Social Economy

At the forefront of empowering civil society leaders for a decade

Szilvia Szabó — Tue, 03 Oct 2023 12:13:28 +0000

At the forefront of empowering civil society leaders for a decade

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Social Entrepreneurship

Social Innovation

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Social Impact

The NGO Academy has become one of the strongest ecosystem builders in the Central Eastern European (CEE) region, dedicated to strengthening Civil Society through capacity-building training and educational activities to empower leaders.

Celebrating its 10th anniversary, Peter Vandor, one of the Founders and Academic Directors of NGO Academy, founded together with the ERSTE Foundation in 2013, shares insights about their impact over the years.

Peter Vandor, one of the Founders and Academic Directors of NGO Academy, Co-Founder of Social Entrepreneurship Center at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Image: Igor Ripak

“In recent years, the environment for Civil Society in the Central Eastern European region has increasingly become a `shrinking space`, suffering from difficult and unpredictable political and economic environments and lack of international support,”

Peter describes the current situation.

He adds that by the beginning of 2000, many organisations that previously supported the civil sector had left the region, which left organisations providing social services or working on human rights or environmental protection vulnerable to external factors.

“We try to support these organisations by helping them to grow their talent and competencies.

We train their leaders and key staff in a range of organisational topics, from fundraising and innovation to impact measurement, burnout prevention and strategy development.”

Peter has a broad overview of the sector by working shoulder-to-shoulder with his colleague, Reinhard Millner, Head of the Social Entrepreneurship Center at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, where they provide academic learning experiences and promote the development of social entrepreneurship and social innovation.

In the past ten years, NGO Academy has reached hundreds of organisations and trained over 6000 leaders through 290 workshops, management courses and MSc programmes focusing on Social Innovation and Management.

Number of NGO Academy member organisations in the CEE region. Image: NGO Academy

”NGO Academy began as a start-up – a small team with a profound belief in the idea, with total commitment and high ambition.

Today, the NGO Academy exists through the interactions of many people and organisations and has established itself as an important educational institution,”

said Nicole Traxler from the ERSTE Foundation.

Based on their recent survey, nine out of ten participants said they benefited from the new knowledge they acquired through these programs, and almost 80 per cent confirmed that they would find it financially challenging to take part in other offerings that are not supported.

Lejla Šehić Relić, one of the members and participants of the program, shared:

“NGO Academy is a unique, important programme of capacity building, connecting people and organisations. It provides inspiration, knowledge and support and is a vital bridge between the energy of civil society and the wisdom of an academic community that offers hope.”

Available programmes target leadership, executives and managers from a pool of outstanding civil society organisations within 14 Central and Eastern European countries, bringing knowledge from various areas, such as management, finance and communication skills.

“We try to attend as many of our activities in person as possible and talk with our members to understand their experiences and needs,” Peter explains.

However, the team had to experiment and innovate rather quickly in terms of delivering meaningful and engaging learning experiences due to COVID-19, which heavily impacted most members but, in the end, helped them create a broader selection of course offers that stayed popular post-pandemic.

NGO Academy celebrated ten years of impact in Vienna in September 2023. Image: Igor Ripak

Their results speak for themselves, as 84.6 per cent say that being a member of the NGO Academy has contributed positively to their organisational development, and 57.3 per cent reported having started new projects or activities as a result of NGO Academy training.

Peter adds:

“The part I enjoy most is teaching and discussions with our members in the classroom. Since one of my topics is innovation management, there is often a lot of discussion about where they see society moving and how they plan to respond. Being able to provide a helpful structure and seeing them bring new ideas to life is very rewarding.”

A study that Peter worked on found that many civil society leaders still have an overall positive assessment of this sector in the past 10-15 years, mainly due to the favourable legal frameworks, eye-level dialogue with public authorities and easy access to funding promoted by the European Union.

However, this is mostly the case among countries in the pre-accession phase to become EU members, while member states are not so optimistic anymore.

Member state representatives see an improvement in relationships with municipalities, but working with the central government has often become more challenging, and civil society organisations have become the targets of anti-liberal narratives, framing them as “foreign agents”, threatening their funding or their right to operate.

Other trends include an overall increasing professionalising of the sector, shifting from informal to more formalised activities, and embracing newer forms of operations, including social entrepreneurship.

To celebrate their achievements and shared impact, NGO Academy hosted a 10th-anniversary event in Vienna in September, including TEDx Talks sessions showcasing many of their members` stories and impact.

