Project Consortium

Euclid Network - the European Social Enterprise Network (EN), European umbrella organisation for social enterprise support organisations (SESOs). Since 2007, EN has been implementing transnational and cross-border initiatives, performing research, creating visibility, advocating for and building SE(SO)s’ capacity, access to funding, markets and skills, as well as fostering networking and peer-learning across its members and partners. The EN consists of close to 50 SESO members across 29 European countries  and is active in 60+ countries. Members and partners include key leading national actors, networks, centres and representative bodies for social entrepreneurs and social innovators, universities, research centres, incubators, accelerators and social funds, representing 100,000+ civil society and social enterprise organisations across Europe.

EN’s mission is to support the development of local, regional, national and international social enterprise and social innovation ecosystems, markets and leading SESOs in Europe and neighbouring countries. This is in order to increase opportunities and remove barriers for social entrepreneurs and social innovators to scale their positive impact and play a key role in paving the way for a new, just, and green economy. 

Leading UK and international Social Enterprise and Buy Social B2B Market development organisation, working for the past 10+ years on Social Procurement, inventor of the international “Buy Social” campaign, and brand owner of the “Buy Social” global trademark.

Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) is the UK’s national body for social enterprises. SEUK leads the world’s largest network of businesses with a social purpose who together are helping to create a fairer economy and a more sustainable future for everyone. SEUK exists to be a strong voice for social enterprise, to evidence the difference that social enterprises are making and to demonstrate solutions and influence decision-makers to create an environment in which social enterprise can thrive. 

SEUK works with (mainstream) businesses and public sector institutions to help them bring social enterprises into their supply chains. Internationally, through partnerships with global, regional and national partners SEUK has helped to build the evidence base for social enterprise in more than 20 countries. SEUK  also developed the ‘Buy Social’ brand over the last 10 years to support the opening up of revenue generation for social enterprises across government (B2G), private sector (B2B) and consumer markets (B2C). 

SEND gathers >450 German social enterprises as its members and is the representative body for social enterprises in Germany. SEND’s  mission is to strengthen social enterprises and give them a voice on the future of the sector and their impact. Advocacy (e.g. with international and German government officials and consumers), capacity-building and outreach are some of the most important activities at SEND. 

The work of SEND is built on strong participation among its members and partners. With the German national, regional and local ”Buy Social Germany '' initiative, SEND is building strong partnerships between conventional businesses, including both SMEs and larger corporates and social enterprises. 

SEND builds the B2B capacity of SocialEnterprises through events and a peer-to-peer mentoring program, and connects conventional businesses to these Social Enterprises through pitching events and direct matching.

Social Enterprise NL (SENL), founded in 2012, is the national platform that represents, connects and supports social enterprises in the Netherlands. SENL works to strengthen the social enterprise sector and multiply the size and social impact of social enterprises in the Netherlands. The network currently has 430+ members active in different industries and different impact areas. 

SENL has thus far successfully developed the Buy Social B2B market in the Netherlands by providing a national online market,hosting offline matching events, showcasing best practices to amplify inspiring B2B, B2G and B2C examples, and facilitating a national community of practice and capacity-building for procurement officials from both private and public organisations. With these years of experience, Social Enterprise NL can bring valuable expert knowledge, lessons learned and know-how on building strong partnerships between Social Enterprises, SMEs, large corporations, governments and consumers.

Yunus Funds grows local social businesses that provide employment, education, healthcare, clean water and clean energy to over 17 million people in East Africa, Latin America & India. They turn donations into investments in social businesses, which they reinvest over and over again, multiplying the impact each time. 

Their long-term, patient loans and hands-on growth support are delivered by their teams of local professionals, partnering with social businesses to help them flourish. They have offices in Sao Paulo, Bogota, Mumbai, Bangalore, Kampala, Nairobi and Berlin.

Reach for Change is an international non-profit organisation with a vision to see a world where all children and youth reach their full potential. RfC works towards this vision by finding local social entrepreneurs and empowering them to develop and scale innovative solutions that help children to better lives.  

RfC engages in ecosystem development tailored to local contexts to facilitate better conditions for social entrepreneurship and innovation across all of their markets. This includes the annual Partnering for Change events, which in 2022 engaged over 460,000 people globally through linked online campaigns. Since 2010, they have supported more than 1,500 social entrepreneurs in 18 countries across three continents. In Europe, they currently have active programmes in Sweden, Denmark, the the Baltics and Bulgaria.

