Supporting social entrepreneurship at a local level
Compendium of Good Practices
Social entrepreneurs combine doing good with doing business to create a positive impact on society. This way social entrepreneurs solve real life societal and environmental challenges in innovative ways, while running a sustainable business.
Everywhere in Europe (and beyond) public officials have become aware of the resolving power of social entrepreneurs and set up favourable policies. Local and regional governments are crucial stakeholders in creating this favourable ecosystem. This compendium derives policy lessons for supporting social entrepreneurship from the analysis of 8 local initiatives in:
- Aalst (Belgium)
- Antwerp (Belgium)
- Efeler District (Turkey)
- Hannover (Germany)
- The Hague (Netherlands)
The initiatives cover a range of policy areas from legal frameworks, finance, market access and support structures, to education and skills. This compendium is the result of the Resilient Regional Ecosystems for Social Impact (R.R.E.S.I.) project, a EU funded partnership on exchanging best practices of local approaches to support social enterprise.
Impact City The Hague is the lead partner in this project. The Hague was one of the first cities in Europe to provide dedicated support to entrepreneurs and frontrunners who work on innovations for a better world.
Contents
- Building a vibrant supportive and full hub for social entreprises
- Helping impact entrepreneurs to find the right impact investors for their projects
- Collaboration in the development of a successful hub
- Social collaboration platform to measure network-effects in an entrepreneurship community (Hafven)
- Start-up in Residence programme
- Monthly meeting with the managers of the different social entreprises in our region
- Social Club Den Haag
- Urban planning and putting the social and circular economy litterally at the heart of communities