Headline image: Igor Ripak

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In pursuit of changing lives

Szilvia Szabó — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 20:23:56 +0000

In pursuit of changing lives

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Insights from social entrepreneur Lucia Dal Negro, Founder of Kokono, on building a socially and environmentally conscious enterprise in Uganda.

Kokono is a project started by De-LAB, an Italian social enterprise, designed to address the challenge of keeping infants safe in their first year after birth in Africa.

We produce unique cradles from biodegradable materials to protect children from 0 to 12 months from major health and safety risks, including the malaria mosquito.

From the very beginning, I have worked with a team, and we did not only want to work in the health sector and 'settle' for helping people. We also wanted to do it in an environmentally responsible way. Besides, we thought about logistics and optimised the shape of the cradle in a way that saves a lot of space and makes it easy to stack them up.

Kokono produces unique cradles from biodegradable materials to protect babies from major health and safety risks. Image: Kokono

Moreover, the product is sold without packaging to avoid polluting a country with no actual plastic and waste disposal system.

The next edition of Kokono will also be produced with 50 per cent recovered plastic, which will help decrease its environmental footprint while giving us a chance to raise awareness about the circular economy. It has been a bumpy road since the first design came to life to make this a reality.

The Covid pandemic obviously resulted in a major setback, and there was a grasshopper invasion in East Africa in January 2020, which did not help. We had to adapt not just our business plans but the product’s design. Kokono was originally supposed to be made from banana fibres, but then the grasshopper invasion destroyed all the plantations, so there was no way to use that material.

After rethinking the project, Covid forced us to stop for almost a year because Uganda had the longest lockdown in Africa, and nothing could be done. But luckily, there were also some exceptional positive moments, including the first sale to a private hospital of 40 cradles.

One of the most inspiring moments was when we got the result of the Social Impact Assessment on the first user group of Kokono.

I remember the amazement and pride I felt as I saw that not one of the first 20 children had caught malaria in the six months of using the cradle.

There I realised that we had a future, and it was worth fighting for. It took countless hours of work, patience and dedication to get where we are now.

There was a time when if I had given up, people would have still applauded me anyway because everything was so terribly difficult.

Instead, perseverance won, and thanks to the collaboration with Italian and local partners and the encouragement of the Ugandans, while seeing this idea manifesting and helping people, I did not give up.

To the many social innovators out there trying to make a difference, I would say never to let difficulties get you down: no one ever told us it would be easy.

We are currently looking for equity investors to expand our project, which has succeeded in the proof of concept and market testing phase. Uganda is a huge country, and the demand is massive here and elsewhere as well. With the capital investment, we could support the distribution network and start selling the product on a large scale.

Another thing that impressed me was getting to know the single mothers of the Kawempe slum in Kampala. After the pandemic, their numbers have increased dramatically.

Here you would meet 14-15 years old girls who need to be educated about childcare.

They welcomed the product as if it were a solution 'dropped from the sky'.

It was touching, especially since I expected more resistance towards something new and unknown.

Instead, they were overjoyed. Sometimes understanding each other is much easier than we think and happens profoundly. This experience gave me much strength to go on.

Kokono was first introduced in Uganda, and looking to expand in the next years. Image: Kokono

Having the opportunity to work in the field and interact with people using our solution really keeps me grounded and more determined to raise funds and expand our operations.

In addition to having funds, I would like to have a network of companies that see this as a project for the future and would support us with expertise and vision in other African countries.

Ugandan birth and infant mortality rates are no different from those of other countries on the continent, and the potential to make a significant impact is enormous.

Lucia Dal Negro Founder of Kokono in the middle

I enjoy spending about a month twice a year in Kampala supervising the operations and working with the team. I extricate myself entirely from European and Italian problems and finally connect to the local set-up, feeling the atmosphere.

This society is made up of a young population full of vitality, which dares to dream big even if it does not have the means....and, above all, never complains.

What gives me the energy to keep going is the fact that Kokono really works, saves the lives of children and gives hope to mothers struggling to juggle work and bringing up their kids.

Working with local partners who believe in it and look to us for guidance on moving forward is another factor in making this work.

Finally, I think that if we, as a very small organisation, have made it this far, who knows what larger and more structured companies could do.

There are too many opportunities offered by circular models that must be exploited....it is no longer the time to stand by, and we at De-LAB are ready to build partnerships with those who think like us!

This article is an extract from content originally published in the Circular Economy in Action special edition of the Profit with Purpose Magazine - you can read the full article and other features in the magazine.

