Blog
Webinar: Civil society making transition
The webinar presents two interesting civil society cases related to urban gardening, circular economy and community building. Participants can share and compare similar cases from their countries. The webinar is targeted at regional and local authorities, researchers, business and civil society actors that are interested in the role and engagement of civil society in enhancing…
Social Innovation Across the Baltic States and Sweden: Four Countries, Four Unique Approaches
As social challenges evolve, countries across Europe are taking innovative approaches to strengthen social entrepreneurship and address community needs. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Sweden demonstrate how tailored strategies can support social innovation while reflecting unique national priorities. Estonia: A “Thin State” Model for Social Innovation Estonia focuses on efficiency by working with local organizations and…
WEBINAR: Enhancing Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship in the Baltic Sea Region
Join us for an engaging webinar exploring how technology and artificial intelligence can drive social innovation and create positive societal impacts What to Expect: Part 1: AI & Social Impact – Organizational Implementation: Get a glimpse of AI for good strategies, explore impactful AI projects, and access resources tailored for non-profits and social enterprises. –…
About the “We make transition!” project
Local and regional authorities have a crucial role in driving resilience – societal ability to adapt and react. Due to the complexity of sustainability challenges, there is a need to mobilise all levels of society to create and implement solutions that enable systemic changes in our unsustainable practices. Civil society actors – associations, social entrepreneurs,…
Webinar on inspiring civil society cases from Finland and Estonia,
21 January 2025
Join us for an engaging webinar on January 21, 2025, featuring inspiring civil society cases from Finland and Estonia. Discover how these communities are driving impactful change, fostering sustainability, and building stronger collaborations. Gain valuable insights and practical lessons to empower your own initiatives in creating a better future. The webinar presents two interesting civil…
Case studies on civil society making sustainability transitions
We collected a variety of inspiring success stories from six Baltic Sea region countries! We make transition! project engages local authorities, civil society actors and businesses in co-creative processes to enhance cooperation for eco-social sustainability. One of the core aims is to improve understanding of the role and added value of active civil society for…
Case studies on civil society making sustainability transitions
We make transition! collected a variety of inspiring success stories of “civil society making sustainability transitions”. Case studies are related to social sustainability, circular economy, biodiversity, sustainable food and lifestyle from the Baltic Sea region. The case studies provide an outlook on the power of creative people and initiatives revealing the fundamental value of active…
About the We make transition! project
Local and regional authorities have a crucial role in driving resilience – societal ability to adapt and react. Due to the complexity of sustainability challenges, there is a need to mobilise all levels of society to create and implement solutions that enable systemic changes in our unsustainable practices. Civil society actors – associations, social entrepreneurs,…
BSR vision of sustainable life
We How does sustainable future 2035 look like from the point of view of various civil society actors? We make transition! project invited a group of change agents from BSR countries to co-create an inspiring sustainability vision and recommendations on empowering the cooperation between local authorities and civil society actors to enhance ecological and social…
New educational modules for social entrepreneurs are available
The social economy is a business model that works for the future of Europe. Within the RevitaLESE project, we have developed several educational models to strengthen European social enterprises, offer inspiration to the next generation of social entrepreneurs and educate about the necessary steps needed to ensure a more sustainable society. Closing the RevitaLese project (https://revitalese.eu/), we would like…
The Social Innovation Tournament
Save the date! The Social Innovation Tournament is approaching. It recognises and supports the best European impact entrepreneurs. It promotes innovative ideas and rewards initiatives that contribute to creating social, ethical and/or environmental impact.The winning projects in the General Category and the Special Category will be awarded a first or second prize of €100 000…
WEBINAR
What is the role of civil society in making sustainability transition?
Local authorities have a crucial role in driving resilience – societal ability to adapt and react – but due to complexity of the challenges, they need to mobilise all levels of society to co-create solutions that enable a needed change in our traditional ways of doing things. Various civil society actors have an important role…
Staying Resilient: 8 Ways to Prevent Burnout Working in Social Economy
Staying resilient while working in a social enterprise requires adopting unconventional strategies to avoid burnout. While social entrepreneurs often face unique challenges that can lead to burnout, including working with limited resources, managing complex projects, and balancing multiple stakeholders, there are many ways to prevent burnout beyond taking breaks and practicing self-care. Here are eight strategies to help social entrepreneurs stay energized and motivated while making a positive social impact! 1. Connect with Nature Social entrepreneurs can benefit from spending time in nature, whether it’s going for a walk in the park, hiking in the mountains, or simply spending time in a garden. Research has shown…
How does Social Entrepreneurship relate with Sustainable Development Goals?
Social entrepreneurship is the process by which individuals, startups and entrepreneurs develop and fund solutions that directly address social issues. Organizations that are active in the social economy sector are sometimes confused with non-profit organizations, but in fact they are not profit-driven but focus on creating social or environmental changes. In this context, the key parameters…
How to write a press release to achieve social impact?
A press release is an effective tool to disseminate information to the media and the public about important events, developments, and initiatives. With the right approach, a press release can be a powerful tool to achieve social impact and bring attention to critical issues. Here are some tips on how to write a press release to achieve social…
How to advance gender equality through the social economy?
The social economy is an essential field in promoting gender equality. In most countries, women often make up more than 60% of the workforce, and gaps in leadership and pay have been reported lower. It is because social economy organisations prioritise people over profit and embody values such as solidarity, inclusivity, equality, and democratic governance….
Social Enterprise and The Green Transition
In recent years, we’ve seen a pretty revolutionary cultural shift from consumers, from one of securing the best product for the lowest price to one of searching out products that they know are kind to both people and the planet. Additional to that, consumers have been shown to relish the feeling of community that comes…
Definition of LESE and Why They Need Support
The term ‘Social Economy’ is one that is being used more and more these days when it comes to implementing the just transition. The European Union has shown itself to be a global leader in the space in recent years, with many initiatives created to support the growth of the social economy over the coming…
SUSTAINABILITY
Handbook on greener habits for young adults
Cultivating greener habits always requires initiative – at home, in workplace or leisure time. To foster a sustainable mindset and engage communities more efficiently, within project “Greenminded” a curriculum for training, guidebook for trainers and an online course were created for young adults willing to learn about lasting change. How does one take initiative, and…
GAMIFICATION
Online breakout rooms as a non-formal education tool – project CO-ART
Any type of education nowadays is undergoing major changes, dealing with limited attention spans and the undeniable growth in importance of digital approaches. Nonetheless, the Pandemic showed us that prolonged and monotonous screen time is neither efficient, nor preferred. In project CO-ART, the partners from six countries have developed 24 unique online escape rooms to improve digital and…
APPLICATIONS OPEN
Young Entrepreneurs Challenge
With less than 2 weeks to go the applications are open for the Young Entrepreneurs Challenge deadline. The Challenge is an online entrepreneurship competition looking for people aged 16-25 with fresh, new and innovative technology-led business ideas. The challenge Got a great business idea or concept? If you’re 16-25 and have a fresh and innovative technology…
6 Questions To Ask Before You Start A Social Enterprise
Eager to change the world? Here’s what you need to figure out before you can start. Treating diseases, addressing climate change, expanding access to healthy food or creating new methods of learning. These are just a few of the major social challenges that companies–yes, companies–are working to solve. Of course, the public and nonprofit sectors…
COLLABORATION TOOL
Canva.com
It is not unlikely to consider Canva.com as a tool for graphic design. Because it is! But being efficient in your work and co-work with colleagues and other stakeholders often includes also creative pathways and a pinch of lateral thinking. With that said – in this article we will give a few ideas how to…
ILO and the OECD adopt international documents on the social economy
On Friday 9 June and Saturday 10 June, two international organizations, the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) approved two important international documents on social economics: – Conclusions on decent work and the social and solidarity economy, which were adopted at the 110th International Labor Conference. and –…
20 Best Social Enterprise Blogs & Websites
The best Social Enterprise blog list curated from thousands of blogs on the web and ranked by traffic, social media followers, domain authority & freshness. 1. NextBillion NextBillion.net is an open forum for discussion of social enterprise, poverty alleviation, and business development in emerging markets and beyond. Its goal is to stimulate discussion, raise awareness, and provide a…
Social innovation VS Social Entrepreneurship
Welcome to the Social Innovation | Social Entrepreneurship section. This section will help you understand the fundamentals of Social Innovation | Social Entrepreneurship. This section is not intended to be exhaustive list about everything “social”, but rather to give an overall view of what we see in the space. “Social innovation is the process of…
Mentorship program for Ukrainians in Vilnius
Let’s admit it – the best way to get to know a new city is with the help of a local. After all, if you’re staying for a longer period of time, you not only need to find a place to live – you also need to find a job, a kindergarten or school for…
The complete guide to growing and scaling your social enterprise
We’ve learned a few things in helping support over 900 social enterprises around the world scale their operations with the help of our Experteers, Capacity Building Programs, research, and educational programming. Our work has touched early stage, award-winning enterprises long before they reached international acclaim, including groups like Inyenyeri, Sistema B, M-KOPA, Ubongo and BEMPU….
The relationship between social entrepreneurship and sustainable development from economic growth perspective: 15 ‘RCEP’ countries
Social entrepreneurship plays a role in sustainable development to value creation, delivering and capturing, in this article, researchers attempted to find the nature of the relationships between the sustainable development and its latent variables, and how can these variables effect on sustainable development. Two models were used to estimate the relationships mentioned before, structural equation…
Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
Social enterprises combine societal goals with an entrepreneurial spirit. These organisations focus on achieving wider social, environmental or community objectives. The European Commission aims to create a favourable financial, administrative and legal environment for these enterprises so that they can operate on an equal footing with other types of enterprises in the same sector. The…
PAPER
Social innovation drivers in social enterprises: systematic review
By gathering and organizing dispersed knowledge about the SI process in SEs, this paper can help the social entrepreneurs, policy makers and supporting organisations of SEs to direct their attention to appropriate drivers that can enhance the SE’s ability to innovate socially. The study examines how SI can be encouraged and managed effectively in the SE. By investigating the…
BOOK
Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship Fundamentals, Concepts, and Tools
Social entrepreneurship and social innovation both seek to improve the world through social change. Whereas social entrepreneurship revolves around the business side of change, social innovation focuses on the processes through which that change is generated. This textbook provides a comprehensive analysis of both topics, covering all the characteristics and elements of social innovation and…
BOOK
Social Innovation: Comparative perspectives
Social innovation is a topic that is more and more being discussed on both national and European levels (hence, the announcement of this being a strategic priority EU wide). To better be able to provide social impact in the society and find novel solutions also for operating social enterprises, it is necessary to explore how…
PAPER
Youth Associations and Entrepreneurship: Insights from Case Studies in Portugal
Young people in western societies currently live in a paradoxical social condition: never has a generation been so qualified, nurturing high aspirations and expectations throughout school, regarding the value of employability and professional progression, while unemployment rates reach worrying values in younger population, a situation that is becoming structural. While discussing how the tools for the development of skills for…
ARTICLE
Upshots of Intrinsic Traits on Social Entrepreneurship Intentions among Young Business Graduates
In this study they deliberated some personality traits that boost the intentions towards social entrepreneurships. These personality traits were LKM (loving-kindness meditation), compassion, and entrepreneurship resilience. These personality traits interacted with each other in this study to enhance social entrepreneurship intentions. It was proven that LKM motivated the persons towards social entrepreneurship with the help of their compassion quality,…
RESEARCH
Rise Up: Understanding Youth Social Entrepreneurs and Their Ecosystems
In introducing Youth 2030, the UN strategy for supporting youth to turn their “ideas into action,” Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged that youth are “a vast source of innovation, ideas, and solutions” who are providing vital change and leadership on the global climate crisis, social justice, and technology – (United Nations 2018) As this UN initiative acknowledges, youth social entrepreneurs…
RESEARCH
The role of social entrepreneurship for youth purpose development
Despite the burgeoning research on social entrepreneurship in recent years, there is limited research on youths as a context for theorizing. This article examines the influence of social entrepreneurship on youth development through the positive youth development perspective. It explores how youth participation in social entrepreneurial activities helps develop their sense of purpose in life. Using data from semi-structured…
GUIDEBOOK
Social business roadmap
The Social Business Roadmap has the aim to support young people in creating a social enterprise in 10 simple steps. It is an entrepreneurial guide tool for helping young people to make their first step in the social business world, as it’s easy to get lost on the entrepreneurial route, thus this small guide could…
ONLINE COURSES
HP Life online skills-training program
HP LIFE is a free, skills-training program for entrepreneurs, business owners, and lifelong learners all over the world. These free online training courses are designed to help entrepreneurs learn what they need to know to establish and grow a business. Besides a variety of extremely useful topics, one of the courses is specifically dedicated to social entrepreneurship….
