Successful Business Models – Social Enterprise Development in the Baltic Sea Region

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 developing and deploying effective solutions to challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support of social progress […] Solutions often require the active collaboration of constituents across government, business, and the nonprofit world”
(Clavier et. al., Stanford Centre for Social Innovation)

Inspired by natural ecosystems, the Canadian Social Innovation Generation group believes that a healthy system must be resilient and adaptable. As such, social innovation arises from acknowledging the world in all its complexity and can be understood as “an alignment of circumstances that make action possible” (SiG, 2017).

SiG defines social innovation as: “a process, product or program that profoundly changes the way a given system operates, changing it in such a way that reduces the vulnerability of the people and the environment in that system. As a consequence of a positive social innovation, a system grows more resilient” (SiG, 2014).

Please read the full article HERE.

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 views of the European Commission or the National Agency.

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 your children, and a doctor as well. So the help of a local becomes invaluable. If you’re a Ukrainian who has come to the capital, you can meet your local friend in the BeFriend Vilnius mentoring programme – all you have to do is register and wait to be introduced to a volunteer. Your mentor will answer all your questions and help you with any problems that might come up.

For more information please visit the site directly HERE.

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. At all stages in the social enterprise “pioneer gap”, we’ve been in the trenches with small, growing, and even large social enterprises. Along the way, we’ve scaled up our own award-winning social enterprise, too.

We’ve seen first hand what research continues to prove: Most social impact startups fall wildly short of their projections and end up going out business. The main reason? Social entrepreneurship is hard. Really hard. But there is another reason, too: founders, biased by their own egos and intuition, don’t take the time to truly embrace proven frameworks that will increase the odds of success.

Despite what you might think, there are no such things as visionary entrepreneurs. In fact, the number one reason that startups fail is because founders think they have an idea that will work, when in reality there is no market for it. This is why startup guidance is full of quotes like “fall in love with problems, not your solution”, “don’t become a technology in search of a problem” and “get out of the building”.

So how do you stack the odds in your favor when growing a social enterprise? Our guide below shares the most impactful frameworks and tools that you need to grow and scale your social enterprise. It’s still going to be a long, hard journey, but we’ve found that it helps to know that you’re not alone (even when it feels like you’re riding a lion).

Full guide is available HERE.

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 of public services, and the social partners (social businesses or NGOs) propose measures and identify the scope of the target group that can be affected and participate in market consultations in order to create a mutually acceptable model.

The social partners are allowed to choose the design of the services themselves, the measures that would be most innovative and effective in solving the problems. The partners take the risk that the municipalities’ payment for the services provided depends on the results achieved – the impact on the target group.

Municipal impact procurement

Municipalities prepare impact procurements based on long-term changes rather than measures. On this page you will find information about planned purchases and links to ordered exposure “trees” – there is a detailed breakdown of each exposure area.

When evaluating the possibilities to submit proposals to municipalities, it is possible to limit oneself to one or more areas of long-term change that are qualitatively implemented – the partner is not obliged to implement the desired impact to the full extent.

There is a possibility to use social business investment baskets – up to 15 thousand. an amount of EUR for equipment and additional consultancy for the development of social business. Eligible participants must meet the following conditions:

wants to start a social business and register a legal entity in the county of the respective municipality
is a social business that has been operating for no more than 1 year. and is registered (or plans to register) in the county of the relevant municipality.

If you have any questions or want to provide service offers to municipalities – please contact: monika.stankeviciute@zmogui.lt

More information in LT language is available HERE.

Blog | Learn | Successful Business Models | Support for SocEnts | Youth

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 of charge.

Community

We all need role models, courage, support and determination to believe we can achieve anything we set our mind and heart to. It takes guts to stand alone, speak up and make great change happen. Future Heroes dares to be real and do things differently.To have more daring and diverse heroes to look up to, we’ve created an open environment for a driven community of girls with a passion to grow, work together and solve problems.

Growth

Welcome to a personal growth and change program to unlock your potential. During 4 months and 7 skills & mindset workshops, girls get to test their strengths, boost their life skills, grow their sisterhood and be inspired by diverse role models. Most importantly, dreams are made a reality by running projects that girls are most passionate about in teams of five, supported by mentors. Consider it a support network to jump-start your future.

Change

We want every business or social action that’s created during the program to have positive impact on the society. Be it a start-up that works towards mental well-being. Be it a social action project with a focus on better education or climate action. You get to decide what creates the most meaningful change in the future and we’ll make sure to be your sisterhood without borders. It’s literally the time and place to become a hero.