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Creating a powerful unified voice of impact-driven leaders

Anonymous — Thu, 13 Jan 2022 08:03:47 +0000

Creating a powerful unified voice of impact-driven leaders

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Social Entrepreneurship

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"I see most often that social innovators are ordinary people brave enough to do extraordinary things." Fireside chat with Suzanne Wisse-Huiskes, CEO of Euclid Network

"During my years living in Nigeria, I have learned that even if entrepreneurs have great ideas, they need to have a supportive ecosystem to flourish. They cannot operate in a vacuum simply because they rely on other systems, like legislation, place of sales, and even research.

At Euclid Network, the European Network for social enterprises and impact-driven leaders, we work with the front runners in the social enterprise space in Europe. Yet, we still need to build up and strengthen an ecosystem that represents them and changes the environment where they operate.

In many ways, social enterprises are raising the bar for creating innovative solutions that have a positive impact.

They have the power to transform industries and inspire change in various ways. I see most often that social innovators are ordinary people brave enough to do extraordinary things. They are taking the energy to work hard for a long time, usually at least five years from the idea phase, before they can see the actual impact of their work.

To get through challenges, social entrepreneurs need to be persistent, resilient and creative, and I think what they teach us is that every business has the power to change the world if they want to.

In order to do that, they definitely need every support they can get along the way. That is where I see the relevance of our work through our community with members based in 21 European countries, including social enterprise support organisations like incubators, national networks, research centres, and universities.

Top 100 Women in social enterprise - initiative of the Euclid Network

A great project that highlights the power of collaboration is the ‘Top 100 Women in social enterprise’ initiative. We launched it in 2021 to celebrate female social entrepreneurs and put their journey and achievements in the spotlight while inspiring and connecting them.

We have two categories for application: Social Entrepreneur and Social Innovator.

We had little funding for this campaign but felt the need to emphasise the work of these fantastic women. We ended up with a project that all my team loved from start to finish and accomplished more through collaboration than we could have imagined.

For me, this was such an amazing experience discovering and sharing so many impact stories. It has also proved not to underestimate the power we all have to challenge and change the status quo we live in.

The call for nominations is open for 2022 as we aim to expand the reach of inspirational stories of female changemakers.

Social enterprises are setting an example for other mainstream enterprises that things can be done differently. They also provide new business models that were not there before, offering alternative products and services to consumers with a unique value proposition.

For instance, if we look at sustainable fashion, there is a lot of learning there that corporates could take on or further explore to set new standards for doing business. For a long time, we have believed that consumers can make their own choices, and once there is a more sustainable product or service, they will ultimately choose that.

But it is not that simple, given the overload of information and the fact that these goods are still more expensive than the non-sustainable products. Now we can see the role of corporations through their supply chains and also the importance of having supportive legislation.

However, the lack of awareness is precisely one of the main barriers to changing business as usual, and that is one of our key focus areas. There are still many misleading assumptions around social entrepreneurship, and our job includes eliminating these assumptions and making sure that we have clear communication towards different stakeholders.

When we talk about social enterprise, we actually speak about many different shapes and sizes and even legal forms depending on the countries we are looking at. So what we rather talk about is their work, activities, and impacts.

One example of why representation is so critical became visible when governments worked on action plans for COVID recovery. Social enterprises were left out of these plans for simple reasons. Underrepresentation and the absence of clear legal structures to identifying social enterprises are not helping when it comes to high-level decision-making.

This is where we need to work hard for better recognition and creating a powerful unified voice that cannot be ignored. A few important and imminent opportunities would include better support from governments; more visibility for the sector; a better understanding of the ‘impact first’ social enterprise business model versus the traditional business model where financial returns come before social and environmental impact; a more supportive legal and policy environment; more aligned funding instruments.

That is what we want to do at Euclid Network, and that is what we are fighting to create more opportunities and allocate more available funding for this sector.

I think we need to step over our own shadows as we operate in a tiny bubble and reach out to stakeholders who could help us. Putting aside differences is part of the process, and honestly, we simply do not have the time to bicker amongst ourselves.

We have a bigger fish to fry, which is unlocking the economic potential of social enterprises.

I trust that our work can activate stakeholders to work for common goals and not just talk about leading the change or creating change but actually doing it. When I see my team at work putting their hearts into our mission and collaborating with our partners, it makes me believe that we can turn things around as long as we stick together."

...