IMPACT MANAGEMENT TOOLBOX
For the organisations working with the youth
This toolbox helps organizations and organizers to plan, implement and communicate the positive changes that they aim to create with their initiative or organisation in the lives of young people. It has been designed to help to do, measure, improve their activities… and repeat! In other words – to be able to create a more positive impact. Besides providing more clarity…
VIDEO LECTURES
Successful social entrepreneurship in rural areas
Within the framework of the project “Successful social entrepreneur in rural areas” 30 educational video lectures on various social entrepreneurship topics have been prepared (in Latvian language). The instructional video lectures are designed to provide answers to many different questions related to social entrepreneurship, such as: What is a social enterprise? What is the business model…
GUIDELINES
Social impact communication in youth organisations and youth social enterprises
Within the project BALTIC: YOUTH: IMPACT, the Latvian Social Entrepreneurship Association together with the Baltic partners has developed Social Impact Communication Guidelines. The goal of social impact communication is to increase and scale the positive social and environmental impact. These guidelines aim to create support instruments to help employees or volunteers in youth organisations or social enterprises to communicate their social impact…
EaSI Technical Assistance for social enterprise finance
Social enterprises contribute to the European policy in the area of employment and social inclusion and are particularly relevant for the implementation of the rights and principles expressed in the European Pillar for Social Rights. The European Commission recognised the potential of social enterprises for innovation and their positive impact on the economy and society at large…
Unlocking the Social Economy
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the World Economic Forum have just published the report “Unlocking the Social Economy – Towards an Inclusive and Resilient Society” to show the many ways in which the social economy, based on social innovation, can contribute to solving some of the greatest challenges of our time while at the…
Campus StarterKit for developing Social entrepreneurship
When combined with the educator’s passion, expertise, and leadership skills, social entrepreneurship has the potential to engage students in any field of study to apply their knowledge and skills to address society’s most pressing problems. University-based social entrepreneurship programs also create capacity for faculty and staff to develop skills, ideas, and the integrative modes of…
BOOK REVIEW
Making Change: Youth Social Entrepreneurship as an Approach to Positive Youth and Community Development
Engaging youth as leaders of social change offers the exponential benefits of personal empowerment, community enhancement, and economic transformation. Grounded both in interdisciplinary theory and an expansive set of practical case examples, Making Change uses an asset focus and cultural relevance that centralizes youth and communities in social entrepreneurship, while introducing vocabulary and frameworks for…
Official Launch of the 2020 World Youth Report: Youth Social Entrepreneurship and the 2030 Agenda
2 Jul 2020 – Briefing by Mr. Elliot Harris, UN Chief Economist and Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development as well as a youth social entrepreneur, on the 2020 World Youth Report: Youth Social Entrepreneurship and the 2030 Agenda. The 2020 edition of the World Youth Report focuses on youth social entrepreneurship with a view to…
Social Protection & Cooperatives Spotlight – Mobilizing social and solidarity economy units towards universal social protection
This ILO Spotlight brief is jointly developed by the Social Protection Department and the Cooperatives Unit in the Enterprises Department. It focuses on mobilizing social and solidarity economy units towards universal social protection. The brief builds on the related section of the Office Report on “Decent Work and the social and solidarity economy” prepared for…
Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs stands firmly by the Ukrainian people in these difficult times
The EYE programme has reached out to Ukrainian intermediary organisations and entrepreneurs to support them in this crisis. Immediate emergency measures were taken and implemented by the entire network to support the functioning of the organisations and match Ukrainian entrepreneurs with their hosts outside of Ukraine and allow them to continue realising their ambitions to start and grow their companies. In addition, Ukrainian entrepreneurs who are already…
We recommend the latest article “Potential of social economy for a more democratic, just and fair future” by Sara Bombardieri, the expert at Policy & Projects dpt. at @SocialEcoEU https://eyes-on-europe.eu/wp-content/uploads/Eyes-on-Europe-n36_web_compressed.pdf This publication has been prepared within INDIGISE project. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of the project coordinator and may not always reflect the…
How to participate in the Erasmus+ for Young Entrepreneurs Programme
The European exchange programme for Entrepreneurs Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs helps provide aspiring European entrepreneurs with the skills necessary to start and/or successfully run a small business in Europe. New entrepreneurs gather and exchange knowledge and business ideas with an experienced entrepreneur, with whom they stay and collaborate for a period of 1 to 6 months….
Laern more about the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs
Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs is a cross-border programme facilitating the exchange of entrepreneurial and management experience. The exchange is implemented by a stay of a newly established or potential entrepreneur with a well-experienced entrepreneur running a small or medium-sized enterprise (SME) in another country. Since its launch in 2009, the scheme’s number of applications from…
Check the Social Economy Talks podcasts!
“Social Economy Talks” is a Podcast series from Social Economy Europe about the most relevant upcoming issues in the social economy sphere. It will follow a journey of discovery (narrated by team member Nicholas Clark) aimed at elucidating social economy success stories and roles regarding the green transition, diversity and migrant entrepreneurship, digitalisation, COVID recovery…
No Green Deal without a Social Deal
We recommend reading the opinion by Norbert KLUGE (Workers – GR II / Germany) (Reference: INT/903-EESC-2020 presenting reflections on the Green Deal and Social Deal in the EU. You can read it here and find the main arguments below: EESC-2020-01591-00-00-AC-TRA-EN The EESC considers that : There will be no “Green Deal” without an integrated “Social Deal”. There are several…
the Social Economy Action Plan (SEAP) is now available in 23 EU official languages
The European Commission has today presented an Action Plan to help the European social economy thrive, tapping into its economic and job-creation potential, as well as its contribution to a fair and inclusive recovery, and the green and digital transitions. Please see here the document in 23 languages: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A52021DC0778&qid=1640075004787 And read below general info on…
The energy of social economy pioneers in Central & Eastern Europe
European Social Economy website posted interesting relation from the meeting held on 13th May – The energy of social economy pioneers in Central & Eastern Europe. On 13 May 2022, Social Economy Europe participated, alongside with FEBEA, the European Commission (DG EMPL), the OECD, Community Finance Ireland and many other key stakeholders, in the Conference Enterprising for…
EC presented guidelines on Social Economy Action Plan in form of Q&A
Questions and answers: the Social Economy Action Plan What is the social economy? There are 2.8 million social economy entities in Europe that employ 13.6 million people and which offer solutions to key challenges in our societies. Social economy organisations are entities which put social and environmental purposes before profit (“people and planet first”)….
Youth initiative: a framework for youth entrepreneurship
We want to share with you the report written by Rossella Soldi (Progress Consulting S.r.l.) and Simona Cavallini (Fondazione FORMIT). It does not represent the official views of the Committee of the Regions. Read the whole document here: https://cor.europa.eu/en/engage/studies/Documents/Youth_initiative/youth-initiative.pdf More information on the European Union and the Committee of the Regions is available online at http://www.europa.eu…
Calling all youth social entrepreneurs!
In 2022 EC adopted the Social Economy Action Plan, which you can read on EC’s website (link below) or find more info on our platform. There are also more great opportunities to come, including the ones targeting youth! Read the intro from the www.socialeconomy.eu.org website! Dearest friends of the European Social Economy community, Last…
ARTICLE
Social innovation in the Baltic Sea Region
It is not a secret that social innovation is on the hype for the last few years and this is going to stay, at least in Europe. Several structural fund programs and initiatives are focused on the promotion, support and implementation of social innovation. The “broadness” of social innovation is incomprehensible, hence, debates occur often: “What is social…
Meet the newest Ashoka Fellows in the Nordics
It is interesting that Ashoka has turned to recognize social entrepreneurs in the Nordics for the first time. On May 2 Ashoka has published stories with changemakers and new Ashoka fellows: Jimmy Westerheim (Founder of The Human Aspect Foundation in Norway); Jenny Lindström-Beijar (Founder of Our Normal Association in Sweden) and Markus Raivio (Co-founder of Kukunori…
The EU Pact for Skills – Skills partnership for the Proximity & Social Economy ecosystem
Today we recommend another great reading and educational material on the social economy – The EU Pact for Skills – Skills partnership for the Proximity & Social Economy ecosystem. While it has been severely affected by the COVID-19 crisis, the proximity and social economy ecosystem has shown a particular resilience and a great potential to…
YBI launches Green & Social Entrepreneurship Month
Throughout our global network, we are seeing more and more young entrepreneurs build businesses that deliver profit with purpose. They are the entrepreneurs working to solve some of the greatest environmental and social challenges of our time and will play a vital role in creating a more equitable and sustainable world for us all. It…
Inclusive Business Creation – Good Practice Compendium
Today we present to you a report from the OECD’s Local Economic and Employment Development Programme (LEED) provides innovative ideas and practical solutions for how to build inclusive and sustainable communities with quality jobs for all. This series explores how national and local governments can promote local development, leveraging the social economy, entrepreneurship, employment and…
BOOK
Social entrepreneurship teaching resources handbook
Social entrepreneurship education has grown dramatically from the first class taught at Harvard University by Dr. Greg Dees in the mid 1990’s and the first European course at the University of Geneva in Switzerland co-taught by Maximilian Martin and Pamela Hartigan from the Schwab Foundation in 2003. This book will be of great help to everyone embarking on path…
PAPER
Innovative Social Entrepreneurship: Development of Youth Social Activity
The aim of the work is to study the accelerators of social initiatives as a specific social environment and the practice of experimental testing and development of innovative social entrepreneurship of youth. The orientation of the individual towards social entrepreneurship and the development of readiness for it can only partially be explained through the prospects of a future career. In many…
PAPER
Entrepreneurial Literacy and Social Entrepreneurship Intentions among Youth
The youth will be the leaders of the country and the determinants of the continuity of government in the future. Malaysia now has many young entrepreneurs, but not all young entrepreneurs have basic knowledge in entrepreneurship and apply social entrepreneurship theory while running their businesses. The study’s findings show that the level of entrepreneurial literacy and the level of social…
PAPER
Mapping social innovation networks: Knowledge intensive social services as systems builders
Social innovations are often seen as the product of social entrepreneurs. This paper instead asserts that social innovations are also routinized. This is the result of the appearance of a new type of actors: Knowledge Intensive Social Services (KISS). Like Knowledge Intensive Business Services (KIBS), KISS are consultancy organizations that provide their clients with specific knowledge to assist…
Read the article – The European Green Deal and the social market economy
We highly recommend reading the article by Martin Dahl – “The European Green Deal and the social market economy” published here: http://czasopisma.isppan.waw.pl/index.php/sm/article/view/1796 Abstract: The European Green Deal is an attempt to transform the European Union’s economy in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. This is to counteract undesirable climate change and environmental degradation. In this context, an…
STUDY
Systemic Design Principles in Social Innovation: A Study of Expert Practices and Design Rationale
In recent decades, design has expanded from a practice aimed at designing things to one that helps to address complex societal challenges. In this context, a field of practice called systemic design has emerged, which combines elements of systems thinking with elements of design. We use a case study approach to investigate how expert practitioners carry out systemic…
Tackling Green and Social Washing with Ethical Finance
This is the fourth and final episode of the miniseries Finance4Good. In this episode we introduce the ideas of green and social washing from the perspective of investors, and how the EU try to tackle the issue through an EU Taxonomy and through global investment movements such as ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investing. The…
Employment and Social Developments in Europe Quarterly Review looks into factors behind the gender pay gap among young people
The Commission has published the latest edition of the Employment and Social Developments in Europe (ESDE) Quarterly Review, with a specific thematic focus on the gender pay gap among young workers, on occasion of the 2022 European Year of Youth. ESDE quarterly reviews periodically provide an overview of recent social and labour market developments in…
Buying for social impact – Good practice from around the EU
Buying for Social Impact (BSI) is a project commissioned by the Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME) and the European Commission Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) to promote the use of social considerations in public procurement procedures. The project was carried out by a consortium of European organisations…
Funding opportunities for social economy – update 2022
Social economy and inclusive entrepreneurship are topics with transversal relevance for a variety of policy fields and economic sectors. Funding opportunities can therefore be found in most EU funding programmes. Some of these programmes include dedicated measures. Others can be tapped into by social economy and inclusive entrepreneurship actors, even if they do not target…
How can social innovation and social entrepreneurship build the resilience of the future workforce?
