The momentum for action is now! In the next 10 years, social entrepreneurship can be a natural opportunity for any type of investment and a standard criterion for investors, it was pointed out at the 1st day of the Closing Conference of  the F4SC Project.
Lots of great conclusions coming from over 120 national and regional workshops over the three year span, across 12 countries of the #DanubeRegion! The Social Impact Investment Strategy in the Danube Region and vision of further development of social economy and impact investing was presented and discussed by our keynote speakers Dr. Clémentine Roth, Gorgi Krlev and Robert Bolyan and many others!

In order to further develop social economy, interventions are needed both on decision-making, social entrepreneurship level, as well as, impact investing and civil society level. Some of the recommendations mentioned are to keep putting efforts into enabling favorable regulatory frameworks, knowledge building events, visibility for designated public services for SEs, create public funding and incentives for support organizations, provide more private capital / private funding programs – especially in early stage such as impact angels, public-private partnerships: Fund-of-Fund concepts, co-investment schemes. Make crowdfunding known and accessible financial source for SEs along with continuous awareness campaigns and success stories in order to strengthen storytelling on products and services of SEs and engage buyers, because the demand exists!

We capitalized on knowledge, experience, ideas and synergy of good energies created through cooperation among F4SC partners, stakeholders, investors and social entrepreneurs. We heard about national programs available in Moldova, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, directed to strengthening SE sector. We discussed the ways of coping with Covid pandemic and financial tools available in Hungary and other countries, while experts from Unicredit presented social impact banking program as their commitment to building a fairer and more inclusive society by identifying, financing and promoting initiatives that can have a positive social impact. The highlight of the day were the social entrepreneurs who won an Air Competition Business plan competition and who once again, with their stories and businesses, proved the importance of social entrepreneurship.