Read the full interview with more insights in the Winter 2021/22 issue of the Profit with Purpose Magazine >>

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First extensive study on Social Investment in Africa reveals financial trends and gaps

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Nov 2020 11:50:05 +0000

First extensive study on Social Investment in Africa reveals financial trends and gaps

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The African Venture Philanthropy Alliance launched a high-level report on the state of social investment financing in Africa

The African Venture Philanthropy Alliance (AVPA) launched ‘The Landscape for Social Investments in Africa’ high-level inaugural report on the state of social investment financing in Africa.

The report is the first of several concerted efforts aimed at addressing information gaps on social investments in areas such as Philanthropy, Impact Investing, Private Capital deployment and Corporate Sustainability Programmes across sub-Saharan Africa.

AVPA is a unique Pan-African network established in 2018 for social investors, headquartered in Nairobi with offices in Johannesburg and Lagos, with a mission to drive a transformative social investing agenda and build vibrant, influential community across Africa.

Their work is aligned with thriving sister networks in Europe (EVPA), South America (Latimpacto), and Asia (AVPN) to form a dynamic global force for social impact.

AVPA facilitates the flow of human, intellectual and financial capital, not only within Africa but also across countries involved with its partner organisations globally.

The Landscape for Social Investments in Africa report

“Africa needs an estimated $500 billion - $1.2 trillion annually between now and 2030 to meet its financing gap for delivering on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals targets.

With traditional sources of social investment like aid and government funding unlikely to fill this gap. Therefore, we need to turn to the global financial and capital markets for the requisite investments, “ says Dr. Frank Aswani, CEO of AVPA.

“This demands a good understanding of the social investment landscape on the continent and increasing collaboration amongst social investors by breaking down existing silos between providers of grants, debt and equity.

We are taking the first step in this direction with this study. It provides a baseline against which we can track future progress and key trends that will influence the increased flow of capital into social investments in Africa while working collaboratively to identify programmatic interventions for creating increased social impact.” adds Aswani in regards of carrying out this broad research.

Dr. Frank Aswani, CEO of The African Venture Philanthropy Alliance

The report presents findings of an eight-month study across 18 African countries - six each in West, East, and Southern Africa.

The study was commissioned by AVPA with support from the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), Social Capital Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and an anonymous donor.

"The US African Development Foundation (USADF) supported AVPA to carry out a landscape study to understand better social investment across East, West and Southern Africa.

The findings will help drive strategies and plans for future investors, donors, foundations, and public sector financiers.

We are constantly looking for ways to partner with corporations and governments that are interested in the business growth of Africa." C.D. Glin, President and CEO, US African Development Foundation

AVPA conducted the study in partnership with Intellecap, the advisory arm of The Aavishkaar Group, which works to build businesses that can benefit the underserved segments across Asia and Africa. It mapped providers of social capital - financial, human and intellectual, their investment strategies, and opportunities for collaboration amongst the various investors.

The findings highlight, among other things, what is currently happening, who are the key players, what are their current approaches to investing, what challenges they are facing, and the opportunities they are seeing. It also identifies additional areas of future research while making recommendations of opportunities to create a more vital ecosystem for increased capital flow and social impact on the continent.

Many social investors in sub-Saharan Africa operate in silos, necessitating strategic interventions to bridge gaps across the different types of capital and investment strategies.

Key findings of the report:

Over 820 social investors are operating in the sub-Saharan African (SSA) region; 39% in East Africa, 31% in West Africa and 30% in Southern Africa.
The majority of social investment capital deployed across the regions continues to come from international sources with a growing number of active regionally-based social investors.

Overview of Key Social Investors in SSA

Donors, development finance institutions, and sustainability aligned fund managers are the largest providers of social capital across the SSA regions, deploying billions of dollars annually, mainly through long term projects.
Corporates and corporate foundations are emerging as strong drivers of regional social investment ecosystems.
While Southern Africa has the highest number of regional-based family foundations, a high level of activity was also recorded for regional family foundations in West Africa who are relatively public with information on their giving and the causes they support.
Regional Corporate Social Investors (CSIs) across sub-Saharan Africa largely support basic services (health and education) provision, while North American CSIs mostly focus on economic empowerment and entrepreneurship initiatives.
Development finance institutions and sustainability aligned fund managers investments across the regions are highly concentrated by geography and sector, following similar trends in sector preference with financial services, agriculture and energy.
Across the regions, tech-based enterprises focused on solving challenges in the financial services, agriculture, energy and healthcare challenges have received the highest focus from social investors.
Large pools of social investment capital deployed by African diaspora communities, faith-based organisations and other local capital providers represent a significant opportunity for collaboration with other social investors to make progress in key social sectors such as health care, education and affordable housing.
The supply of social investment capital in the SSA region remains significantly mismatched with demand from social enterprises and impact businesses.
With declining funding from donors and international foundations, non-profits are exploring alternative and more sustainable funding models.