With digitalization, globalization and an aging population the landscape of work is rapidly changing. Projections show that in the next 10 years in the workforce constant upskilling and digital dexterity will outweigh tenure and experience. Hence, young people and adults are confronted with navigating a highly interconnected and volatile world where the jobs, technologies and societal…
Skoll foundation announces winners of the 2022 Skoll Award for Social Innovation
Skoll Foundation awards several organizations and individuals on their social impact ideas every year. The winners of 2022 have been announced, and in this article you will find out more about their innovative work and approach to tackling societal problems. These innovators drive stronger health systems, racial justice, climate action, civic engagement, and inclusive economic growth. About the…
Social Enterprise Series 2022
The Social Enterprise Series is a 10-week in-depth learning program designed to educate future global changemakers about the practical components of establishing or growing a thriving social enterprise. It is completely free of charge and invites everyone willing to learn more to join all or selected workshops from 13th April to 15th June online. Designated industry…
Unlocking Canadian Social Innovation
Please, find below the link to useful material on Social Innovation policies and practices in Canada prepared by the Centre for Social Innovation. The Centre for Social Innovation is a non-profit social enterprise that opened its doors in 2004. We started with 14 organizations and a mission to catalyze social innovation. Today we support over a…
Podcast on Impact Measurement, Citizen Participation and Governance
Welcome to Episode three of Social EcPodcast Miniseries – Finance 4 Good! In this episode we build upon the previous two episodes, in which we introduced the opportunities that citizens have to save their money in ethical finance institutions, where they can be sure that their money will be used in truly green and social…
Webinar: Social enterprise partnerships with corporates – succesful cases from the UK
Social Entrepreneurs in Denmark project Rummelig Genstart hosted a webinar Successful English Social Enterprise Partnerships with Corporates Thursday 17 March 2022. You can see the webinar here Background for the webinar. England is one of the countries in the world with the most growing sector for social enterprises. This applies both in relation to political…
Youth Upskilling and Experience Through Social Innovation
Watch this lively conversation with Estefania Fernandez, a serial educational entrepreneur, youth leader and polyglot originally from Spain. After relocating to Berlin, Estefania created her “Business Model Republic” Meetup group to connect with others. This group exploded to more than 6 thousand members, and became an obvious launching point for her latest venture: e-bloom. E-bloom…
DALBA – Beer that means more
Meet DALBA, social enterprise which is a part of NESs’t Fund network which is investing in entrepreneurial solutions that lift people out of poverty. In spite of Poland’s strong economic growth, many find it difficult to secure stable employment and reliable wages. More than 18% of young people under the age of 30 are unemployed, with…
The world’s first social enterprise speakers agency
The English charity Expert Impact, which in recent years has matched more than 400 social entrepreneurs with mentors, has just launched the world’s first social enterprise speakers agency named Expert Impact Speakers. They aim to capture a piece of the growing market for speakers and has launched the company with a diverse mix of social entrepreneurs, entertainers…
Nordic Social Entrepreneurship 3.0
Nordic Social Entrepreneurship 3.0 (NSE 3.0) is a new, free online educational program that aims to upgrade adult professionals and improve their ability to start a social enterprise themselves. Compleating the programe will give participants a better opportunity to contribute with solutions to actual societal and economic challenges by creating alternative social business models in…
Youth Building Skills and Gaining Opportunities Through Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation
“Nearly 90% of young people today live in low and middle-income countries. Around 200 million adolescent people are not in education programs and 13% of young people globally are unemployed. This presents numerous challenges and hinders young people from acquiring skills which will be useful for their further development and activation in society. However social…
Young People and Social Innovation in Europe
By Ljupka Janevska. “Social innovation is the process of developing creative ideas that will eventually ‘’grow’’ into practical solutions, which will improve the overall wellbeing of the community. The primary goal of implementing or designing a new social innovation is to solve different systemic issues that will hopefully contribute in increasing the enviorenment value. However,…
Top 100 Women in Social Enterprise 2022 List featuring women leaders in social entrepreneurship
EN’s second annual list honours women trailblazers who are helping to shape the European social enterprise ecosystem and leading it into the mainstream. The list is based on more than 500 answers from an open nomination call and an assessment by our esteemed jury, as part of the Top 100 Women in Social Enterprise Initiative. The featured…
eBOOK
Envisioning the Future of Learning for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship
For two years consortium of Erasmus+ VISION project have been working on useful outcomes, and the project concluded in the last December. Proudly they are presenting an outcome of the project – a book that has just been released for broader audiences. ‘Envisioning the Future of Learning for Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship will be available in e-Book format free…
The State of Social Enterprise in Europe 2020-2021
The European Social Entrepreneurship Monitor is the only internationally recognized survey on social entrepreneurship that helps bring the needs and aspirations of companies leading to positive change in society into both local and international policy-making. A report on social enterprises participating in the Estonian survey conducted in 2020 has been completed, as well as…
“Empowering self-employability potentials through start-ups and SMEs”
Development of the Innovation Management and Utilization in New Entrepreneurs and Adult Education Ecosystem and Methodological Framework (eBook) is part of the project results of UInno’s project “Up-Skilling unemployed and low skilled workers by selfcentred innovation approaches, to empower their self-employability potentials through start-ups and SMEs”. Project is funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus +…
Personal Strength and Weakness Assessment Checklist
The Personal Strength and Weakness Assessment Checklist will help you identify your strengths and weaknesses by asking you to rate yourself in several areas that are important to small business ownership. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses is important because (1) it can tell you whether you’re ready to start a small business, (2) in choosing a new…
Optimy: ALL-IN-ONE SOCIAL IMPACT PLATFORM
Empower your impact A simple, flexible and customizable social impact platform. Designed to help you save time, be more efficient and drastically improve your social impact projects. Thanks to more than 10 years of research and developments based on the needs of our users, we have developed the CSR platform Optimy to improve your social…
Good Practices on Workplace Innovation for (SMEs) Small and medium-sized enterprises
The Online Manual of Good Practices on Workplace Innovation is a useful tool for those SMEs that need practical advice on possible innovation actions to implement within their companies to improve their organisational processes and increase their competitiveness. It will include inspiring case studies to give an idea to SMEs owners and employees on possible concrete actions to…
“Manual on social entrepreneurship”
This manual contains the results of the comparative study in Europe on success stories of Social Entreprises with a significant social impact on the territories in which they operate. It will also provide information about the methods of approach and teaching to young people, in particular disadvantaged young people, on how to start a startup,…
European social entrepreneur and ESE – Operational course for social innovation
The European Social Entrepreneur -ESE project coordinated by CO-LABORY During its implementation, project’s participants produced a high-quality materials and provided the best possible education for trainers, staff of participating organizations, and young people in disadvantaged situations. ESE – Operational course for social innovation As the project results an online platform was developed containing training material on…
How to start a business: 10 steps to starting a business
Starting a business is exciting—but also demanding. This article addresses some of the most common startup steps to ensure your company is ready for success. 1. Prepare a business plan An important first step is preparing a business plan to define your business, products, and services, and outline your goals, operating procedures, and competition. If your company…
SE4Y – SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR YOUTH
The project will bring together 6 partners from different countries wishing to promote SE, self employment through raising awareness on social issues, strengthening young people participation and helping them to become responsible active members of our society by enriching their competences. SE4You (Social Entrepreneurship for youth) aims to support young people who want to learn and…
11 Strategies For Activating People As Contributors In Creating Social Impact – The Unlonely Planet 2022 Study
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ABOUT ASHOKA Ashoka identifies and supports the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, learns from the patterns in their innovations, and mobilizes a global community that embraces these new frameworks to build an “everyone a changemaker world.” Read about Ashoka’s theory of change for this historic moment, the new inequality, and the new framework that they require. ABOUT…
How to support Ukraine
We remind you how you can contribute to support Ukraine: BLUE / YELLOW FOR TRANSFERS IN LITHUANIA Bank account: LT17 7300 0101 4089 4869 Bank: Swedbank Recipient: Public Institution Blue and Yellow Purpose of payment: SUPPORT Bankera (UAB Pervesk) LT483550020000014662 PAYPAL info@foblueyellowukraineusa.org PAYSERA Paysera account: EVP5310001450732 BECOME A PERMANENT SPONSOR – DONATE EUR 3…
Here’s What You Can Do to Help People in Ukraine Right Now
As destruction worsens and casualties mount during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, people all over the world are looking for ways to help. One simple step, experts say, is to remain informed about the conflict and to be cautious about the information that’s spread on social media. Disinformation is one of Russia’s favorite weapons of war, and…
THE RURAL SOCIAL ENTERPRISE GUIDEBOOK OF GOOD PRACTICE: Experience from Estonia, Finland, Germany, Romania and Scotland
THE FOLLOWING GUIDEBOOK MATERIAL WILL HELP AND SUPPORT YOU IN CREATING AND DEVELOPING COMMUNITY-BASED SOCIAL ENTERPRISES: to estimate the benefits and challenges of community-based social enterprise to find new ideas for developing your own community-based social enterprise with practical guidelines and methods to establish your community-based social enterprise to avoid the main pitfalls in establishing…
WEBINAR
Place-based Social Innovation Through Living Labs
Within promising community innovation practices targeting successful adoptions within communities, Living Labs are generating more and more buzz and yet there is confusion about what they are; when to use them; and what they can help us achieve. Take a look at this webinar to gain a clearer understanding of Livings Labs as Myriam Bérubé invites…
Learn more about the latest #socialeconomy developments in Spain!
The concept of the “social economy” has gained attention and momentum in recent years although the degree of recognition varies largely from one Member State to another. Spain is an example where the social economy benefits from wide recognition. It is the first European country to enact a law on the social economy concept in…
Third Sector and Social Economy – what is the difference?
Two terms that can often be encountered in the context of social entrepreneurship and social innovation are “third sector” and “social economy”. However, they are significantly less self-explanatory than the more commonly known “non-governmental sector”, “the non-profit sector” or “the charity sector”. To confuse things more, in scholarly articles “third sector” and “social economy” often seem to be used interchangeably. But what do these…
The Social Economy, the Future of Europe The Social Economy, the Future of Europe – report from the meeting during the Frensh Presidency of the Council of EU
The social and solidarity economy (SSE) is one of the pillars on which the European Union intends to build its resilience, an objective affirmed by the European Commission on 9 December 2021, when it presented a new action plan on the social economy. European Ministers responsible for the Social Economy will meet in Paris on…
#HaveYourSay! Scenarios towards co-creation of a transition pathway for a resilient, innovative, sustainable and digital proximity and social economy ecosystem
Take part in EU consultations and give your comments and input to the topic “Scenarios towards co-creation of a transition pathway for a resilient, innovative, sustainable and digital proximity and social economy ecosystem” You have time until 28th February and all the details about the document and ways to send your comments you will find…
Model and invitation to Impact Procurement in Lithuania
Impact Procurement: New Opportunities for Social Businesses and NGOs to Develop Quality Public Services and Collaborate with Municipalities A procurement model where the ordering of municipal services is not based on the purchase of a specific service but on the purchase of results is called impact procurement. The municipality identifies the partners in the field…
Get to know asperIT Foundation from Poland, who joined the NEEST portfolio in 2021!