More information is available HERE.

Blog | News | Successful Business Models | Support for SocEnts | Youth

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 most promising NGO projects were selected after an intensive six-month training session. At the beginning of the year, a total of 10 carefully selected teams from 7 Lithuanian municipalities – Trakai, Širvintos, Švenčionys, Kėdainiai, Ukmergė, Šalčininkai and Elektrėnai – started the NGO Accelerator.

After the NGO Accelerator Commission evaluated the presentations of the participants’ projects prepared after the training, presented at the Pitch day event, the following were recognized as the most worthwhile to continue participating in the project and developing the ideas presented:

Kėdainiai District Women’s Crisis Center, which has created the initiative “Emotional Resistance Center” aimed at crisis prevention and strengthening women’s mutual help and support.

Krakiai Community Center, which develops social business, the community café, which sells the products of local farmers, carries out social, cultural, educational and voluntary activities that foster the culture of the Krakiai region.

LASS Pietvakarių centras, which has created the project “Sense of Tourism”, is designed to get to know the world through the senses of the blind – those who see are invited to experience the environment by touch, taste, smell and hearing.

The association “Kėdainiai Samaritans”, which together with the help of a local businessman provides assistance to the long-term unemployed, prepares, trains them and integrates them into the social environment.

Lina Baublienė and her project “Gather Lithuania” („Surink Lietuvą“), which aims to encourage people not only to travel around their country, but also to get to know its history, local people and discover new forms of travel.

The most promising 5 projects of Lithuanian NGOs this year were selected by the commission of the NGO Accelerator project initiated by the Kurk Lietuvai alumni network, consisting of Arūnė Matelytė, GovTech CEO, Gediminas Almantas, Chairman of the Board of the Open Lithuania Foundation, Marius Čiuželis, Founder of Marius Čiuželis Support and Charity Foundation and Silver Line, Justina Lukaševičiūtė, Head of the NGO Development Division of the Ministry of Social Security and Labor of the Republic of Lithuania, Arvydas Plėta, Innovation Partner of Katalista Ventures, and Greta Monstavičė, Head and Co-Founder of Katalista Ventures.

Photo gallery: https://bit.ly/3ugsZDz

The communication campaign is part of the project “Courage to Act and Change” and is funded by the Lithuanian Rural Network Technical Assistance Facility under the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development: Europe investing in rural areas.

Article is prepared under the provided material HERE.

Educational Materials | Learn | Library | Successful Business Models | Youth

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 goal is to support, with a structured canvas, organizations whom wish to innovate upon their current business model and create concepts of more sustainable business models.

In this paper, authors present and discuss the tool they have named the “triple layered business model canvas”. Authors endeavoured to ensure that business models create, deliver and capture multiple forms of value by adding a second layer with nine environmental elements that follow a lifecycle approach, and by adding a third layer with nine social elements that follow a stakeholder approach. Authors share this new triple layered business model canvas and exemplify its use with a Nespresso case. In the end, authors find new dynamics for analysis and new relationships for innovation. Authors conclude with limits and future research for more sustainable business model patterns.

In short, authors add two new layers while continuing in the structure of the original canvas. The second layer is built with life cycle thinking approach to the environment and the third layer fosters a stakeholder approach to social issues.

Business leaders can use this canvas to better understand and visualize the relationships between the economic, environmental and social aspects of their business model.

Full paper with three CANVAS templates can be found HERE.

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 project focus on the lack of entrepreneurship skills, especially seeing the differences in skills between genders, attempting to boost entrepreneurship and creativity through an innovative gamified social entrepreneurship course.

The training material which developed for social entrepreneurship, concerns a lot of individuals across Europe, trying to map the skills that are needed to start a business as well as it pursues to enhance employment in this sector.

This special educational material has created with the participation of all partners of the project, however, especially iED edited the graphic design of the handbook.

You can watch the entire educational material completely free of charge HERE.

Blog | Learn | Successful Business Models | Youth

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 examples you can watch below. To access the entire collection of inspiring interviews with fellows on a range of social innovations, view the Change series, Fellow talks and Programmes.

Additionally, a series of webinars are available at the YouthActionNet platform. Webinars focus on youth-led social change, including emerging trends, strategies employed by young social entrepreneurs to increase impact, and approaches for solving common challenges faced by young leaders. Guest speakers include industry experts and Fellows who share their first-hand experiences in leading and sustaining successful social ventures.