The study includes an in-depth report for each of the three regions - East, West, and Southern Africa to provide detailed regional analyses.

Nancy Kairo, AVPA Executive Director for the East Africa region

“The East Africa section of this report shows there is an urgent need to diversify both the sources and the recipients of impact funds.

Development finance institutions are still among the largest providers of such capital, and most of these funds are invested in mature stage sustainable businesses that can absorb large amounts of capital.

Yet, to realise real change we need to see large capital flows from other sources such as the capital markets, high-net-worth individuals and grantors amalgamate in support of SMEs—the backbone of our economies.” says Nancy Kairo, AVPA Executive Director for the East Africa region.

AVPA plans to repeat this study every 2-3 years to track trends and improve the knowledge base within the ecosystem.

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Social Innovators in Dublin received €50,000 funding to realise greater impact

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Nov 2020 13:31:39 +0000

Social Innovators in Dublin received €50,000 funding to realise greater impact

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Five social innovation projects received significant funding in Dublin to bring more benefits to communities and economy

The annual Dublin City Social Enterprise Awards 2020 took place in early November, as a fully online ceremony in line with the Irish government Covid-restrictions.

At the ceremony, five awardees received funding from a total pool of €50,000 along with supports which will assist their social enterprises in achieving a greater impact among the individuals and communities that they serve.

Dublin City Social Enterprise Awards 2020

The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Hazel Chu delivered the keynote address in which she praised the awardees:

“This year’s Dublin City Social Enterprise awardees are actively and innovatively working to address inadequacies, contradictions and underlying issues within our city.

They are delivering change, progress and hope to individuals and communities while also bringing about economic, community and policy benefits.”

The social challenges that the awardees are seeking to address include: diversity, social inclusion, disability, unemployment, mental health, family support, old-age care, education and sustainability.

This year’s Dublin City Social Enterprise awardees:

Outhouse, the LGBT Community Resource Centre.
The Open Doors Initiative provides opportunities to some of the marginalised members of the society.
MyMind has created a unique movement for community-based mental health services that work towards giving every person in Ireland equal access to mental health support early, affordably, directly, without stigma or delay.
The Great Care Co-op is Ireland's first ever carer-owned cooperative in home care.
ReCreate Ireland is making art materials and educational supplies affordable and accessible to every sector of the community for all kinds of creative purposes.

Chair of the Dublin City Social Enterprise Committee and MC of the ceremony, Mary Mac Sweeney congratulated the awardees.

She highlighted the importance of raising awareness of both the awardees and social enterprises in general. ‘It is so important that we collectively promote the significant impact that social enterprises deliver in local communities and economies. The awardees, along with an increasing and dynamic array of social enterprises in Dublin, are creating employment, opportunities and improvements where they are based’. said Mac Sweeney.

“This award is going to allow us to work with fifty Primary Schools within Dublin City.

We are going to deliver fifty boxes packed full of materials directly to these schools, which will be accompanied by some creative consultation sessions.

Schools will also get a full membership until the end of 2021 which will give them the chance to continue being creative with minimal environmental impact.”

Kevin McLoughlin, Head of Marketing and Business Development at Recreate Ireland

says Kevin McLoughlin, Head of Marketing and Business Development at Recreate Ireland, about what this award means to them.

The Dublin City Social Enterprise Awards seeks to celebrate and support innovative social enterprises, highlighting their role in the city’s ecosystem.

Great Care Co-op social enterprise - awardee of Dublin City Social Enterprise Awards 2020

Aoife Smith, co-founder and director of Great Care Co-op social enterprise, explains how this award can open up new opportunities to create value in the community through their work.

“We started off to support disadvantaged migrant women in home care and to create equal opportunities in this sector for all. We see that our way of operating will bring a real systemic change in the home care system in Ireland.

With the financial support of this award, we will be able to set up a hub, which usually takes up to six months to sustain itself. This is going to be crucial for us in getting this model out there.”

The programme and competition aim to increase awareness of the important contribution that social enterprises make to building communities, creating employment and developing the skills of the participants who get involved.

The awards are funded by Dublin City Council and the Department of Rural and Community Development and are managed by Inner City Enterprise.

The funding awarded to social enterprises will allow them to develop their plans, activities further and bring benefits to more individuals and communities.

The scheme was first established in 2015 through a collaboration between Dublin City Council, Inner City Enterprise (ICE) and the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Dublin City to provide funding to kick-start the creation and development of social enterprises in Dublin City.

