Social Impact

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 Economy

Social Entrepreneurship

Social Innovation

Topic

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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Euclid Network

Szilvia Szabó — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 16:45:24 +0000

Euclid Network

Location

Netherlands

https://euclidnetwork.eu/

Reach

Europe

Euclid Network is the premier European network for organisations that support social entrepreneurs and impact-driven leaders – and we are looking for new members!

Now more than ever, the social enterprise ecosystem needs collaboration and partnerships to revolutionise the world’s economy into a more inclusive system that works better for all living things and the planet.

With our members, we are leading the change and empowering social enterprises to break the mould to deliver innovative solutions towards all of the UN sustainable development goals.

New members would become part of a network that has extensive experience and a proven track record of bringing stakeholders together to advance the social economy agenda within all the EU Member States and their neighbours.

Creating a powerful unified voice of impact-driven leaders

"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

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January 2022

Focus

Sustainable Development Goals

Platform :: Partner categories

Funding | Supports

Innovation | Research

Networking | Events | Community

Public voting is open to select winners of the first Impact Shakers Awards

Anonymous — Thu, 27 May 2021 11:31:45 +0000

Public voting is open to select winners of the first Impact Shakers Awards

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Social Entrepreneurship

Topic

Awards

Business

Social Impact

People are invited from all over Europe to vote for the most innovative impact-driven startups and scale-ups.

Public voting is open until June 18th 2021, to select winners of the first Impact Shakers Awards that takes its inspiration from the doughnut economics model, which maps human prosperity according to a social foundation and ecological ceiling.

Applications were submitted from 24 countries, and an expert panel of jury selected 48 projects that made it to the final round.

Using simple online voting, people can now decide which innovative startup or scale-up will become category winners.

The public can pick winners in twelve categories: Energy, Water, Food, Health, Education, Income & Work, Peace & Justice, Political Voice, Social Equity, Gender Equality, Housing & Networks.

Top 10 countries and cities represented at The Impact Shakers Awards

Finalist projects present various solutions to tackle pressing social, environmental challenges with an entrepreneurial mindset, focusing on data-driven technologies, capturing carbon from the atmosphere, mental health issues, plastic pollution, and more.

Winners will be announced on June 21st and receive access to unique networking opportunities, prizes to accelerate business growth and be invited to participate in an intensive bootcamp to secure alternative funding.

Partners offering prizes for best projects include Quest Impact Design Studio, EVPA, Mikme, SeedTribe, UpEffect, Business Spirit Platform and Adobe.

Yonca Braeckman, CEO of Impact Shakers and founder of the award, said:

“It’s the first time we used the doughnut economics model to work with impact startups, and we can say it’s an excellent and educational first edition.

We’ll continue to research how we can implement insight, collect more data, and measure impact.

At this point, we found significantly more impact startups in the categories energy, health, income & work and food, while there were far fewer in the categories peace & justice, political voice and water.”

Impact Shakers, the organiser behind The Impact Shakers Awards, aims to create a supportive ecosystem in which impact-driven startups can grow into solid and scalable businesses and bridge the gap between impact and profit.

“It’s really great to be able to prove with data what we’ve been sensing for a while: founders of impact startups are more diverse.

Over 80% of the applicants had at least one ‘under-represented founder’ on their team.

Another remarkable trend: many already found interested business angels—even with an impact-driven business model,” says Braeckman about the added value of organising the first edition of the Impact Shakers Awards.

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May 2021

Award is open for sustainable and inclusive European startups

Anonymous — Tue, 04 May 2021 11:52:42 +0000

Award is open for sustainable and inclusive European startups

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Applications for the Impact Shakers Awards are open to European startups and scaleups that positively impact society and the environment.

For the first time, more than 40 impact ecosystem players from all over Europe, including incubators, accelerators, investors and networking organisations, are rallying behind the same cause.

Impact Shaker, organisers of the Impact Shakers Awards, wanted to create a space where impact-driven startups can grow stronger and scale their business idea to bridge the gap between social, environmental impact and profit.

Startups and scaleups from all over Europe can apply until May 7th for the awards inspired by the doughnut economics model that maps human prosperity according to a social foundation and an ecological ceiling.

Yonca Braeckman, CEO of Impact Shakers and co-founder of the Impact Shakers Awards

An international expert jury will pick winners in twelve categories: Energy, Water, Food, Health, Education, Income & Work, Peace & Justice, Political Voice, Social Equity, Gender Equality, Housing & Networks.