SEWF’s goal is to grow the global social enterprise movement to accelerate our transition to a new global impact economy. In 2008, more than 400 delegates from 29 countries congregated in Edinburgh, Scotland with one goal: to raise awareness of social enterprise as an expanding global mechanism for social change. The Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) was the first event of its kind. SEWF provided an opportunity for social enterprise leaders and practitioners from around the world to network and exchange ideas. 

In recent years, the SEWF main event convenes around 3,000+ delegates from over 50 countries annually. Further, the SEWF today is much more than a single annual event: they work throughout the year across 50+ countries to support the global social enterprise movement, mostly through policy and social procurement (Buy Social) work. 

The SEWF is a recognised global expert on the topic of social procurement and is the longest-running organisation that has supported leading actors to convene on this topic since 2010. SEWF is therefore, the trusted partner in the social enterprise world to host the global Community of Practice on Social Procurement, bringing together governmental, social enterprises, intermediary and private sector Social Procurement practitioners, since 2022.  

SEWF is at the forefront of a global movement to transform business and co-create a new economy that enables all people to thrive within the means of our living planet. They do this by creating a network of networks approach to bring together enterprises that put purpose first and use self-sustaining revenue models to unlock social and environmental solutions. The SEWF champions, connects and supports these enterprises through locally-led initiatives that follow a partnership approach. This means SEWF’s activities are always grounded in local knowledge and experience. Through cooperation and partnerships, we work together to accelerate positive and sustainable change.

SAP has spent more than a decade building capacity for and working alongside social businesses. In 2020 they demonstrated their commitment to the sector by embracing the power of company spending to accelerate positive global impact. With specific initiatives, their social procurement initiative 5 & 5 by ’25, they committed to a shift of five percent in addressable procurement spend with social enterprises and diverse businesses by 2025. 

By working with the Buy Social Europe B2B consortium and encouraging other ‘mainstream enterprises’, SAP believes that buying social is something everyone can do and together, buying power is even more influential than any one company can be alone.

Zurich is a leading multi-line insurer serving people and businesses in more than 200 countries and territories. Founded 150 years ago, Zurich is transforming insurance. In addition to providing insurance protection, Zurich is increasingly offering prevention services such as those that promote wellbeing and enhance climate resilience.​Zurich’s purpose - create a brighter future together - inspires us to use our business model to scale positive impact for us all, as an insurer, investor, employer and in society. We want to partner with others to drive transformative change, so we can all thrive today and in the future.

The Sustainable Procurement Pledge (SPP) is a global community of individual professionals committed to embedding sustainability into their procurement practices and sharing the knowledge and tools of how to do so to drive systemic change. 

SPP is community-based, with 10,000+ members signed up to the pledge since its launch three years ago, and includes in its structure the Champion’s League, composed of Chief Procurement Officers from large, small, and medium companies such as Lego, Tetra Pak, and Solvay, to name just a few, as well as a Transformational panel, which works to bridge the work of the Champions and the Ambassadors into concrete actions, and our network of global Chapters organised on both regional and topical axes. 

SPP believes that sustainability in supply chains is their responsibility, and that as a global community we will build a sustainable future for people and our planet by bringing together the largest global community of procurement professionals and equipping them with access to the world’s best content about sustainable and social procurement practices, in order to empower the Community to drive change effectively.

SEND gathers >450 German social enterprises as its members and is the representative body for social enterprises in Germany. SEND’s  mission is to strengthen social enterprises and give them a voice on the future of the sector and their impact. Advocacy (e.g. with international and German government officials and consumers), capacity-building and outreach are some of the most important activities at SEND. 

The work of SEND is built on strong participation among its members and partners. With the German national, regional and local ”Buy Social Germany '' initiative, SEND is building strong partnerships between conventional businesses, including both SMEs and larger corporates and social enterprises. 

SEND builds the B2B capacity of SocialEnterprises through events and a peer-to-peer mentoring program, and connects conventional businesses to these Social Enterprises through pitching events and direct matching.

Social Innovation Factory : The Social Innovation Factory (founded in. 2013) is the Belgian accelerator for social innovation and social entrepreneurship, seeking to create an economy which contributes to the wellbeing of society and the planet.

To reach this goal the Factory aims to raise awareness about social innovation and social entrepreneurship, and to enable actors to tackle challenges in a socially-innovative and entrepreneurial way.

BCause is a leading Bulgarian NGO (founded in 1995), with the mission to improve the lives of people and communities through supporting social and impact-driven entrepreneurship, philanthropy and social investment - as a donor, a trainer, an advisor and a facilitator of cross-sectoral partnerships. 