About the project

A signature initiative of the International Youth Foundation, YouthActionNet was founded 20 years ago in the belief that youth are uniquely positioned to build a more just and inclusive world. The global network of 24 locally-owned and operated youth leadership institutes ensures that aspiring and accomplished young social entrepreneurs gain the support they need to deliver on their social change goals.

Source: https://www.youthactionnet.org/who-we-are

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Blog | Educational Materials | Library | Successful Business Models | Support for SocEnts

Creative Social Enterprise Business Model Ideas: 10 Ways to Address Affordability

We frequently hear the question: “What if the people who need and use my products or services can’t pay?” If you think that the customers who will most benefit from your social enterprise’s services may not be able to afford them, it can feel like an insurmountable hurdle.

While it’s true that some customers have real barriers to paying, don’t be too quick to assume users will not pay for basic goods and services that add essential value to their lives.

The solution often lies in addressing the customer’s ability to pay, shifting the company’s revenue model (by adjusting costs and pricing), or a combination.

If you’ve been faced with the challenge of finding a revenue model that allows for both meaningful impact and financial sustainability here are some ideas. They are centered around getting creative with what you offer, who pays for it, when they pay, where you focus in the value chain, and how you decide to grow.

WHAT YOU OFFER

RETHINK YOUR OFFER

If the product or service you provide isn’t useful, needed, or desired by your target customers, everything stops there. No amount of creative economic structuring will fix a poorly conceived and designed offer. If you have doubts about the effectiveness of your offer, it’s worth reviewing +Acumen’s Introduction to Human Centered Design course.

However, if you are sure you have a beneficial and needed product or service, and still struggle to find customers willing to pay, consider whether you could redesign the solution in a more economical way. This could come from finding a creative way to deliver the same outcomes for your customers in a less complicated, and therefore less costly, way.

One example is Saral Designs, a social enterprise based in Mumbai that offers compact vending machines for sanitary pads. These machines produce the product on the spot and can be installed directly in toilets of schools and other venues. This innovative product design addresses issues of accessibility and affordability caused by poor infrastructure and extra distribution costs that result in competitive products adding up to be 60% more expensive.

CROSS SUBSIDIZE YOUR OFFERS

When looking across an existing product line, or envisioning new additions, there may be opportunities to cross-subsidize by using profits generated from one product line to subsidize another. Some products or services might be more lucrative or have broader appeal than other products that will never be profitable, even if they have powerful social impact. The offerings with broader appeal can generate revenue that serves to subsidize the less profitable, but highly impactful areas of the business.

For example, a pharmaceutical company could use profits from the sale of a popular vitamin product to fund the development of a drug for specific type of diabetes patient. Or an education technology company might be able to turn a profit quickly on online courses focused on job skills, and use those profits to fund the development of humanities courses that have less immediate revenue potential, but still hold social value.

ADJUST YOUR COST MODEL

If you discover that the price point required to cover the total costs are too high for your target customers to bear (or what funders will pay), you may have to redesign your product or service in order to cut costs, allowing you to lower the price.

Consider the relative costs of each of the key activities, key resources, and assets that are essential to produce or deliver the product or service. For the most expensive, consider if there is another path you can take to achieve the same goal. Perhaps there are more affordable alternatives that could be used to lower the costs, and thus the price, while keeping the same level of profitability. Or instead of paying for key resources or raw materials up front, look for ways to lease or borrow them instead to spread out up front costs.

Aravind Eyecare took this approach with intraocular lenses. Existing manufacturers were charging up to $150 for lenses, which left the cost of surgery much higher than many living in Madurai, India could afford. Starting in 1992, Aravind Eyecare started a new company, Aurolab, to manufacture intraocular lenses used in surgeries for only $4, while keeping the same level of quality.

WHO PAYS

CROSS-SUBSIDIZE CUSTOMER SEGMENTS

Perhaps the most common type of cross-subsidization is with customer segments. This is when purchases from one customer segment who has a higher ability to pay are used to subsidize or fund access to a lower-income customer segment. Serving both customer segments with a very similar offer is key for this approach to work. This means that ideally the same core technology and core competencies are leveraged when delivering value to both customer segments.

A successful example of this approach in action is Biolite. Biolite uses a model they call Parallel Innovation where their core technologies are used to create a compelling value proposition that applies to two distinct markets. This allows for Biolite’s high-end camping light that is sold in Western markets to fund the development of solar lanterns for the poor, which is sold at a subsidized rate.