This year’s award ceremony was part of a series - which represents Dublin's involvement in the European Commission’s: European Social Economy Regions - 2020 Project. The objective of the project is to build networks of Social Economy and Social Enterprise stakeholders and to raise awareness about the Social Economy at the regional and local level.

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November 2020

Dutch social enterprises have a strong influence on building a new economy

Anonymous — Mon, 16 Nov 2020 12:07:00 +0000

Dutch social enterprises have a strong influence on building a new economy

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Social enterprises are pioneers in building a better economy in the Netherlands

A new research report from Social Enterprise Netherland revealed the pioneering role of mission-driven enterprises in the business community to facilitate a transition towards a more sustainable economy and contribute to reach the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The Transition Theory shows that small, innovative players – niche actors – are of crucial importance in accelerating the process of building back better from the COVID-19 pandemic. Social enterprises – companies with a primarily social mission – are the pioneers in the transition to a new economy.

Many social enterprises focus not only on the direct positive impact they create with their own product or service but also aim to influence other companies to act more sustainably.

Study: Social Enterprises as Influencers of the Broader Business Community - image:Social Enterprise NL

Social Enterprise Netherland (NL) has conducted the ‘Social Enterprises as Influencers of the Broader Business Community’ research based on thorough academic literature research and inspiring examples from the Dutch social enterprise sector.

The report found that there are three important ways in which social enterprises can influence the business community, which are at the core of their ‘model of influencing’:

1. ‘Raising the possible’ (showing that it is possible to do business sustainably),

2. ‘Raising the desirable’ (showing that it is desirable to do business sustainably),

3. ‘Raising the acceptable’ (showing that it is unacceptable not to do business sustainably).

“People might think that social enterprises are very small as compared to the industry leaders. Can they really make a change?

This report shows that they can actually play a crucial role in the transition of the business community towards creating a more sustainable economy, by showing that it is in fact possible to make a profit with purpose by disrupting the mainstream business as usual practices.” says Simone van Dijk Social, one of the researchers contributed to the report from Social Enterprise Netherland (NL).

The ‘model of influencing’ describes eleven ‘influencing activities’: concrete strategies that social enterprises employ to influence. Different inspiring examples from the Dutch social enterprise sector illustrate these activities.

Social enterprise Tony’s Chocolonely's mission statement: “Together we make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate” - Image: Tony’s Chocolonely'

For example, social enterprise Tony’s Chocolonely has a mission statement that goes beyond their products: “Together we make 100% slave free the norm in chocolate”. This explicit mention of changing the norm clearly references changes beyond Tony’s own chocolate bars.

Their case shows that it is possible to make fair chocolate that has a positive impact on local communities and stimulates other chocolate-making companies to copy their methods through their Tony’s Open Chain platform.

Albert Heijn, the largest retailer in the Netherlands, followed the example and became an official ‘mission ally’ for its private-label chocolate brand Delicata.

"Real social entrepreneurs want systems to change, transitions that take years, and that can hurt. It is about operating radically differently.

As a social entrepreneur, you should think about: where are you in that landscape, in the system? What do you want to change? Do you want to set up a whole new system, or turn the current system around? Is what you’re doing impactful, or are you merely limiting the damage?” says Arjen Boekhold, Game Changer Unltd., former Tony’s Chocolonely.

Another precedent showed by social enterprise Frank About Tea when they published an ‘Open letter to the CEO of Unilever’ in the Dutch Financial Times.

With this action, they actively raised awareness about the inequalities in the tea sector amongst consumers and professionals, stimulating them to hold companies accountable for their responsibility in the supply chain.

Social enterprises can also contribute to raising official standards, such as voluntary industry agreements, certifications and even legislation, thereby making it unacceptable not to do business sustainably.

Fairphone, Dutch social enterprise challenging smartphone industry - image: Fairphone

For instance, Fairphone is a social enterprise company which aims to develop smartphones that are designed and produced with minimal environmental impact.

They are bringing together major industry players in the Fair Cobalt Alliance to jointly improve the conditions in which cobalt, an essential resource to produce smartphones, is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Our strength lies in giving an example with the product, with the service itself.

[…] We have to accomplish, to prove, that a product or service like ours has a sustainable business case to put in the market, and develop a sourcing model,” says Monique Lempers, Impact Innovation Director at Fairphone.

The ‘Social Enterprises as Influencers of the Broader Business Community’ research shows that social enterprises – often relatively small players in their industries – can play a crucial role in the transition to a new economy.