NEEST provides a portfolio with tailored financial support, business mentoring and strategic networking over a five-year period. NESsT offers investment packages up to $150,000 in the form of grants, patient working capital loans and recoverable grants over a five-year period. We encourage co-investments and are proactive towards introducing you to our co-investment partners. Our team also…
Social Entrepreneurship – new book on social entrepreneurship
Social Entrepreneurship – A Practice-Based Approach to Social Innovation is a new textbook with a practice-based approach to social innovation by J. Howard Kucher and Stephanie E. Raible. The book provides in an easily accessible way a comprehensive guide to the various building blocks needed to create a sustainable social enterprises. At the same time,…
6 Lessons for a More Human-Centered Leadership Practice
It is no secret that human-centered design thinking is an approach to problem-solving that is perfectly suited for social economy organizations, social innovators and changemakers tackling complex societal issues. What is more, while the importance of leadership is by now more and more recognized in different types organizations across all sectors, rarely is inspiring leadership as crucial as in social…
DIY Toolkit: practical tools to trigger and support social innovation
DIY stands for “Development, Impact and You” and the DIY Toolkit is a digital platform with a collection of practical social innovation tools for social innovators, entrepreneurs and changemakers to help them invent, adopt or adapt ideas that create a social impact. DIY Toolkit has been created by NESTA in partnership with Rockefeller Foundation. [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzSvjYRuCQ8[/embedyt] Key…
A guide to starting a social business
After many online expert meetings, research among social entrepreneurs and research of good practices from the world of social entrepreneurship, we present you the Guide to Starting a Social Business. The Social Business Startup Guide contains guidelines on where to start when you want to get into social entrepreneurship, what to research, what to start…
Leadership programme for girls
Future Heroes is a growth mindset-driven leadership & entrepreneurship program for girls aged 13 -17 to unlock their potential and create positive impact in the world. Future Heroes program is also a competition and every hero should come prepared for a fair battle! The program consists of 7 workshops, all held in English and free…
Systems innovation
Systems innovation (SI) is an eLearning and collaborative platform that empowers users to do systems level innovation. The portal provides users with a large range of tools and bring them together to so they can cocreate the systems change. Systems innovation is a new approach to innovation, that uses system thinking and new technologies to…
Youth Entrepreneurship and the 21st Century Economy
We highly recommend you to follow the discussion by Philantropy Rountable on the youth entrepreneurship in the face of the 21st Century Economy. “Philanthropy Roundtable works with donors who want to build strong communities by introducing them to organizations that help people access economic opportunity. This includes programs that teach young people the skills…
The EU’s Social Economy Action Plan has been published
The EU’s new and long-awaited Social Economy Action Plan was announced at a press conference on 9 December 2021 by Vice-President Valdis Dombrovskis and Commissioner Nicolas Schmit. The Action Plan was anounced together with a major EU initiative around digital platforms. The actual launch of the Social Economy Action Plan took place at a launch…
The Social Procurement Manual
This manual is a practical guide to integrating social businesses into corporate value chains created by Yunus Social Business as a part of research series “Business as Usual“. What is social procurement? We de-ladder fine ‘Social Procurement’ as the purchase of goods and services by companies from social businesses. Through social procurement, companies integrate social businesses into their supply…
DESIGN THINKING FIELDGUIDE FOR SOCIAL ENTERPRISES AND INNOVATION
This field guide has been developed in response to the specific needs of Social Enterprises and other stakeholders within the social economy. Design Thinking has been proven as a way to help businesses and organizations respond to customer needs with innovative and human centered solutions. The guide is organized within a bespoke, socially oriented design thinking framework,…
5 Tangible Tactics to Participate In Social Entrepreneurship
Unlike traditional businesses, social enterprises are dedicated to help specific groups of people that are socio-economically backward. Since their goal to serve mankind sits above the financial gain, building a sustainable social enterprise is no walk in the park. If you are planning to build a career in social entrepreneurship or already pursuing one, then…
Why support social entrepreneurs in the Christmas season?
Christmas is the time when most businesses are looking forward to capitalizing on the heartfelt feelings. And people are willingly spending their hard earned bucks on presents for the loved ones. But how can we create more meaningful moments for our loved ones amidst the bustle of this consumerist culture flagship event? And still stay socially responsible,…
Brussels unveils ‘once in a decade’ Social Economy Action Plan to rave reviews
A long-awaited package to promote the social economy across the European Union was unveiled yesterday – with onlookers hailing it as “radical” and “passionate”. The EU’s Social Economy Action Plan sets out a raft of proposals for 2022-2030, and is its first major policy in this field since the Social Business Initiative of 2011. It aims to…
B Impact Assessment
B Impact Assessment Developed by B Lab, a non-profit organization dedicated to using the power of business as a force for good, the B Impact Assessment helps companies measure their impact on workers, community, environment, and customers, empowering them to assess the performance, compare themselves to peers, and identify areas for improvement. This is a good choice…
Digital Innovation Camp: Youth and Social Entrepreneurship
International Digital Innovation Camp has been organized online from 15-17th of November 2021 for young people from Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, and Norway to design and validate social entrepreneurship ideas designed by youth for solving specific challenges – loneliness and social isolation of people. The event has been scheduled for three days to introduce participants to…
An introduction to corporate-readiness
Corporate-Ready: How Corporations and Social Enterprises do Business Together to Drive Impact is a new report from Acumen on business partnerships between social enterprises and corporates. The report as been developed under the auspices of the World Economic Forum (WEF) COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs – a network of over 85 different actors that support the…
The B Corp Handbook: How to Use Business as a Force for Good
B corporation does not really fulfill all of the criteria set by the EU on social enterprise, nevertheless, it provides viable and substantial solutions to for-profit businesses that want are looking for sustainable ways to increase their social and environmental impact. Author and B Corp owner Ryan Honeyman worked closely with over 100 B Corp…
#MySocialRights video competition for youth!
Full info: https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?langId=en&catId=89&furtherNews=yes&newsId=10066#navItem-1 Are you interested in social rights in Europe? Looking for an opportunity to shine a light on social issues that matter to you? Then read on! The #MySocialRights video competition will give you the opportunity to show your ideas and hopes for the future of social Europe and tell us what it means…
SE Impact Tool to assess impact measurement, planning, and implementation.
SE Impact Tool This tool is developed for helping social entrepreneurs and people working in the SE field to assess their perceptions of SE Impact measurement, planning, and implementation. Afterward, it helps to deeply understand the value and range of tools of the SE Impact, outlining their needs and steps for the progress in this…
Guidelines for Social Hackathon events
Hackathons originated in the IT sector and refer to events designed to bring teams together for 48 hours of intensive development in competition to solve a specific problem or challenge. Traditionally hackathon events have focused on software and hardware development in the tech sector. This very effective and intense development method was adapted to address…
Ownership and equity in business is a crucial question for social enterprises. Cake, supporting businesses.
Again a promising start-up supporting businesses. Ownership and equity in business is a crucial question for start-ups and social enterprises, too. Cake. is also a start-up that makes equity easy for you. They offer template designed ESOPs, which can be individually altered to suit your specific needs – in minutes. An Employee Share Option Plan…
Social Entrepreneurship Innovation Camp Methodology Handbook
Social Entrepreneurship Innovation Camp Methodology Handbook (2021) Social Entrepreneurship Innovation Camp Methodology Handbook is an outline of the guidelines for organizing innovation camps or similar events with strong focus on social entrepreneurship. This Handbook has been developed in the framework of the INDIGISE project, that is focused on young people, who are looking for positive…
The Four Types of Social Entrepreneurship. “What business entrepreneurs are to the economy, social entrepreneurs are to social change”
In these times of pandemic individuals, businesses, and non-profits are stepping to the front and truly making a conscious effort to bring about positive change in the world, be it a direct result of the pandemic or other social causes. It is as if a critical mass has come together at a time when the…
Research paper / Social entrepreneurship education: changemaker training at the university
Social entrepreneurship education: changemaker training at the university. A study has been made to to contribute to the body of scientific knowledge about teaching and promoting social entrepreneurship in higher education institutions (HEIs) based on a measurement before and after concluding an educational experience. It indicated that incorporating transversal social entrepreneurship projects in various courses resulted in students…
WEBINAR / Fashion’s huge waste problem – and what we can do about it
Every week at Welcome Change, Ashoka talks to the world’s social entrepreneurs about what works, and what’s next. Here they present a conversation with Ashoka Fellow Jessica Schreiber, co-founder of FABSCRAP. The fashion industry (and what we all buy as consumers) is responsible for 10% of global carbon emissions. That’s far more than air travel, for example. We…
Social Economy for the full inclusion of people with disabilities BEST PRACTICE GUIDE
Social Economy for the Full Inclusion of People with Disabilities: How and Why – An Introduction to Our Best Practice Guide Actions speak louder than words, but how can companies, businesses and employers further include people with disabilities if they are not fully aware of the possibilities? The willingness of companies to make their businesses…
Wises’ Social Impact Measurement in the Baltic States
WISEs’ Social Impact Measurement in the Baltic States Audrone UrmanavicieneTallinn University DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/2704-9906/5091 Keywords: Social enterprise, WISEs, Social impact measurement, Measurement indicators ABSTRACT WISEs devote most of their time and resources to working with the target group – not only organizing their employment activities and developing skills but also adapting their work environment, improving the psychological climate,…
The Effective Methods and Practices for Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship Through Corporate Social Responsibility
Article “The Effective Methods and Practices for Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship Through Corporate Social Responsibility” written by: Audrone UrmanavicieneTallinn University, School of Governance, Law and Societyhttp://orcid.org/0000-0003-1621-0101 Udara Suwanda ArachchiTallinn University, School of Governance, Law and Societyhttp://orcid.org/0000-0003-2618-6758 DOI: https://doi.org/10.13135/2704-9906/5085 Keywords: Corporate culture, Effective methods, Social enterprise, Social impact, Social value creation, Sustainability ABSTRACT The concepts of Social entrepreneurship and…
SOCIAL IMPACT INVESTMENTS AS A TOOL FOR FUNDING SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
Purpose: Social impact investments are essential to support and promote social entrepreneurship development. This article aims to identify the factors that could develop the local impact investment market in Sri Lanka as a tool for funding social enterprises. Design/methodology/approach: The methods of research are an analysis of scientific literature, experts’ interviews, and generalization. Findings: In…
Social Enterprises in Rural Areas A Comparative Study of the Baltic States
This article provides a cross-case analysis of rural social enterprises from Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Social enterprises seek to produce goods and services with a social or environmental purpose, and they pursue the general interest of local communities, people and/or social groups. The orientation towards the public good does not imply that social enterprises do…
Kuźnia cafe from Gdańsk, Poland – pleace run by people with big hearts!
The Kuźnia cafe belongs to the network of social companies run by the Foundation for Social Innovation. It was established in 2012 as a place of first contact with work for young people from foster care facilities and other educational institutions aiming at young people at the risk of social exclusion run by the…
Taking the pulse on the Nordic Changemaker landscape
The Nordic Changemaker Map is a collaborative project with the objective to identify key stakeholders, networks, connectivity, and needed support to strengthen the Nordic ecosystem for social entrepreneurship and Changemaking. The Map uses a Snowball Analysis method that enables a grassroots approach to and thus engaging Changemakers from all parts of the region. The Map…
Social Entrepreneurship – Manual and Curriculum
Some time ago EU funded project partners led by the NGO from the Republic of North Macedonia – Center for Intercultural Dialogue, amongst other project outputs have produced a training manual and curriculum on social entrepreneurship that is publicly available here.
Do you know the OECD tool “SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP SELF-ASSESMENT?
The ‘Better Entrepreneurship Policy Tool’ was developed by the OECD (Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities – CFE) and the European Commission (DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion). The project benefitted from constructive comments from two advisory boards and various stakeholder consultations. What is it? The Better Entrepreneurship Policy Tool is a free online…
The 5 most promising non-governmental projects in Lithuania for 2021
The most promising projects of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Lithuania have been announced. They have become 5 initiatives aimed at solving various social or cultural problems that are important for individual regions of the country or for Lithuania as a whole. The selected projects will be further developed in a special NGO Accelerator program. The…
Social Entrepreneurship through Passion – a Trainers Guide
Social Entrepreneurship through Passion – Programme and Trainers Guide – is a new m developed to respond to the needs facing social, economic and learning difficulties. The material is developed developed within the project of the same name (in short “PASSIONPRENEURS”) and co-funded by The European Commission. The project adresses unemployment and social exclusion of vulnerable…
Change Please – A successful english social enterprise
Change Please, started in 2015 in London by giving homeless people the opportunity to run their own mobile coffee shop. Since then, the company has been very successful. Change Please’s coffee is now available in Virgin Atlantic’s aircraft, the company has started selling England’s only CO2 neutral toilet paper and have recently bought a larger…
Building better lives – pack to deliver activities on social enterprise.
Students as agents of change The pack contains six principal lesson plans as well as suggestions for activities in the classroom and community. The activities spur students to think about social problems in their localities and further afield and the role that businesses and social enterprises can play in addressing them. As the lessons progress,…
From Tczew with Love
“Szafa serc”/Wardrobe of Hearts/ Charity Shop is a new social initiative based in Tczew, Poland, which started its’ activity in June this year. Recently we’ve visited “Szafa Serc”, as we were interested in finding out on our own how the 1st charity shop in Tczew works. We were amazed by the warm welcome, the genuine…
Social gastronomy for social impact
Food is a concept that is understood universally in the whole world. People connect over it, and there is no day we can go by without a meal, too. Since it takes up so large portion of our lives, it is inevitable that food can also be a great catalyst, or prism through which impact…
MedUP social entrepreneur support toolkit
This toolkit has been designed to assist organisations and individuals who work to help social entrepreneurs, from pre-start through to scaling social ventures. The toolkit can be used by anyone, though it is primarily aimed at those who are new to working with social entrepreneurs. This toolkit complements training provided by Impact Hub through the…
Entrepreneurs — here’s how you can improve your funding outcomes
“Cambridge Judge Business School has collaborated with Esme Learning to launch executive education programmes to empower working professionals’ careers. The multi-year collaboration commences with two inaugural six-week online executive education programmes in startup funding and RegTech, which start in October 2021. Startup Funding: From Pre-Seed to Exit aims to help entrepreneurs overcome the trickiest funding challenges…
Not a Lack of Funding
Lessons Learned from Alternative Finance Experts – A View from Spain Culture is an extremely complex concept to define. It is generally referred to as the set of tangible and intangible material assets of a social group inherited across generations in order to guide individual and collective practices. Cultural changes, the mindset of societies and…
The UK Social Enterprise Awards 2021 Shortlist Announced!
