Pilot Projects Under the Call for Proposals 'Supporting the Demand and Supply Side of the Market for Social Enterprise Finance'

Social innovation — innovation whose ultimate goal is social change — is gaining momentum worldwide and in Europe as one of the promising approaches to overcoming the financial crisis. Social enterprises are considered to be key driving forces behind social innovation, operating on the basis of viable business models and generating jobs through activities that meet important social needs. They are considered to be critical to the EU's socio-economic strategy for the EUROPE 2020 Agenda, which aims to create a fairer, inclusive and more sustainable society. However, social enterprises often encounter barriers in accessing finance, risk capital and scaling up. Their work is also often hampered by the lack of adequate skills within the enterprises. The objective of the call was to identify, develop, promote and disseminate the good practice of national, regional or local governments and of financial intermediaries in assisting young social entrepreneurs at times of high youth unemployment. RAND Europe and Ecorys worked with the EU Directorate-General for Employment on the evaluation of the pilot projects. RAND's work also supported the exchange of experiences and mutual learning activities between the projects through a series of interactive workshops. The experiences of the pilot projects have been documented in the final publication. The EU has also made available: A recipe book for social finance (PDF). The book provides step by step guidance through the process of designing and implementing initiatives to develop social finance instruments and markets.