Going back to Aravind Eyecare, they also offer services that range in price from free to market rates. Customers choose what price they wish to pay, but everyone receives the same high level of care. In some cases, this means that almost completely destitute people manage to find a few rupees to pay for services, while the future president of India once opted for free treatment. People are treated with dignity regardless of how much they choose to pay. With such a high quality of care attracting high volumes of customers, the cross-subsidization model allows Aravind to serve roughly two-thirds of their clientele for free or below market rates.

GENERATE VALUE FOR A THIRD PARTY

If subsidizing with another customer segment doesn’t make sense, it could be that a third party would be interested in paying on behalf of a group of customers. This could be a government or another business purchasing a product or service and passing it onto the end user, who does not pay.

One example is CircMedTech, a social enterprise that sells male circumcision technology to the Rwandan government as part of HIV prevention. The government becomes the paying customer, not the users themselves.

WHEN PEOPLE PAY

OFFER FLEXIBLE REPAYMENT

The concept of affordability for low-income customers is often determined as much by when you ask them to pay as by how much you ask them to pay.

Take the case of One Acre Fund, an organization that sells agricultural inputs (like seeds) to smallholder farmers in Africa. They realized that the optimal time for farmers to make purchases is dictated by seasons and harvesting cycles. This seasonality impacts their cash flow greatly and makes it hard to save or spend large sums in upfront payments for new products or services. As a solution, One Acre Fund decided to provide inputs to farmers at a higher price than they would pay in local markets but offer a flexible repayment plan and timely access. As one farmer explained, “I am able to pay back the loan after my harvest over a longer period. This flexibility is important given there are many other needs I must also meet and many that can be unexpected.”

Another example of this idea in action is with Mamahuhu shoe company. Mamahuhu’s beneficiaries are the artisan shoe producers from whom they purchase shoe inventory. Not only do they help artisans with training and education to get their shoe manufacturing business up and running, but they also support them with start up microfinancing. This initial loan is repaid in the form of first goods produced in the workshop, not cash. In this way artisans are empowered to start off their manufacturing businesses with access to the tools they need to create valuable goods from the very start.

PROVIDE A PAY-AS-YOU-GO OPTION

One way to shrink the gap between the price point and a customer’s limited cashflow is through a pay-as-you-go model. This is a financing solution that allows customers to rent a product, while they make incremental payments until they eventually achieve ownership. For example, Angaza Design is a social enterprise that has pioneered mobile pay-as-you-go platforms for clean energy products. When a customer has funds, they load the money into their account and unlock the ability to use the product, like a solar light, for as long as those funds cover. Angaza’s technology tracks the usage and limits access when the account is out of funds. This pay-when-you-can model provides the ultimate in flexible financing and puts the product within financial reach of a much larger market segment.

PROVIDE FINANCING

Another way to provide flexibility in payment is through direct financing options. Financing can be an effective way to help customers bridge the gap between the price point and their ability to pay. One example of this model in action is BURN Manufacturing. BURN produces clean cookstoves that cut fuel consumption by 56% and reduce carbon emissions by 65%. There are significant money savings and positive impact on health and environment by switching to these stoves, but the full price is a barrier for most users. To combat this, BURN has partnered with a local lending institution to provide financing solutions that greatly reduce the purchasing power barrier other cookstove companies face.

WHERE YOU FOCUS

MOVE ALONG THE VALUE CHAIN

A value chain includes all of the processes or activities required from multiple players to provide the end user with the product or service. Steps that could be part of a value chain are manufacturing, sales, delivery, and after-sales service. Some ventures have discovered that operating businesses at multiple stages of their value chain provides another unique opportunity for cross-subsidization. At some points in the value chain, the business may have larger profit margins that can then be used to subsidize other areas of the value chain which generate social impact, but might not be profitable.

For example, BRAC operates at multiple stages of the silk production value chain. The silkworm harvesting business is subsidized by the business of selling silk goods. This enables them to keep the entire value chain running without compromising on impact or financial sustainability.

HOW YOU GROW

ADJUST YOUR SCALING STRATEGY

Healthy businesses strive to earn a profit after covering essential variable and fixed costs. This profit is what allows the business to reinvest earnings into the things that will make the organization stronger and able to impact more people.

Investments into growing the team, improving infrastructure, or purchasing new products to make the business more efficient are necessary but may not need to be funded through profits alone. To fund expansion projects, new assets, or other costs of scaling, seeking alternative capital like philanthropic donations or grants might be the smartest approaches.

This information is taken from https://www.acumenacademy.org/

More information is available here.