The UK Social Enterprise Awards recognize the nation’s leading social enterprises shining a spotlight on the breadth and diversity of the social enterprise movement. The Awards 2021 shortlist have been announced in the following categories: UK Social Enterprise of the Year – the overall award for a social enterprise that has a clear vision, excellence in impact,…
Too Good To Go app with great social impact!
From now on, all the hungry, who are not indifferent to the fate of our planet, can fight against wasting and throwing away food – the Too Good To Go application is now available in Warsaw. Its users can save products and dishes from their favorite restaurants, shops or bakeries from throwing away. Surprise packages…
Policy paper: “Co-designing the Action Plan for the Social Economy: for an economy that works for people and the planet.”
Social Economy Europe is a platform representing the voices of 2.8 million social economy enterprises and organisations in Europe. is pleased to present its policy paper Co-designing the Action Plan for the Social Economy: for an economy that works for people and the planet. This document has been elaborated by SEE in cooperation with its seventeen members -AIM, AMICE,…
WEBINAR
Competition in the Baltics – what to know in 2021? Before setting your business
WEBINAR | Competition in the Baltics – what to know in 2021? Before setting your business Agenda: Recent trends and development in: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania Platform markets in the Baltics Limiting the trade in the Baltics: pricing Trade in the Baltics: distribution and tipical risks, opportunities? WEBINAR moderated by Triinu Järviste, senior associate / TGS…
Social entrepreneurship in Estonia: focus on helping people and promoting creative recycling
Associate professor Mari Kooskora, head of EBS’s Business Ethics Centre, represented the university in the Nordplus Horizontal project “Education for smart development of social entrepreneurship.” Here is an interview with Professor Kooskora by Geri Norai of Lithuania. Social entrepreneurship in Estonia started evolving at more or less the same time as it did in Lithuania….
EU Youth Guarantee supporting unemployed youth!
What is the reinforced Youth Guarantee? The reinforced Youth Guarantee is a commitment by all Member States to ensure that all young people under the age of 30 receive a good quality offer of employment continued education apprenticeship traineeship within a period of four months of becoming unemployed or leaving education. All EU countries have committed to…
EU will present new Social Economy Action Plan by the end of 2021!
The President of the Commission mandated the Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights, Nicolas Schmit, with developing a European Action Plan for Social Economy. The 2021 Commission Work Programme announced that the publication date for the Action Plan would be the fourth quarter of 2021. It also highlights that the Action Plan will enhance social investment, support social economy…
Training modules provided by the Social Innovation Academy
The Academy is the first fully online management training programme focusing exclusively on social innovation. We are co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union. What is social innovation? In short, any innovation that is social in its ends or in its means, or simply any working, innovative solution to help address a pressing societal challenge e.g. climate…
Social Economy entities from Pomorskie Region will be present at the St. Dominics Fair in Gdańsk, Poland!
Social Economy Support Centre from Gdańsk (dobrarobota.org) invites you to Pomorska Street in Gdańsk during the St. Dominics Fair in Gdańsk, Poland, where you will find stands of social economy entities from all over Pomerania! Our exhibitors will sell their products from July 24 to August 15, 2021, on Szeroka Street and Ołowianka Street. Social…
Conversation: An equitable economy starts with powerful workers
Every week at Welcome Change, Ashoka talks to the world’s social entrepreneurs about what works, and what’s next. Here they present a conversation with Ashoka Fellow Michelle Miller, co-founder of Coworker.org (a platform that helps workers build collective power to transform their jobs and workplaces). She shared her vision for creating a 21st century labor movement, and why…
Sell Well, Do Good
Learning to sell is a bigger challenge than most social entrepreneurs expect. In the new book Sell Well, Do Good, sales experts Dr. Roy Whitten and Scott Roy from Whitten & Roy Partnership redefine sales in a way, that is more in line with the values that social enterprises have, and at the same time…
YOUTH SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: POTENTIAL AND CHALLENGES
Numerous studies show that today’s young people are highly motivated to generate positive social change (Lewis, 2016; Punadi and Rizal, 2017). Social entrepreneurship may have great potential to mobilize youth to engage in efforts to achieve major social objectives, including employment creation, poverty reduction, inclusion and integration. Dedicated to serving the common good, social enterprises…
Collective call to grant limited profitability enterprises a legal meaning and ensure a fair competition with private undertakings.
The VYV Group has initiated a collective call for action, and are looking for like-minded organizations willing to join them in their efforts towards the recognition of the notion of “limited profitability”. Here is an excerpt from their letter. …the specific legal models of companies with limited profitability are not yet recognized by European legislation. This concept…
Social Enterprises and the Future of Public Services – An Interview with Scott Darraugh, CEO of Social adVentures
The Social Enterprise UK invites us to a great webinar to be carried out next week, on July 15th 12:00 (London), where Scott Darraugh, CEO of Social adVentures, will be talking about transforming the delivery of care services. In Salford, Greater Manchester, one social enterprise is radically changing how a community can address health inequalities through redefining what is possible…
An Overview of Baltic Youth Impact
A consortium of partners has released a paper on impact management needs and challenges of youth associations in the Baltics, and the best practice examples. It provides an overview of whether and how youth organizations and social enterprises in the three Baltic States — Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania — measure their impact and presents different examples…
Read the latest guidelines “How to stimulate social entrepreneurship via non-formal and informal learning methods”
Although young people constitute a substantial part of citizens worldwide, they are not fully recognised in policies and strategies, as a separate group of interest. They play a crucial role in societal and economic development and are often referred to as „agents of change“. Simultaneously, the unemployment of youth is one of the greatest global challenges. Social entrepreneurship is…
Why do so few social enterprises go international?
Recently EUCLID posted a summary report on the scaling of social enterprises. It is quite interesting and insightful. Here is a full link to the article. Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the number of social enterprises across the world, introducing a broad range of innovations to different industries. Recent estimates suggest that already 21%…
Social Economy mainstreamed into the ESF Plus & the ERDF
Important information coming from the European Social Fund+ (ESF+) and European Regional Development Fund. Click on links to read full documents. ESF Plus Regulation, approved yesterday, states: Social economy enterprises could play a key role in delivering on social innovation and contributing to economic and social resilience. The definition of a social economy enterprise should…
It is ok not to be a social entrepreneur
Not every NGO has to become a social enterprise in order to reach its mission. When I came to North Macedonia for the EU-funded project on Social Entrepreneurship on the last day of August in 2020 I was pumped. I was pumped about making a change and enlighten local activists and social entrepreneurs. After all,…
Financing the social economy in Poland – Updated case study April 2021
European Commission, together with the European Investment Bank and FI.Compas has prepared the latest version of the report presenting the financial landscape for social economy actors in Poland. From the Fi.Compass website: Financial instruments under ESF have long been supporting Social Economy Enterprises in Poland. This updated case study focuses on the National Fund for…
EU Study: “Making Socially Responsible Public Procurement Work: 71 Good Practice Cases” #WeBuySocialEU
Socially responsible public procurement (SRPP) is about achieving positive social outcomes in public contracts. Procurement affects a large number of people, whether as users of public services, those involved in production and delivery, or staff of the buying organisation. Beyond those directly affected, SRPP has the potential to influence the broader market on both the…
How social entrepreneurship helps to educate the world?
How do social entrepreneurs and the projects they create impact the world at large? Maximillian Goetz, founder of the non-profit organization Robotics for All, discusses his experiences with social entrepreneurship and the real-world impacts he has witnessed firsthand. Maximilian Goetz is a first-year student at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. In April 2017, he…
Recap on Baltic – UK Social Entrepreneurship Forum
On June 4th the first Baltic – UK Social Entrepreneurship Forum took place. In this phygital* event a row of social entrepreneurs, as well as the government officials shared their stories and knowledge about the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in their respective countries. Throughout the day it allowed not only to find out more about the current…
The first European Social Enterprise Monitor report has been launched
Euclid Network (EN) in collaboration with organizations in eight European countries has published the first “European Social Enterprise Monitor” report (ESEM) – that collects data on social enterprises in the eight participating countries. This happened at the European Commission’s European Social Economy Summit (#EUSES) on 26 May 2021. The ESEM project was launched in 2020…
European Social Enterprise Monitor (ESEM)
THE HAGUE (Euclid Network) – We are proud to announce the official launch of the inauguralEuropean Social Enterprise Monitor (ESEM) report at the European Commission’s European Social Economy Summit #EUSES, held virtually in Mannheim on 26th May 2021. The Monitor aims to close the current gaps in data, knowledge, awareness and understanding of social enterprise on …
50 Social Entrepreneurs Changing the World
Before we jump into a list of some of our favorite social entrepreneurs, it’s worth a brief mention of what social entrepreneurship is in the first place. Social entrepreneurship, as a movement and as a term, is moving aggressively into the mainstream. And with this rise in popularity, more and more change agents are racing…
SEDETT Educational Resources for Social Enterprise Development
The SEDETT (Social Enterprise Development Education and Training Tools) project was funded by the EU through the ERASMUS+ strategic partnerships programme. It aimed to Produce a capacity self-assessment tool for social enterprise practitioners to use for evaluating their organisational development. Produce learning resources for educators and trainers to use when developing inter-active course materials on…
The Ultimate Guide to Social Entrepreneurship
1. What is Social Entrepreneurship Social entrepreneurship uses business to offer new ideas for wide-scale social and environmental impact. Social entrepreneurship unites the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination. Many social entrepreneurs launch whole new ventures applying innovative and often risk-taking approaches to create scalable solutions, which…
A guide to social impact measurement
Social Ventures Australia (SVA) is a not-for-profit organization helping organisations, government, funders and corporates delivering better social outcomes for people. “A guide to social impact measurement” Sharing knowledge on impact measurement is one of the activities of Social Ventures Australia. The organisation has written a large number of articles on how to measure social impact…
What are Social Impact Companies and Why Do They Matter?
Have you ever wondered what the term “social impact ” stands for and why so many companies indicate it as their core value? CauseLabs – a software company whose mission is growing positive impact, explains what are social impact companies and why do they matter. If you pay any attention to business news and trends, then…
Social Entrepreneurship Support in Latvia – Assessment in Short
The Ministry of Welfare of the Republic of Latvia has come with the evaluation report on the Social entrepreneurship support system in Latvia (full report available in Latvian), specifically focusing on the assessment of socially responsible entrepreneurs, their impact, and support mechanisms in order to provide viable recommendations for improvement of legal framework addressing social…
Apply for The Yunus & Youth Global Fellowship (online)
The Yunus & Youth Global Fellowship (Y&Y Fellowship) is a virtual, six-month program that is designed specifically for operating social businesses. The program is free, with no fee or equity stake required, and the application season is now open for the seventh global cohort. The Y&Y Fellowship gives you the skills you need to achieve…
Thanks to Estonia Digitalization Genius, Developing Nations May Be Ready for AI Adoption
Estonia (e-Estonia) is the world’s only fully digitalized nation, where almost 100% percent of all public services are online, from IDs to education to healthcare. Previously, I wrote an article about how AI can actually sharpen inequality in the world unless developing nations implement the proper technological infrastructure to be able to adopt AI in…
How Lithuania Transformed Into a Social Entrepreneurship Hub
With just 3 million inhabitants, Lithuania is a little known Baltic State that leads in social entrepreneurship. This is due to historic policies, strong institutions and a STEM-driven population, all of which encourages innovation. As early as 1996, Lithuania expressed support for youth entrepreneurship when the Parliament launched its “State Youth Policy Conception”, which provided…
First Steps into Business Success: a new way of learning about social entrepreneurship!
The e-learning First Steps into Business Success platform allows you to earn about entrepreneurship, economics and market economy issues with particular emphasis on eco-innovation in business and the idea of Fair Trade. E-learning platform will consist of 4 e-learning modules: Module 1 Eco-innovations in business. types of innovations: product innovations-creating totally new products/services that have new…
Workplace by Facebook
Workplace: internal social network for business. Facebook at Work supports collaboration; allows you to effectively create work or project groups, colleagues can also create: RSS information feeds in order to be notified of all relevant information Events for all colleagues or private events What has it got to offer? Team messaging and communication app using more up-to-date tools than email….
