Women supporting a household
Including heads of household and caregivers building income while carrying primary family responsibilities.
VirtuAmerica Pro Bono
A website can be a doorway
Our philanthropic branch helps micro businesses build a credible place online when the people who lead them face barriers to economic opportunity, including a technology gap that has far more to do with access than with ability. Sponsors and VirtuAmerica carry the cost together, so a selected business launches on vaMicrosites at no cost to the business.
Who it is for
Good work should not stay invisible because the starting line was unequal
A micro business can feed a family, preserve a craft, or create a first foothold after a hard season, and its owner may still be earning trust through a social profile alone. The barrier is often technological as much as financial: tools that change faster than anyone can keep up with, and internet service that is slow, costly, or simply not available where the business works. Eligibility is contextual, not a contest in hardship: we look for an owner-led micro business, a real barrier to digital opportunity, and a website that would make a practical difference.
Rural entrepreneurs
Especially rural women and owners whose geography limits customers, services, capital, or access to digital expertise, including those working where internet service is slow, costly, or unreliable.
Entrepreneurs with disabilities
Owners whose work deserves an accessible digital presence designed around capability, dignity, and independence.
Older adult entrepreneurs
Owners starting again, preserving a lifetime of knowledge, or adapting a long-running livelihood to a digital market whose tools moved on without them. Decades of expertise should not count for less because this year’s platforms are unfamiliar.
People rebuilding
Owners recovering from displacement, migration, disaster, job loss, family disruption, or another major change in circumstances.
Barriers this list does not name
This list is not exhaustive. Local context, structural barriers, and the business’s own circumstances matter more than fitting a label.
Open to eligible micro businesses in every country and territory of the Americas: North America, Central America, the Caribbean, and South America.
A nomination may describe the barrier without exposing private records or asking the owner to perform their hardship for an audience.
What a selected business receives
More than a page. A useful business asset
Every award is scoped around the business rather than forced into a generic template. The package may include the following work when it serves the selected business’s goals.
Listen and set direction
A focused discovery conversation about the business, its customers, its priorities, and the website that would make the biggest difference first.
Shape the story
Help organizing the offer, message, calls to action, and owner-approved content without turning anyone’s circumstances into marketing material.
Design and build
A mobile-ready, accessible, secure website on vaMicrosites, built in the language the owner’s customers actually use, with the agreed pages and contact paths.
Launch and orient
Domain connection when included, launch support, owner orientation, and hosting and care for the sponsored term written into the award.
The zero-cost promise is written before work begins. The award letter states the pages, languages, features, domain or third-party services, hosting, support, and sponsored term that are covered. Nothing begins unless the selected business can accept that package at zero cost. There is no application fee and no surprise charge, and the award is the website itself: no cash, loan, investment, or equity is offered.
What the owner brings. Time for one working conversation, accurate information about the business, and approval of the words and images that go public. Nothing is invented on the owner’s behalf and nothing is published without their review. The finished website belongs to the business, not to the program and not to the sponsor.
How it works
We listen before we select, and select before we build
Anyone can start the conversation, but nothing moves without the owner. Consent comes before information, and funding comes before promises.
1
Nominate
The owner may self-nominate, or a customer, neighbor, family member, community organization, or other supporter may nominate the business.
2
Ask, then review
A nomination is not enrollment. We contact the owner and ask whether they want to continue. Only then do we look at what a website would change for the business, what scope is realistic, and how much the program can carry right now.
3
Match, build, launch
VirtuAmerica confirms a sponsor or pooled funding, writes a zero-cost package for the owner to accept, then builds and launches the site with the owner’s approval.
Selection is not first-come, first-served. A nomination does not guarantee selection, and we do not promise a decision or a launch date until funding, scope, and owner consent are all in place. Every nomination is read by a person, and a business we cannot fund today can be nominated again.
For donors and companies
One sponsor can put one business on the map
Sponsors underwrite the award; VirtuAmerica donates the platform, design, engineering, and stewardship. Sponsorship conveys no ownership, customer data, editorial control, or public recognition without the owner’s consent.
Start a sponsor conversation
Sponsor one website, underwrite part of an award, or help fund a group of businesses in a region you care about. Tell us what you have in mind and we will reply with what an award covers and what it costs to carry one.
Questions people ask
Clear boundaries make generosity more trustworthy
What counts as a micro business?
An owner-led operation where one person or a very small team carries most of the work and a website could create a meaningful next step. Legal size definitions vary by country, so we look at the business in its local context rather than applying one revenue or employee threshold across the Americas.
Which languages can we use?
Write the nomination in Spanish, English, or Portuguese, whichever lets you be clearest. This page is published in English and Spanish. The website an award produces is built in the language or languages the selected business actually needs.
Are sponsorships tax-deductible donations?
No tax-deductibility is promised. VirtuAmerica Pro Bono is a philanthropic initiative, and sponsorship terms are confirmed in writing before support is accepted. Sponsorship also conveys no ownership, customer data, or editorial control.
Nomination
Tell us about a micro business worth opening a door for
You do not need a polished proposal. Tell us what the business does, what barrier the owner is facing, and what a credible website could make possible. Spanish, English, and Portuguese are all welcome.
Dignity before storytelling
Need informs selection; it is never turned into spectacle.
Consent before visibility
The owner decides what may be shared and what stays private.
Privacy by default
Nominations are reviewed by the program. They are not sponsor marketing lists.
Share only what you may share
We never need identity documents, medical or banking records, immigration documents, or passwords. Please do not send them.
Privacy Policy
You do not have to start with the form. If you would rather ask a question or talk the program through first, write to us and a person will answer. probono@virtuamerica.com