The results provide concrete tools to help social and other innovative companies from around the world accelerate the sustainability transitions in their industries through influencing.

Simone van Dijk from Social Enterprise NL explains further the relevance of their research:

“We conducted this research because we found there was still little known about the way social enterprises influence the broader business community – even when this is often at the core of a social enterprise’s mission.

We hope that the findings in this report do not only help value-driven enterprises to see and enhance their influencing role, but also show corporates the relevance of (working together with) social enterprises.

It also shows the importance of funding long term systems change, stimulate researchers to investigate this further, and help support organisations such as ours to support their members to unlock business potentials through their influencing role.”

The recently released Social Enterprise Monitor 2020 also showed that 96% of Dutch social enterprises actively aims to influence other organisations. The Social Enterprise Monitor is the largest annual survey of social enterprises in the Netherlands, carried out by Social Enterprise Netherland (NL) in collaboration with multiple partners and with the support of PwC.

Social Enterprise NL is a national membership body that represents, connects and supports the growing community of social enterprises in The Netherlands with over 400 members to date.

Their mission is to build an economy that works for all people: circular, inclusive and poverty-free. The organisation offers its members different kinds of business support and works on a more favourable ecosystem for social entrepreneurs in the Netherlands and beyond.

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November 2020

Alliances Could Not Just Save But Revive Social Innovators

Bronagh Loughlin — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 09:42:46 +0000

Alliances Could Not Just Save But Revive Social Innovators

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Social Economy stakeholders are joining forces to build alliances

Social innovators are coming together for four days to become more resilient at the virtual annual conference of The European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA), running from the 21st to the 24th of September 2020.

Jorgos Papadakis, Marketing and Communications Director for the EVPA details his decision for choosing the theme ‘Building Alliance for Impact’.

He says, “We felt that Building Alliances for Impact was the right theme at the right time. It reflects not only the ever-growing need of all impact investing shareholders to join forces in order to maximize real societal change, but it also corresponds to the specifics of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dealing with the virus places a lot of these stakeholders, primarily social purpose organizations, under tremendous pressure. And while this annual conference won’t be a pandemic-oriented event, we will have extensive discussions and also showcase specific examples of how such challenges can be tackled in the most effective way”.

Jorgos Papadakis, Marketing and Communications Director, EVPA

The European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) is a lively network of organisations sharing the same vision and a common goal: creating positive societal impact through venture philanthropy. Its membership covers a full range of organisations within the impact ecosystem, including venture philanthropy funds, social investors, grant-making foundations, impact investing funds, private equity firms, professional service firms, philanthropy advisers, banks and business schools.

The conference’s aim is to bring hundreds of professionals together via 60+ interactive and creative sessions where they will learn, engage, network and get visibility. The interactivity of this virtual event will enable collaboration by facilitating open discussions to explore the alliances which tackle global concerns.

EVPA annual conference brings together stakeholders from the #Investing4Impact networks

These open discussions will not only address the ‘why’ but also the ‘how’ which is essential when it comes to tackling global issues.

Although the conference will have a focus on Europe, collaboration truly knows no borders. Whether the discussion is about investing in Latin America, gaining insights into new platforms such as the Deal Share Platform for Africa or gathering information from Asia as a whole, collaboration is absolutely essential to credibly address the major challenges of our time.

To explore concrete ways of closer cooperation with affiliate #Investing4Impact networks and stakeholders, participants will have a unique opportunity to deep dive into various topics such as ‘just transition’, climate change and socially sustainable development.

Jorgos is passionate about the mission of EVPA and says, “Businesses can usually be investors with impact rather than for impact and this is understandable. On the other hand, they are an integral part of the ecosystem, as standalones or through their corporate foundations.

As such, we feel that they have a lot to contribute and a lot to learn by attending our annual conference as

we will showcase concrete examples of how meaningful investments can be conducted in a very difficult environment.

The conference’s 2nd day for instance is the perfect example on how to build a resilient ecosystem that can correspond to the post-Covid 19 landscape in the best possible way”.

The conference is divided into four main themes across the four days.

Day one is about building alliances. Beginning from the public sector and institutional investors, the effectiveness of venture philanthropy will be put to the test and the amount of risk investors for impact are willing to undertake to achieve societal change assessed.

Day two is under the theme of resilience where they will discuss how to prepare for the future with European business leaders, deal with systemic change, and build trust between social investors and public authorities while also learning from COVID-19 response examples in high impact ventures.

The theme for day three is social enterprises. Social entrepreneurship will be discussed along the whole investing for impact spectrum.