PACT FOR IMPACT: Creating an international network of SSE actors / social entrepreneurship
Within the framework of the project Pact for Impact launched by the French government to constitute an international community of Social entrepreneurs, the association @LesCanaux is building a database of 1,000 SSE and social entrepreneurship organizations. The principle is to put a cartography online representative of the international ecosystem and large enough to encourage other…
5 Ways Gen Z is Influencing Social Entrepreneurship
Gen Z may as well be called “Generation Social Impact”. For reasons previously mentioned, Digital Natives are stepping up to the task to be pioneers and innovate solutions for the betterment of humanity. We especially see large movements in the space in the Baltic Region, where a host of youth are creating the next generation…
How to create a social incubator – Report analysing best practices in Europe, structuring ideal incubator phases, timing, limitations, risks management of people with socially excluded backgrounds.
The Social SEED Erasmus+ project partnership composed of partners coming from Spain, Italy, Germany and Poland (BISER – Partner of the SocialEnterpriseBSR network) is glad to announce the conclusion of the first phase of the project, during which a methodological guide to design a social incubator for people at risk of exclusion has been produced…
Social enterprise finance market: analysis and recommendations for delivery options
This report by EUROPEAN COMMISSION – Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion provides a technical analysis of the finance market for social enterprises. It identifies market failures and funding gaps in social enterprise finance and proposes delivery options for the future EU level financial instruments. You can read it here: https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=738&langId=en&pubId=8285&furtherPubs=yes Or download directly from…
In France, a mission-based approach is seen as a commitment versus an opportunity!
Inspiration from France! In France, a mission-based approach is seen as a commitment versus an opportunity – La Loi Pacte was amended to encourage companies to be more social. Last year, in collaboration with Dealroom, this report proposed a methodology to measure entrepreneurial activity and capital invested into purpose-driven tech companies across Europe. This was…
Sotsiaalse ettevõtluse ja sotsiaalsete ettevõtete arengu stimuleerimine Eestis
Strateegia süvaanalüüs Käesolev raport esitab Eesti sotsiaalse innovatsiooni, sotsiaalse ettevõtluse ja sotsiaalsete ettevõtete jaoks kindlaks määratud strateegilise ökosüsteemi süvaanalüüsi. See tuvastab riigi peamised tugevad ja probleemsed küljed ning esitab strateegilised soovitused tugevama strateegilise ökosüsteemi arengu toetamiseks sotsiaalseks ettevõtluseks ja sotsiaalsete ettevõtete jaoks. Peamised strateegilised probleemid, mida analüüsiti, hõlmavad: sotsiaalse innovatsiooni ja sotsiaalse ettevõtluse kultuuri loomist…
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international organisation that works to build better policies for better lives. Our goal is to shape policies that foster prosperity, equality, opportunity and well-being for all. We draw on 60 years of experience and insights to better prepare the world of tomorrow. Together with governments, policy makers and…
How These Danish Bees Give Hope to Refugees
Recently an interesting article about a flagship Danish social enterprise – Bybi, has been published by YES Magazine. Please, have a look: “It was wonderful before the war,” says Aref Haboo, a 48-year-old agricultural consultant describing Shie, the small village in the Afrin province of northern Syria he called home. There, for 18 years, Haboo…
Calling all young entrepreneurs – report “Mapping of Barriers to Social Inclusion of Young People in Vulnerable Situations”
The report called “Finding a place in modern Europe” by Authors: Jelena Markovic Miguel Angel Garcia Lopez Sever Dzigurski, With the support of the researchers of the steering group for this project: Howard Williamson, Magda Nico and Syika Kovacheva was published recently here: https://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/42128013/47261689/Finding-09-2015.pdf/a1045d8f-a4c7-4889-b1a1-e783e470858b There are two main purposes for this report, which we highly recommend:…
Regional Strategies for the Social Economy – OECD Report with examples from France, Spain, Sweden and Poland
This paper by OECD https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/industry-and-services/regional-strategies-for-the-social-economy_76995b39-en explores the linkages between regional strategies for the social economy and regional development in four EU countries: France, Spain, Sweden and Poland. It provides a comparative perspective of regional strategies for the social economy (Section 1), based on i) the level of recognition of the social economy itself, ii) multi-level…
Handbook for trainers in Social Entrepreneurship
The Institute of Entrepreneurship Development presents the handbook created for trainers regarding the training courses in Social Economy and Entrepreneurship. The educational material was created in the framework of the European project ERASMUS+ entitled “Open Mind – gamified platform and open online course in Social Entrepreneurship for female learners and students from diverse fields of study”. Open Mind…
5 ways social enterprise funders can act differently in 2021
As world is rapidly changing in face of the COVID-19 crisis we highly recommend you reading this article by Lior Ipp from Roddenberry Foundation, explaining how social entrepreneurs can act differently in current year. 5 ways social enterprise funders can act differently in 2021 The COVID-19 crisis has exposed the fragility of global systems and…
Baltic Sea Region Trends in Social Innovation
The Baltic Sea Region is becoming a global trend-setter for social innovation. The region hosts a young, entrepreneurially driven and socially aware demographic, mature technological infrastructure and R&D investments, and an emphasis on the people-centric side of innovation. As a result of these factors, the Baltic Sea Region has been able to set trends in…
Mature Funding Ecosystem Lets Estonia Lead in Social Innovation
Estonia leads the world in social innovation with a mature funding ecosystem, people-centric focus, and advanced digital capabilities. Estonia is a little known Baltic State making big moves in digitalization and social innovation. According to the Estonian Startup Database, there are 1,110 startups operating in Estonia and 66 new startups have been created in 2020….
Why Youth Want To Become Involved in The Social Impact Economy
Today’s youth, embodied by Gen Z (born between 1996–2010) and the rising Gen Alpha (born between 2013–2024) are highly motivated to leave a positive mark on society. Factors such as digitalization’s ease of catalyzing impact, long-term planning for a more sustainable planet, and the push towards human-centric innovation, are all motivations behind why youth want…
Gen Z Is The Social Innovation Generation We’ve All Been Waiting For
Social innovation has taken on a whole new meaning after the events of 2020. Coronavirus forced the STEM community to focus on human-centric solutions to help mitigate the pandemic, civil unrest has encouraged governments and enterprise to invest in monitoring technologies such as facial recognition to improve citizen welfare, and AI funding has been booming…
Balkan perspectives on Social Entrepreneurship
Our colleagues from the Republic of North Macedonia have produced an interesting material – an overview of cases of social entrepreneurs from across the Balkans – The Voices of entrepreneurs and innovators – that can serve both as a tool for inspiration as well as training material. Below is the link to the material, provided…
Street team football produces good results
Combining football with aftercare for people who are experiencing drug-related problems is a form of groundbreaking social work which is proving to be effective. Street team football is the low-threshold activity that the organization Norsk Toppfotball (“Norwegian Elite Football”) offers anyone who has or has had long term challenges with drug addiction. As of today,…
The way to improve social entrepreneurship in Norway
In practice: Social entrepreneurship ensures that new ideas and solutions regarding social problems are acknowledged and preserved in a way that make them practical and useful in a long term. The Norwegian government wants to lay the groundwork for more social entrepreneurship. SESAM (USN) has now given its recommendation regarding the matter. Learn more here!…
SoImpact – tools for collaborative social innovation
Innovation work through collaborative social innovation assumes using different methods for collecting and evaluating results, both regarding values created during the process, and the effect that is a result of the ended process. Measuring effects is demanding, since the causality between effort and effect often is unclear. However, it is important to know whether the…
SAMSON – a tool for collaborative social innovation
Scientists found that most of the Norwegian cases had a low level of maturity. Collaborative social innovation is hard to accomplish in practice. The project showed that the general level of knowledge when it came to collaborative social innovation was low, and that the municipalities struggled to achieve true user involvement in the cases. By…
How To Engage Youth To Become Social Entrepreneurs
The events of the previous year have amplified the needs for technologies and innovation to focus on the social component of development, namely, the human-centric approach. With the coming of Gen Z into the global market, it is an undeniable reality that this generation will steer the vision of entrepreneurship in the Digital Economy 2.0….
Everyone Is Invited To Provide A Feedback On EU Action Plan for Social Economy by 26th of April
The European Commission (EC) will launch an EU Action Plan for Social Economy in 2021. This initiative seeks to boost the contribution of social economy organisations to a fair and sustainable growth. It will enhance social investment, support social economy actors to start up, scale up, innovate and create jobs. At the moment, the EC…
Actionable Impact Management – A Roadmap for Your Organisation
Actionable Impact Management (AIM) is designed to assist in defining an internal organizational framework. This is executed by establishing an enduring impact measurement process which is primarily data and outcome oriented. AIM’s objective is to outline a roadmap for your organization to follow in the hopes to reaching a point where you are able to…
The Best Podcast for Social Entrepreneurs & Changemakers
Through The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast delivered by Grow Ensemble, host Cory Ames and his expert guests shed light on social entrepreneurship, discussing the experience of running, growing, and sustaining successful sustainable businesses, social enterprises, and nonprofits. Episodes explore a range of topics about the missions and causes these businesses have ingrained into their operations, as well as their successes…
The Sustainable Development Goals and YOUth
‘The Sustainable Development Goals and YOUth’ is a material developed in 2015, just after the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have been agreed on to follow by 2030. Although some time has passed, this resource still constitutes a valuable document to be studied by children and young people, as well as youth workers to learn and…
Pioneers Post – The Social Enterprise Magazine
If you are not familiar with Pioneers Post yet, we encourage you to check the independent news network for the global impact community. As a journalism platform, it provides insights for pioneers across the impact economy, from social entrepreneurs and impact investors, to changemakers working across business, civil society, philanthropy, government, and public services. Pioneers Post is the specialist news and…
THE TRIPLE LAYERED BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS – A TOOL TO DESIGN MORE SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS MODELS
A creative approach to sustainability can be applied upon an organization’s business model. Authors begin their research with the assumption that business model innovation that takes into account a triple bottom line approach will be more sustainable over time. They focus their research on the conceptual stage when business model ideas are generated, and more precisely its creative tools. Their…
UpLink – a place where ideas can become a reality
Imagine you had a ‘eureka’ moment – an idea for a new way of doing something that could, in some way, make the world a better place. How would you go about turning that idea into reality? One place you could go, is UpLink, a platform which lets anyone from anywhere in the world submit their ideas…
Polish – Lithuanian project is the official partner for the European Social Economy Region Initiative 2021
The Interreg V-A Lithuania – Poland project „Partnership. Entrepreneurship. Action“ has been selected as one of the official European Commission European Social Economy Regions initiative (ESER) 2021 partners. Project partners from Poland represent Warmia and Masuria region. The Project aims to support underserved young entrepreneurs (16 – 29 years) to start, grow and sustain their businesses…
Fantastic webinar with best practices from social enterprises made by Interreg Europe
In our SENBS2 project, our aim is to contribute to the share of best practice and knowledge on social entrepreneurship in the Baltic Sea Region. We wish to present to you great examples from European colleagues, examples gathered by Interreg Europe Programme and presented in 2020 via webinar: “Business support schemes for social enterprises”. Read the…
Corporate support for social entrepreneurs
A number of large companies are helping social entrepreneurs and social enterprises around the world. Here is a small overview of some of the most important initiatives. It is obvious that social enterprises can benefit from corporate help and support both of financial support and in support to competence building and business development. But also…
The Good Business Roadmap
Sara Sophie Osterholzer has developed The Good Business Roadmap, which is a step-by-step guide to supporting first-time social entrepreneurs in getting their business up and running quickly and helping to provide the right foundation for long-term sustainability. The Good Business Roadmap consists of 10 steps with recommended actions to take under each step. It can…
IKEA Social Entrepreneurship
You all have probably heard of IKEA – a Swedish home furnishings company and world’s largest furniture retailer since 2008. But did you know IKEA backs and boosts social entrepreneurs all over the world? IKEA has long since had the vision to create a better everyday life for as many people as possible. Back in 2012, the company looked…
Social enterprise platform has been launched in Lithuania
A new platform for social entrepreneurs and training resources has been launched by Enterprise Lithuania – a government SME support agency that is providing assistance to social enterprises as well: https://socialinisverslas.verslilietuva.lt/businesses/
Let’s do it together! Handbook for local collaborative social innovation
This handbook is written for, and in a Norwegian local context. It is namely the case that in Norway welfare is in fact created mainly locally in the country’s 426 (current) municipalities. It is therefore more meaningful to talk about the welfare municipalities rather than the welfare state in Norway. Good collaborative social innovation work is…
New training material for social entrepreneurs have been prepared in Lithuanian
The project “Empowering Women from Ethnic Minorities through Social Business Enterprises” (EMwoSE) aims to increase the employment of women from ethnic minorities by providing them with the knowledge, practical skills and counseling needed to engage in the world of social business enterprises.