Yonca Braeckman, CEO of Impact Shakers lead organiser and co-founder of the awards, said:

“Impact should be a logical part of every business model.

With Impact Shakers, we want to bring about a systemic shift that fosters more diverse entrepreneurship and success.

In 2019, 200 of the CEOs of the top Fortune 500 issued a statement declaring that delivering shareholder value was no longer the chief focus and that value needed to extend to the employees, suppliers and environment.”

The public can also cast their vote over a month-long period, and winners will be announced on June 21st during an online Awards Show.

“One advantage of the awards show is the spotlight it shines on businesses that work in harmony with society and the environment.

By recognising inclusive and sustainable businesses, people can better visualise meaningful alternatives to profit-only enterprises that overuse resources and undervalue segments of the population.

It’s not that profit isn’t important, but it is no longer the only important factor,” says Braeckman.

On top of the Awards, there will be additional supports to help selected startups embrace their idea.

The winners in each category will get to participate in a unique Masterclass to help them 'Raise Alternative Funding', and as part of the program they will get to interact with the top founders in their region and learn from experts as well as peers.

The Impact Shakers Awards are open to European startups and scaleups that positively impact society and the environment; Image: Impact Shakers

At the same time, other prizes include impact service design offered by Quest, tickets to the EVPA (European Venture Philanthropy Association) Annual Conference, UpEffect scholarship for crowdfunding, free upgrade on the SeedTribe platform to o be exposed to a global network of over 250,000 investors from around the world, and more.

Braeckman adds: “We’re launching a warm call for accelerators, investors and all those who care about sustainability, social impact and inclusivity, to encourage startups to apply and be a part of an impactful positive future.”

The Impact Shakers, who is the driving force behind the awards, tackles complex societal challenges through inclusive entrepreneurship and aims to expand opportunities and capacity further to grow.

Together with partners, they created the Impact Shakers Lab to create experimental entrepreneurship programmes.

Here they work with underserved communities and explore new educational methods to help more diverse audiences start using entrepreneurship as a problem-solving method.

They will be launching their own micro-investment fund and accelerator later in 2021.

“We believe in people — especially when they have succeeded against all odds.

If you can get through tough times, break through barriers, then you can also build a company.

Resilience and problem-solving capabilities are ideal breeding grounds for entrepreneurship.

We work to bring out the potential from all walks of life and to incorporate inclusion in every detail,” explains Braeckman.

Headline image: Impact Shakers Awards

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May 2021

Social Art Award to catalyse change towards a greener future

Anonymous — Fri, 26 Mar 2021 12:30:47 +0000

Social Art Award to catalyse change towards a greener future

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Artists are invited to submit artworks in the theme of 'New Greening' for Social Art Award 2021.

The Social Art Award 2021 was launched by The Institute for Art and Innovation for the third time to recognise visionary works from artists who are co-creating positive futures, communicating compelling ideas, concepts, narratives, practices and visions of coexistence.

This award aims to invigorate the rise of social art and encourage more people to create impact and inspire change.

Applications are welcome until 30th April, focusing on this year’s theme “New Greening” providing bright prospects towards climate change, resource-saving, environmental protection, ecosystem recovery, water conservation, biodiversity, resilient cities, and more.

All artists and cultural actors are invited to apply with work they consider relevant to the field of social art.

The overall winner receives 1000 Euro prize money, and three winners will be selected for the final exhibition to present their artwork in Berlin, Germany, in summer 2021.

Furthermore, the top 50 submissions will receive additional exposure through an exhibition raising awareness about building green societies and get featured in the official Social Art Award book for 2021.

Social Art Award 2021

Nicole Loeser, co-founder and director of IFAI, serial entrepreneur with over fifteen years of experience in cross-sectoral collaboration with institutions and corporations worldwide, shared her thoughts about the Social Art Award:

Art engages in questioning and rethinking existing systems and paradigms.

Often, artists can feel the need for change even before people find the words for what might be wrong with a situation.

They can draw our attention towards a created reality that no longer suits us.

In my opinion, artists are visionaries, utopists, even agents for change, with the ability to affect society by creating emotionally captivating experiences.

Social Art is the first attempt to feel the wounds and question the circumstances of our being.

To me, it is evident that if we want to create a liveable future for all creatures on this planet, we need imagination, positive images and narratives that people can mirror themselves in.

It is the aesthetic revolution that preludes the societal revolution.

Nicole Loeser, co-founder and director of The Institute for Art and Innovation

That is why I believe we really need more socially engaged artists to help us find new ways towards regenerative futures and envision and imagine new worlds that people would like to live in.