Besides supporting innovative enterprises, start-ups of young people and SMEs in rural areas through their accelerator programmes at their Rinker Center for entrepreneurship and training, they have worked with over 900 business projects and more than 140 teams.

Act Grupa  is a social economy organisation, a community of change-makers dedicated to strengthening impact practices, businesses and the impact economy ecosystem in Croatia and the Western Balkan (WB) region with 80+ social economy organisations and 50+ social/impact enterprises in their portfolio). 

AG has 15 years’ experience as a social/impact venture-building organisation, 7 years’ experience providing non-financial and financial support to social/impact businesses in Croatia and the WB region, as well as 5 years’ experience in the creation of social finance instruments and ecosystem development. 

The core of AG is social/impact business development, business support and education/training in various fields. Through their SE and CSR support programs, they have implemented capacity-building workshops and SE B2B matchmaking events, built a SE B2B database and managed stakeholders in the public sector as well as B2B (SME and large corporate) stakeholders. To date, AG has coordinated a SE B2B sale worth 1,5 million EUR.

Founded in 2009, Mouvement Impact France (Impact France) is the first French network of social and ecological entrepreneurs federating and representing social and ecological enterprises to carry a strong and united voice on the structuring stakes of a new sustainable and solidarity economy. 

Today, the network has >1200 direct members, including many social enterprises that are active in different industries and different impact areas. Impact France is currently developing a coaching program to enable social enterprises to scale up. This coaching program will then be replicated in incubators and networks of the more traditional economy to enable them to better support social enterprises to scale. Impact France has already been able to organise meetings.

AKEP’s mission is the cultivation of the entrepreneurial mindset and competences in the private and public sectors in Greece and at EU level with projects focusing on boosting employability through non-formal education initiatives.

AKEP supports organisations and new/aspiring entrepreneurs by offering upskilling training opportunities and informative/networking events on entrepreneurship, especially social and green entrepreneurship. AKEP also brings along an extended network of private and public organisations in Greece and internationally, as well as extensive experience working as an intermediary organisation for the European Commission’s Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme (since 2012), with strong focus on matching mainstream businesses with social enterprises. 

AKEP also has a partnership with the New European Bauhaus initiative, where it seeks to create and enhance sustainable and inclusive practices among relevant stakeholders.

HU SE is a grassroots association founded in 2020, whose mission is the true and inclusive representation and development of all social enterprises in Hungary. HU SE Coalition’s main goals are to create an environment that enables the launching, financing and growth of social enterprises, and to draw up, promote and implement a strategy that supports a predictable operating environment. HU SE aims to strengthen the awareness and recognition of SEs in the Hungarian enterprise sector, as well as among organisations that work for social and community impact.  

A key action area for the Coalition is to facilitate market access by promoting best practice and successful examples of members' collaboration with corporations, by initiating partnerships with corporate partners to raise their awareness of SEs and facilitate social procurement, and by piloting a social enterprise certification system of SEWF, which could ensure the widespread recognition of SEs and allow them better access private and public sector markets. 

SEAL  is a national member organisation that brings together SEs, social entrepreneurs and other stakeholders (148 members) across Latvia. SEAL is the biggest national-level organisation regarding social entrepreneurship in Latvia, and serves as an advocacy body, knowledge-sharing platform and one-stop-agency about social entrepreneurship-related topics. 

The association brings expertise in: advocating on a local, regional and national level to create a supportive environment for social entrepreneurship; building capacity and knowledge-sharing activities with its partners, which include municipalities, entrepreneurship support organisations, local, regional and national stakeholders; and promoting social entrepreneurship in the wider society.

LISVA  is a national umbrella organisation uniting social enterprise organisations in Lithuania. LISVA was established in 2018 to create a favourable environment for social business, increase the awareness of social business and promote the implementation of international best practices. This is achieved through advocacy, capacity-building and ecosystem development activities. 

Since the SE ecosystem in Lithuania is at an early stage of development, fostering public procurement and a culture of ‘buying social’ is key to opening the market for SEs. 

According to LISVA, there is a large need for peer-to-peer learning and exploring best practices of more advanced “Buy social” markets in the EU. There are also needs for open dialogue between social entrepreneurs and representatives of public institutions, for the promotion of a culture of buying social mission-oriented services and products in Lithuanian society, for raising awareness of the market opportunities

Social Enterprise NL (SENL), founded in 2012, is the national platform that represents, connects and supports social enterprises in the Netherlands. SENL works to strengthen the social enterprise sector and multiply the size and social impact of social enterprises in the Netherlands. The network currently has 430+ members active in different industries and different impact areas. 