Socially Responsible Public Procurement: Its Role and Applications
Public procurement affects a large number of people, whether they are users of public services, workers involved in production and delivery, or staff of the buying organisation. Public authorities can engage in Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP) by buying ethical products and services, and by using public tenders to create socially just societies. Social entrepreneurship…
Campus StarterKit for faculty and staff
The Campus Starter Kit is designed to help higher education leaders build hubs of social innovation by tapping into the creativity and ingenuity of the campus community. While every campus is unique in its institutional identity and culture, educational vision, and student body, we hope to provide broadly applicable resources to help foster awareness and…
MIRO – where teams get works done
The online collaborative whiteboard platform to bring teams together, anytime, anywhere. For a while, we’ve been hearing that remote work and therefore remote jobs are the trend of the future. However, in 2020 there are enough people working across different offices, satellite hubs, coworking spaces, cafes, home offices, and backyard sheds on a given day that it’s clear: “remote…
Fair Earth Foundation Programmes for Youth
The Fair Earth Foundation is the UK registered charity, working to inspire individuals to take action and make the world a better, fairer place. The main aim is to alleviate poverty around the world. As the charity is not considered as the best option to do so, instead, the mission of Fair Earth Foundation is to…
Handbook for trainers in Social Entrepreneurship
The Institute of Entrepreneurship Development presents the handbook created for trainers regarding the training courses in Social Economy and Entrepreneurship. The educational material was created in the framework of the European project ERASMUS+ entitled “Open Mind – gamified platform and open online course in Social Entrepreneurship for female learners and students from diverse fields of study”. Open Mind…
Raising Venture Capital With Impact – Webinar Series in Feb-Mar
The EIB Institute is hosting a series of five webinars on “Raising venture capital with impact” with Wladimir Nikoluk from ImmerLearn . This series will explore how entrepreneurs can successfully use impact measurement to raise funding from existing and emerging venture capital funds. Session 1: Raising venture capital with impact – An introduction General introduction to trends…
Ashoka – Everyone a Changemaker
Ashoka is an international organization that promotes social entrepreneurship by affiliating individual social entrepreneurs into the Ashoka organization. Their stated mission is “to shape a global, entrepreneurial, competitive citizen sector: one that allows social entrepreneurs to thrive and enables the world’s citizens to think and act as changemakers”. Ashoka identifies and supports the world’s leading social entrepreneurs,…
Intercultural Mediation as a Tool for Integration and Social Inclusion of Young (Vulnerable) People
We highly recommend this online learning opportunity offered via SALTO website! E-learning 24-26 February 2021 | online, Germany Through this online training you will learn how to actively intervene in social dialogue and promote positive interaction. You will be trained on how to be a good Mediator, the power of Intercultural Mediation, culture…
THE YOUTH’S PERSPECTIVE TO SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT
We recommend this scholarly article on youth social entrepreneurship available here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324359854_THE_YOUTH’S_PERSPECTIVE_TO_SOCIAL_ENTREPRENEURSHIP_DEVELOPMENT Urmanaviciene, Audrone & Raisiene, Agota. (2018). THE YOUTH’S PERSPECTIVE TO SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP DEVELOPMENT. A tendency to developing social entrepreneurship that aims at contributing to society’s welfare is evident globally. An increase in youth social entrepreneurship in Lithuania is also observed. However, it is not…
Bringing Artificial Intelligence to schools through entrepreneurship
Junior Achievement (JA) Europe is the largest non-profit in Europe dedicated to preparing young people for employment and entrepreneurship by creating pathways for employability, job creation and financial success. At the beginning of January 2021 JA Europe announced a new collaboration with Intel, which aim is to empower and equip young Europeans in the area of Artificial…
TOOLKIT FOR MENTORS: #NGO TRAINED APPRENTICESHIP IN CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS
Co-funded by the EEA grants project SOCIAL INNOVATORS presents an innovative model of simultaneously addressing the challenges of high rates of youth unemployment and low employment rate in NGO sector, which all present a tremendous waste of human potential and missed opportunities for greater contribution to the social transformation not only in partner countries but…
Do you know youth support programme “YOUTH PROP UP”?
The Youth Prop Up action plan is part of the wider Estonian Youth Guarantee National Action Plan initiated by the European Union. The main aim is in supporting young people in need, who may have been made redundant or have not completed their education and are not currently studying. The programme attempts to assist them in realising their potential…
New EU & Council of Europe study „Social inclusion, digitalisation and young people”
This study aims to explore the existing state of play when it comes to digitalisation and social inclusion of young people. The overall question leading this study was: “What is the intersection between social inclusion and digitalisation?” Read the full report here: https://pjp-eu.coe.int/documents/42128013/47261953/053120+Study+on+SID+Web.pdf/0057379c-2180-dd3e-7537-71c468f3cf9d?fbclid=IwAR34n763ROD8XTkGeUVk-vHCL8dVBXZQchdSL4SqCfG_ykpRm9JPX94Yt7c Executive summary: Social inclusion is a process that enables a young person to…
Knowledge capital in social and commercial entrepreneurship: Investigating the role of informal institutions
Abstract This paper utilizes the lenses of knowledge capital and institutional theories to examine the role knowledge capital plays in the context of entry into social versus commercial entrepreneurship. We also investigate the moderating role of national culture in the relationship between knowledge capital and entrepreneurship. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, we find…
Open Innovation Challenge – boosting the regional entrepreneurial ecosystem
What is the role of open innovation in terms of regional cooperation? We highly recommend reading the article below published by Interreg Europe on the policy learning platform. Open innovation – necessary approach in companies and regions Innovation is a critical factor behind economic development and competitiveness. At the same time, its nature is evolving….
Coursera
Coursera is a global online learning platform that offers online courses and degrees from leading universities and companies. The platform offers a range of courses in entrepreneurship, many of which are free. Coursera was founded by Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng in 2012 with a vision of providing life-transforming learning experiences to learners around the…
Youth Business International – YBI
Youth Business International (YBI) supports young entrepreneurs (18 – 35 years) to start, grow and sustain their businesses – enabling them to create jobs, build communities and transform lives. YBI offers entrepreneurship training, mentoring, access to finance and other business development support. YBI connects and supports expert organizations (our members), partners and young people to develop…
Female Entrepreneurship in Norway – Development, barriers and opportunities
The report looks at the development of woman entrepreneurship in Norway and the distinctive traits of those who start up their own business. It also identifies several actions public authorities can apply in order to stimulate more women to start their own businesses Despite the fact that the Norwegian culture is characterized by more equality…
See How Young Entrepreneurs Are Transforming Communities Worldwide
Today’s young social entrepreneurs are driving change in new and unexpected ways. In these videos prepared by YouthActionNet Fellows , Laureate Global Fellows share their motivations, their inspiration, and what makes their ventures unique. Watch Goal Getters series to learn how Fellows are advancing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Some of the brightest youth social innovation and social entrepreneurship…
Social INTRApreneurs – How Do They Contribute To The Common Good?
In order to achieve the SDGs, it is very clear that we need an economy built on the principles of accountability, inclusivity, and sustainability. We believe that companies can remodel business into a force for good, even beyond the model of stakeholder capitalism. But it takes strong individuals and changemakers from within powerful organizations to ignite and drive real change….
Why empowering female social entrepreneurs is key to economic recovery?
We highly recommend reading the article below, which is a part of the Davos Agenda. “The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that no institution or individual alone can address the economic, environmental, social and technological challenges of our complex, interdependent world. The pandemic itself will not transform the world, but it has accelerated systemic changes that…
Female Entrepreneurship in the Nordics 2020 – A comparative study
Female Entrepreneurship in the Nordics 2020 analyses the reasons behind the low level of female entrepreneurs in the Nordic countries, and suggests several measures that could help change this trend. The Nordic countries are viewed as forerunners on gender equality and women’s labour force participation. Even though there has been a slow increase in the…
Listen and learn – podcast “Social Economy for the full Inclusion of People with Disabilities”
Welcome to “Social Economy Talks”, a new podcast from Social Economy Europe about the most relevant upcoming issues in the social economy sphere. This is yet another chance to learn from the best practitioners and experts on social economy in Europe! It will follow a journey of discovery (narrated by team member Nicholas Clark) aimed at…
19 EU states signed Toledo Declaration promoting social and solidarity economy
In December 2020 the Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Economy organised a summit in Toledo. Nineteen EU member states have committed to promoting the social and solidarity economy through, during a summit organised by the Spanish Ministry of Labour and Social Economy. The European confederation of industrial and service co-operatives (Cecop) welcomed the Toledo Declaration,…
37 ICT tools for youth workers, trainers and project managers
The term of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) generally means all devices, networking components, applications and systems that combined allow people and organisations (i.e., companies, non-profit agencies, governments and institutions) to interact in the digital world. If you are a trainer, a youth worker, a project manager or only a user interested in ICT tools,…
Firms with benefits: A systematic review of responsible entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility literature
The scholarly literature has so far paid limited attention to responsibility by commercial entrepreneurs. This scientific paper compares responsible entrepreneurship (RE) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) scholarship in order to identify future fields of research. For this purpose, authors assess the strengths and weaknesses of extant RE scholarship through the lens of CSR. They have reviewed 11,260…
Linking Social Impact with Creativity, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competence Building
There are different understandings of social impact, which covers “a common good”, “common actions for social good”, “engaging people into social campaigns”, “helping/caring for people”, anything that makes communities prosper. The need of boosting the social impact is explained by the concept of Doughnut Economics, which recognizes the inseparable connection between the economy and environmental and…
Free online course on social entrepreneurship by Acumen Academy
To kick-off 2021, Acumen is inviting you to join a community of budding social entrepreneurs who are ready to start designing impactful solutions to challenges around the world.
“Unravel Tomorrow” MOOC Available for Social Entrepreneurs and Innovators
The “Unravel Tomorrow Learning Journey” offers learning resources to support educators, empowering new social entrepreneurs and social innovators to think about and learn from the experiences of changemakers, strengthen skills and develop ideas to take action. This digital course invites Learners to investigate new perspectives, think about what is emerging, be inspired by and learn…
New rapport: Social enterprises are able to adapt in terms of surviving Corona
If you teach students about social entrepreneurship and social enterprise in this particular period of time. It would be relevant to provide input about how the sector is doing in a time with Corona. And if you are a social entrepreneur it might also be of relevance to know how your field is doing worldwide…
Handbook for trainers in Social Entrepreneurship
The Institute of Entrepreneurship Development presents the handbook created for trainers regarding the training courses in Social Economy and Entrepreneurship. The educational material was created in the framework of the European project ERASMUS+ entitled “Open Mind – gamified platform and open online course in Social Entrepreneurship for female learners and students from diverse fields of study”. Open Mind…
Are You Still not recycling? You Might Regret It!
What is Life Cycle Assessment and How it helped BinFree to discover their contribution to the environment? Life-cycle assessment for glass recyclables and deposit packages to discover our contribution to the environment. 2021 is behind the door and it’s been almost a year since the first pick up that BinFree delivered for deposit packages! With the…
Internship at Social Enterprise Estonia and moving towards a greener lifestyle.
I am Katerina Chantzi and I am a social scientist. I am very excited to be an intern at Social Enterprise Estonia during my studies at Tallinn University in Social Entrepreneurship Master’s Programme. I started my internship in June 2020, a time when we were slightly starting to get out of our lockdown “caves” and…
Reach for Change has launched ′′Toolkits′′ with a set of tools for social entrepreneurs
REACH for Change has launched ′′ Toolkits ′′ with a set of tools for social entrepreneurs aimed at guiding and supporting more social entrepreneurs, even outside their incubator program. Reach for Change Toolkits has been developed with support from the Innovation Agency Vinnova in Sweden and is a beta version of the platform.
HOW TO BOOST SOCIAL INNOVATION IN ACADEMY: AN INSIGHT BASED ON THE STUDENTS4CHANGE PROJECT
We highly recommend this interview with Ivon Cepeda by Igone Guerra, about the Students4Change project developed within the Erasmus+ program: Capacity Building the Field of Higher Education. How to boost Social Innovation in Academy: an insight based on the Students4Change project by Ivon Cepeda | Dec 28, 2020 | Social Innovation Academy Students4Change was an extraordinary project that combined…
What is Impact Investing?
The Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) defines impact investing as investment into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention of generating social or environmental impact alongside a financial return. The exact impact will depend on the investor’s goals, while the financial returns can range from below-market to market rate. Why Do We Care About Impact…
UNICEF Innovation Fund: Call for frontier technology startups addressing Child Online Safety
UNICEF Innovation Fund: Call for frontier technology startups addressing Child Online Safety. Up to USD $100,000 of equity-free seed investment from UNICEF’s Innovation Fund is available for companies building software solutions that respond to the four broad categories of digital risks to children: Content, Contact, Conduct and Contract Risks. Deadline for application submission is 20…
Impact measurement and management tools for social entrepreneurs
Interreg Central Europe website shared great info on their currently running project “CE Responsible – Empowering Social Business in Central Europe” . The aim of it is to connect successful entrepreneurs with social entrepreneurs through our soon developed platform to make strong, long-term connections. It’s a win-win situation: while the social entrepreneurs gain the knowledge and…
Polish Certificate of Quality of Social and Solidarity 2020 awards granted!