It is essential for us to promote the importance of social art for society and strengthen social artists' recognition and the value of their work, especially as the art market is usually not open for such positions.

In 2017, the first year of the award, it started as an experiment, whether artists would react to the terms of Social Art.

We were excited to receive artworks from 128 countries, presenting how they practice and define socially engaged art.

We decided to go with the New Greening topic for this year’s award, to call on creative people to start imagining and realising a future of regeneration and restoration of nature - basically a better life for all living being on the planet.

We would like to hear what artists have to say about that.

Can they convince us with their applications to open, interrogate and invigorate the prevailing fabric of understanding that science, technology and governmental policies, such as the Green New Deals, emerge from?

With the award, we want to generate conversation and exchange visions on possible and hopeful futures.

We wish to figure out what could be changed together.

Pink Silence (Social Sculpture in India) by Bogna Grazyna Jaroslwski, winner of Social Art Award 2019

In 2019 the topic was: “We are the people - Peaceful Revolutions”, which mainly attracted artists from conflict zones who empower people to stand up for their rights, freedom, and future.

The exchange on Social Art practices under painful circumstances brought up a lot of negativity, but the spirit of shared human kindness was extraordinary.

Participating artists deeply related to other like-minded people from around the world.

They inspired each other with their bold approaches and humanistic actions for their communities.

It was a very encouraging moment of sharing deep feelings.

We strive to generate meaningful conversations and exchange visions on possible and hopeful futures, so this year we will have side events, including workshops and panels.

We also joined forces with various experts and organisations working in the field of socio-ecological transformation.

I’m always impressed by how fast people and organisations can visualise and design relevant scenarios for a liveable world and how deeply they resonate with their own vision.

This gives me hope that we can accelerate change and be faster in creating new structures.

In the future, we would like to broaden the program beyond the Social Art Award and found interdisciplinary Artists-in-Residency-programs as well as other formats, like experimenting with Real Laboratories.

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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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A new voice to unite and represent Irish social entrepreneurs

Bronagh Loughlin — Mon, 17 Aug 2020 16:04:48 +0000

A new voice to unite and represent Irish social entrepreneurs

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Social innovators in Ireland are creating a movement to support and unify social enterprises.

A group of social entrepreneurs, key stakeholders and supporters have joined forces to launch a new organisation called the Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland (SERI) which can add a huge amount of value to the Irish social enterprise sector and economy.

SERI aims to become a representative body for the dynamic, evolving and broad social enterprise sector in Ireland.

Social enterprises may come in all shapes and forms but all dedicated to providing innovative and impactful solutions to address the most hard-hitting social challenges. Their core objectives are often to create social, societal or environmental impact. They pursue these objectives by trading in goods and services. In addition, they re-invest any surplus profits into the creation of impact as opposed to the creation of profit for owners or shareholders.

This form of making a profit with purpose could provide a unique opportunity to innovators to start and scale their business ethically and sustainably, creating value on a social and economic level at one go.

The organisation of SERI was born out of passion, knowledge and experience that exists within the sector and a universally recognised need for a united voice. It is formed by some of Ireland’s leading social enterprise practitioners and supporters – including FoodCloud, Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, Rethink Ireland – in a means to champion for the sector and their members both nationally and internationally.

Tammy Darcy, Interim CEO of Social Enterprise Republic of Ireland (SERI)

“There seems to be a consensus so far in our conversations with stakeholders that a big priority is going to be to raise awareness of social enterprise and the impact that we create, but also to collect data, which will help us to share that story,” says Tammy Darcy, Interim CEO of newly formed SERI, also Founder and CEO of multi-award winning social enterprise, The Shona Project.

Their vision for Ireland is to have a world-class environment for social enterprises to thrive.

Therefore their strategy focuses on four pillars:

representation, awareness, support and relationships.

Chair, Fergus Findlay, previous CEO at Barnardos Ireland said, “Social enterprise and its ecosystem have deeps roots in Ireland reaching back to the old Irish tradition of 'Meitheal', where people in rural communities came together to work on a neighbours farm. This embodies the spirit of social enterprise – working as a community to benefit the community socially and economically”.

He adds, “It is clear that social enterprise has evolved to be a thriving sector. What’s next is in our hands. Our team and our members will forge a new beginning for social enterprise and will grow this sector to benefit all our people and communities throughout the Republic of Ireland”.

At this early stage, SERI is open to welcome members on a complimentary basis until January 2021 and have open discussions about how to create a movement that genuinely empowers and inspire social innovators in Ireland.

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August 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