepts that can measurably expand entrepreneurship and investment activity in developing countries, aligning development objectives with market-based financing and private sector-led growth. The emphasis is less on funding entrepreneurship in isolation and more on building or testing approaches that make early-stage enterprise investment more feasible, more attractive to investors, and more likely to scale beyond the life of the grant.

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