Day four will discuss scaling for impact. The conversation will surround what needs to be done in order to maximise impact exactly where it is needed and with the movement of all players.

Jorgos highlights some of the key points of the conference. He says,

“We’ve decided to split the conference into 4 main subthemes, Building Alliances, Resilience, Social Enterprises and Scaling For Impact.

We plan to showcase how to reach these strategic goals through dedicated sessions and workshops as well as design sprints with networks, social entrepreneurs, institutional investors and initiatives that have contributed to achieve real, tangible, impactful change.

I believe it is a unique, very diverse and very rewarding programme and we would like to invite all purpose-driven innovator, investor and other stakeholders to join us and co-shape the future. Because I firmly believe that investing for impact is the future”.

The EVPA Annual Conference is organised with the support of Impact Capital, DOEN Participaties, EIB Institute, Blueplanet Investments, Grupo Ageas Portugal, Erste Bank Group, Fondazione CRT, Demeter and Fundo Inovacao Social.

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September 2020

Free access to open source digital book on Social Innovation

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 15:55:51 +0000

Free access to open source digital book on Social Innovation

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Explore how not-for-profit organisations, companies and state related agencies collaborate for social innovation

This book is relevant to communities interested in sustainability, responsible leadership or social change, since it centres on the question of how diverse actors succeed in making the world a better place by means of innovation. It is based on a rigorous research program and integrates 3 years of research funded by the European Commission.

By uncovering how actors need to work together and which strategies they need to apply in generating positive impact, the book produces knowledge to inform policies and practices. It deals with the transformation of professional service delivery, the blurring boundaries between “private” and “public” actors and goods, and the ambition across sectors of increasing societal value.

The author team has won the "Best Book 2019 Award" of the Academy of Management's (AOM) Public and Nonprofit Division.

" We won an important award shortly after publishing the book and been pleased to read in the award message that: Social Innovation: Comparative Perspectives covers an important and relevant topic. It clearly outlines methodological approaches for analyzing social innovation, with sufficient detail that other studies could replicate. The book has practical value because it provides guidance to practitioners regarding how they can achieve social innovation in their contexts.” says Dr Gorgi Krlev, who works at the Centre for Social Investment (CSI) of the University of Heidelberg and co-author of the book.

Since it is hard to establish causality and to measure social properties when investigating impact, especially at the level of society, the book narrows down impact to one priority aspect: social innovation – understood as organizations’ capacity to generate novel ideas, ways and means of doing things, of addressing public and social problems of many kinds. Social innovation spans individual actors, organizations, and transformations in society in view of today’s grand challenges.

This volume is based on contributions of the project "ITSSOIN – Impact of the Third Sector as Social Innovation" funded by the European Commission under the 7th framework programme and authored by Prof Helmut K. Anheier, Dr Georg Mildenberger andDr Gorgi Krlev from the Centre for Social Investment at the University of Heidelberg.

The book is available online for free to read and download.

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June 2020

European Social Economy Summit

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Jan 2020 12:42:00 +0000

European Social Economy Summit

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Social Innovation

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Social Economy

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26th November 2020 - 27th November 2020

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Mannheim, Germany

Call for proposals - European Social Economy Summit 2020, Mannheim, Germany

The European Social Economy Summit will bring together public and private stakeholders, civil society representatives and scholars to discuss the future and network. Also to inform, and increase the visibility of social economy and social enterprises policies, to exchange good practices and success stories and support peer learning.

The programme of the European Social Economy Summit will be co-created by the City of Mannheim, the European Commission and the participating.

There will be three thematic angles to frame the programme of the Summit:

Collaboration: Addressing today’s most pressing challenges requires developing the capacity to lead collaboratively and to effectively work across sectors and countries.

Innovation: Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective new solutions to challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress.

Digitalisation: Digitalisation in the Social Economy is already having a substantial impact on social and economic prospects worldwide.

Call for proposals to lead sessions

The Summit is an opportunity to get all stakeholders active in the social economy together. The application is open for proposals until 27th March 2020 to lead stakeholder sessions at the conference which is an excellent opportunity to engage with a diverse audience representing the large variety of actors active in this field all over Europe.

All sessions should illustrate how the social economy can best contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition, they should show on how social economy can help implement the political priorities of the new Commission over the next five years (e.g. the European Green Deal, an economy that works for people, a Europe fit for the digital age and a new push for European democracy), and more specifically, feed the preparation of the European Commission’s Action Plan on Social Economy announced for 2021.

European Social Economy Summit 2020

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