SENL has thus far successfully developed the Buy Social B2B market in the Netherlands by providing a national online market,hosting offline matching events, showcasing best practices to amplify inspiring B2B, B2G and B2C examples, and facilitating a national community of practice and capacity-building for procurement officials from both private and public organisations. With these years of experience, Social Enterprise NL can bring valuable expert knowledge, lessons learned and know-how on building strong partnerships between Social Enterprises, SMEs, large corporations, governments and consumers.

ESLIDER represents and promotes the Portuguese social innovation ecosystem, supports the innovative third-sector and impact-entrepreneurship, and ensures Portugal's international presence in the European Social Innovation Ecosystem. 

ESLIDER is currently leading a working group (WG) aiming at the creation of a legal framework for SEs. The WG gathers the most relevant and influential national stakeholders, and will not only lobby for a legal framework but also for the establishment of incentives for the ecosystem to flourish, namely an incentive for municipalities and other public bodies and private companies to get involved in supporting social enterprises through social procurement. The project BUY SOCIAL B2B is of great importance.

SERI is a representative body for social enterprises in Ireland, run by senior executives from the SE sector in Ireland. SERI’s mission is to be a champion for the social enterprise sector and its members, representing and promoting its collective voice nationally and internationally. 

Smart Kolektiv is a civil society organisation (CSO) founded in 2003, and a pioneer in promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR) and social entrepreneurship in Serbia. Since 2008, SK has managed the Responsible Business Forum, the first network of socially responsible companies in Serbia (encompassing 30 large companies), promoted social responsibility in the business sector and stimulated partnerships between social enterprises and mainstream businesses (both SMEs and large companies). 

SK provides direct financial and non-financial support and focuses on advocacy, the creation of partnerships between SEs and mainstream businesses, access to finance, markets and capacity-building, and is also part of many networks. These activities resulted in the establishment of SK’s Impact Fund in 2019.

FUND2740,  known as Sklad 05 (Fund 05 in English), has worked with NGOs since 2012 to ensure citizens could dedicate part of their income tax for beneficial public purposes. Up to now, FUND2740has gathered more than 2 million EUR in programming, bringing together more than 300 donors and impact investors. 

Simultaneously, the organisation also further developed partnerships across European networks, such as FEBEA, EVPA, Euclid Network, Transnational Giving Europe TGE and Giving Tuesday. As a result of Covid-19, the Fund2740 High Impact Foundation was created, out of Fund 05, to enable and support NGOs to generate “large or powerful effect” across their commercial activities. FUND2740 began to develop tools for impact design as a methodological process intended to achieve a high effect for different products, services and industries.

Reach for Change is an international non-profit organisation with a vision to see a world where all children and youth reach their full potential. RfC works towards this vision by finding local social entrepreneurs and empowering them to develop and scale innovative solutions that help children to better lives. 

RfC designs and implements a range of tested methodologies and programmes, supporting social entrepreneurs across various stages of developments, including idea generation (e.g. Bootcamp) right through to the scaling process (e.g. Scaling Readiness). In addition, RFC engages in ecosystem development tailored to local contexts to facilitate better conditions for social entrepreneurship and innovation across all of their markets. Since 2010, they have supported more than 1,500 social entrepreneurs in 18 countries across three continents. 

SENS is the national platform to represent and promote impact-oriented enterprises. SENS connects them across sectors and with the European environment.

SENS regularly publishes the Swiss social entrepreneurship monitor, hosts the annual social economy forum and runs the social impact accelerator. Since 2020 Buy Social is increasing importance for SENS to foster the procurement from social enterprises.

Leading UK and international Social Enterprise and Buy Social B2B Market development organisation, working for the past 10+ years on Social Procurement, inventor of the international “Buy Social” campaign, and brand owner of the “Buy Social” global trademark.

Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) is the UK’s national body for social enterprises. SEUK leads the world’s largest network of businesses with a social purpose who together are helping to create a fairer economy and a more sustainable future for everyone. SEUK exists to be a strong voice for social enterprise, to evidence the difference that social enterprises are making and to demonstrate solutions and influence decision-makers to create an environment in which social enterprise can thrive. 

SEUK works with (mainstream) businesses and public sector institutions to help them bring social enterprises into their supply chains. Internationally, through partnerships with global, regional and national partners SEUK has helped to build the evidence base for social enterprise in more than 20 countries. SEUK  also developed the ‘Buy Social’ brand over the last 10 years to support the opening up of revenue generation for social enterprises across government (B2G), private sector (B2B) and consumer markets (B2C).