The competition for granting the Certificate of Quality of Social and Solidarity 2020 is aimed at awarding those entities that successfully combine economic activity with social commitment. The awarded certificates will contribute to building the brand of specific entities and the entire social economy sector. One of the categories will also include local governments that…
SEDETT project contributed to expanding the availability of educational materials for social entrepreneurs
SEDETT project aims to develop a digitally enhanced blended learning set of S.E. development, education and training tools SEDETT that can be used by, social entrepreneurs to learn how to assess their capacity development needs (IO1), educators and trainers in HE/FE and VET to deliver formal and informal courses of education and training (IO2). The…
Have you tried Ryver?
In 2014, the team behind Ryver set out to solve the world’s “email problem” – the outdated way many teams collaborate, which is slow, difficult to manage, and filled with time-wasting junk mail. Ryver was the result – the best platform for teams to communicate, manage tasks, and automate business processes all in one app.
Made in Social Europe Exhibition 2020
Social Platform is delighted to welcome you to our new Made in Social Europe Exhibition 2020 – a collection of 19 inspiring practices from civil society organisations who are a part of Social Platform’s European member networks. In November 2017, European Union leaders proclaimed the European Pillar of Social Rights and stressed their united political commitment to…
European Social Enterprise Monitor Survey
Are you an impact-driven social entrepreneur? Then fill in the #SocEntMonitor survey now!
Social Economy Diaries
Social entrepreneurs in Europe can now share their story via the Social Economy Diaries, a new initiative of the Social DG GROW Unit F2 under the European Commission. The European Commission’s Platform Social Economy Community brings together actors in the European social economy field around a range of initiatives and activities. One of the initiatives…
Guide to Social Entrepreneurship and Cultural Events – Youth in Focus
The project “Prosoa Rural – Promoting Social Awareness in Rural Area” aims to develop materials that support educators in rural training centers so that they can transmit these values to young people. The materials prepared are based on a methodology focused on the promotion of active participation and social entrepreneurship linked to the conservation of Cultural…
The Impact of COVID-19 on Work Integration Social Enterprises
The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the lives of millions of people around the globe in a very short period of time. The pandemic impacted not only people’s mental and physical health but also on their way of living and working. In order to halt the spread of the virus, diverse governmental measures have been put…
Reporting Innovation: Act to Inspire & Inspire to Act 2020
Over the past two years, Axfoundation has created alliances and collaborations with some 225 partners including private sector as the main driver, contributing to positive development in society by exploring new solutions. By using business as an accelerator to drive long-term change, Axfoundation has tackled sustainability challenges related to the things we buy, the food…
The English Channel for Building Skills
The English Channel is a website designed by a British Council presenting interactive videos to help you build career skills and learn English. It offers plenty of engaging videos, question answering, and earning badges for your achievements. The English Channel offers unlimited access to free-of-charge high-quality library or resources. Also, there is an opportunity to earn…
DICE Young Storymakers
The DICE Young Storymakers are a group of 14 young journalists, aged 18-25, who are passionate about bringing stories of positive change in their countries to global audiences. They provide invaluable reporting capacity and locally informed perspectives on the creative social enterprises and intermediaries that DICE is supporting and the complex, interconnected issues that DICE is exploring. They…
Social Impact Investment – Best Practices and Recommendations for the Next Generation
We recommend to read and learn from this study prepared for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs called “Social Impact Investment – Best Practices and Recommendations for the Next Generation” (Mackevičiūtė, R. et al., Social Impact Investment – Best practices and recommendations for the next generation, Publication for the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs,…
What future for the social economy?
The European Parliament’s Research Department have just published a new briefing on the future for the Social Economy at EU level. After defining the Social Economy, the briefing focuses on the five pillars for EU intervention on social economy: 1. Access to finance; 2. Access to markets to encourage cooperation between traditional and social…
Microsoft Global – Social Entrepreneurship
Are you an innovator impacting our world for the better? Whether you’re addressing skills development, sustainability or accessibility, we’re passionate about supporting your social venture with technology, connections and community to help your team thrive. What is the Microsoft Global Social Entrepreneurship Program? The Microsoft Global Social Entrepreneurship Program supports social impact startups with technology,…
Koch Internship Program for Careers in Social Entrepreneurship
The Koch Internship Program (KIP) is a paid dynamic experiential internship program in U.S. It blends educational opportunities with real work experience. While participating in KIP, interns are placed at non-profit organizations and spend their week working on important issues that affect our world. Every week, interns attend professional development sessions that build the skills needed to contribute effectively in the workplace. Through KIP, interns learn…
Social Entrepreneurship and Corporate Social Responsibility: Differences and Points in Common
The recent global crisis has left evidence in social problems that limit the sustainable human development. Also the link between enterprises and society, allows us to analyze that there are many things to be done to mitigate these effects of the current economic model in favor of improving the quality of life society. There are…
Advantages of Hybrid Organising in Social Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Norway
Hybrid organising within the context of social entrepreneurship is on the rise. At the same time, social entrepreneurial ventures that adopt hybrid organising are often criticized. The literature on hybridity points to particular challenges for social entrepreneurial ventures such as conflicting institutional logics and tensions related to their dual identity and/or mission drift. Drawing on the literature on hybrid…
Implementing public procurement of innovations in an organization: lessons from Norway
The purpose of this paper is to explore the drivers, enablers, barriers, key success factors, pitfalls and benefits of implementing public procurement of innovations (PPoI) in an organization. The study revealed that implementation of PPoI represents significant change in an organization, and thus, it identifies key enablers and barriers that organizations must overcome. Furthermore, the…
Social inequalities, social trust and civic participation — the case of Norway
Comparative studies have generally demonstrated high levels of social capital in the Scandinavian welfare states. It has also been shown that social capital is generally higher among more privileged groups of people than among less privileged groups. However, less is known about how the different types of social inequalities relate to various types of social…
Ogunte – supporte for female social entrepreneurs
Ogunte CIC is a social enterprise and a certified B Corp, which since 2001 the organization has worked to strengthen the voice of female social entrepreneurs globally through Ogunte CIC delivers a large range of products and services all tailored to the needs of female women social entrepreneurs. Some are payed for and some are…
A guide to growing and scaling your social enterprise
The organization MovingWorlds has helped 900 social enterprises around the world scale their businesses over the years. They have done so with help using their Experteers, Capacity Building Programs, research, and educational programming. Their experience is that many social enterprise startups fall short of their projections and end up giving up. There is a number…
SDG Impact Assessment Tool
I you as a social entrepreneur want to work with the SDG´s the SDG Impact Assessment Tool can be a useful tool to visualizes how your activities affects the SDG´s. For social entrepreneurs and everybody else, who is trying to create a better world, it is important to see this change in a larger and…
Social Enterprises and Their Ecosystems in Europe – Comparative Synthesis Report
“Social enterprises and their ecosystems in Europe. Comparative synthesis report” provides an overview of the social enterprise landscape in Europe based on information available as of January 2020. It covers (i) the historical background and conditions of the emergence of social enterprises; (ii) the evolution of the concept and the existing national policy and legal framework…
Online Thinkathon Challenge #2
Online Thinkathon Challenge #2 is a series of events that aim to shape society and influence European and Canadian policy in 5 central areas of focus: racisms, health, climate change, gender equality, and education. The Challenge encourages to design modern and digitally inclusive solutions in teams of 1-4 and equips with mentorship advice, digital speaker series (webinars)…
Lithuanians are going to celebrate Social Enterprise day
Lithuanian social entrepreneurs are joining the global celebration of the International Social Entrepreneurship day on November 19 by holding an online event with multiple local and international speakers. This year, the project partners purposefully dedicate the event to Lithuanian youth (14-29 years old) – learners, students, planning to study, considering choices in professional and social…
Pigeonly – helping inmates stay in contact with their family
Frederick Hutson is a former convict who has started the social enterprise Pigeonly, which uses IT technology to help inmates in the United States keep in touch with their friends and family. Pigeonly is an IT platform that offers cost-saving services to inmates. Pigeonly is basically a range of features that help families keep in…
Unlocking the Potential of Rural Social Enterprises
To discover benefits of social entrepreneurship activities in rural areas and understand the rural environment that constitutes both challenges and opportunities for entrepreneurs, Artur Steiner and Simon Teasdale have conceptualized the operation of rural social enterprises, outlining their dependence on three main domains: geographic (or rural) domain – constitute both challenge and opportunities, as rural…
Social entrepreneurship in the Baltic and Nordic countries. Would the variety of existing legal forms do more for the impact on sustainable development?
This study evaluates the current situation and identify best practices in the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania) and the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden), through comparison of the legal forms available for social entrepreneurship or social business. Social enterprises have gained importance in European and national policies in recent years. There is a growing…
A Place Where Youth and Social Entrepreneurship Meet
As INDIGISE project supported by Erasmus+ aims to deliver youth-oriented, innovative educational approaches and tools to develop entrepreneurial competence in social economy and spread the idea of social entrepreneurship in general, the OER platform www.socialenterprisebsr.net has been regularly updated with the content relevant for youth audience since the beginning of the project in April 2020….
Powerful Communication Tools for Entrepreneurs: Connecting
We all know how important connecting is in our everyday life. Especially now, facing COVID-19 challenges, we appreciate every chance to interact with other people. But what role does connecting play when it comes to entrepreneurship? We recommend you to read this article by Joanne Bond, executive leadership coach, discussing the importance and practice of connecting as a…
Entrepreneurship education: motivation and effort for pupils with special needs in Norwegian compulsory school
Pupil enterprises are a widespread type of entrepreneurship education. In this working method, pupils start up, manage and close a business over short period of time. National and international policy documents claim that practical working methods through the use of pupil enterprises are beneficial to increase motivation by being a realistic and cross-curricular approach. This…
Hubro Education – Business simulations
Simulations are the ultimate way to tie theory and practice together. Hubro Education allows students to run virtual companies with their award-winning online business simulation game. Hubro Education offers three online business simulation games: Business simulation: Run a production company in a group, in direct competition with other students. Manage production, investments, pricing and financing of a virtual…
Innovation Cluster for Entrepreneurship Education
This report presents the results from the project “Innovation Cluster for Entrepreneurship Education”, which focused on the mini-company method. Mini-companies combine practical and theoretical learning and stimulate collaboration between school and working life. The main objective of the project was to analyse the impact of entrepreneurship education and understand what is needed to reach the European goal,…
Entrepreneurship Training and Mentoring Circle for Women
Entrepreneurship Training and Mentoring Circle for Women (ETMCW) is a concept delivered by European Activism Incubator. It is a year-long innovative, flexible training programme directed to Brussels – based women, who wish to launch a social or environmental impact business, a social enterprise or a non-profit project. The training has been designed to support a diverse group…
Gender and self-employment: the role of mini-companies
The aim of this publication was to evaluate to what degree participation in mini-companies impact young women and men with regard to the perceived desirability and perceived feasibility of self-employment. The Junior Achievement Company Programme (CP) is the largest mini-company scheme in European secondary school. The paper is based on a survey conducted in Norway with 1,160 students in upper…
Boosting Social Enterprise Development – Good Practice Compendium
This compendium derives policy lessons for boosting social enterprises from the analysis of 20 initiatives in several EU member-countries, covering a range of policy areas from legal frameworks, finance, market access, and support structures, to education and skills. Social enterprises can only meet their full potential if an enabling environment is in place to allow…
The Polish Model of a Social Economy with the Financial aspects and Profits at Background – from the General Theory to Practice
Within the InDigiSE Erasmus+ project we aim to bring youth the best knowledge and expertise on how to establish and run a successful youth social enterprise. One of the articles we recommend is was published in “Financial Internet Quarterly”, Volume 15: Issue 3, “The Polish Model of a Social Economy with the Financial aspects and Profits…
Is Crowdfunding an Appropriate Financial Model for Social Entrepreneurship ?
Within the InDigiSE Erasmus+ project we aim to bring youth the best knowledge and expertise on how to establish and run a successful youth social enterprise. One of the popular trends nowadays is the use of crowdfunding tools in your social business. Thus we recommend reading the academic article by Tiziana Priede Bergamini1*, Cristina López-Cózar Navarro2 and…
