Social entrepreneurship in local communities

Civitas Foundation for Civil Society – Cluj-Napoca Office

We like people who bring positive change to their communities and we encourage them in their learning process. Through the “Social entrepreneurship in local communities” project, we support entrepreneurs with innovative ideas who want to develop businesses with social impact in their communities. Civitas Foundation and its 5 project partners (Danis Foundation for Management Development – Romania, Center for Not-for-Profit Law – Romania, Consorzio Materahub Industrie Culturali e creative – Italy, Synthesis Center for Research and Education Limited – Cyprus and Diesis Coop – Belgium), will organize business incubation programs for 60 entrepreneurs from Romania, Italy and Cyprus in order to improve their entrepreneurial skills. In this way, we will develop learning tools to be promoted in the four partner countries and at the European level.

We want to develop business incubation models for social entrepreneurship, which will then become functional at the national level in Romania, Italy, and Cyprus. With the help of our partner from Belgium and after conducting research on entrepreneurial development, we will generate an integrated business incubation model dedicated to entrepreneurs from all over Europe.

The incubation programs will thus be based on a research that will be conducted from January 2020 on, in the 3 project countries. The research will focus on the following topics:

• the real image and the main characteristics of social entrepreneurship
• the profile of social entrepreneurs
• opportunities for financing, incubating and boosting social business
• platforms for developing business ideas with social impact
• public policy recommendations

The programs will thus become innovative learning tools for the partner organizations, as well as for the 60 persons with social entrepreneurial background from Romania, Italy and Cyprus, selected in the project. Through the two transnational trainings to be organized, we will transfer knowledge, methods and tools that will contribute to the development of local communities in these countries and will subsequently generate jobs.

The project will also establish an online platform that will grant visibility to social business ideas, endorsement of the best concepts and the chance of them being financed by the local communities.

“We believe that businesses with a strong social impact are innovative solutions for the well-being of communities and can generate new jobs.  With the help of our partners and their valuable experience, the “Social Entrepreneurship in the local communities” project aims to support people through business incubation programs adapted to the business environment and by providing access to innovative financing instruments” declared Simona Bartiș, project coordinator, Civitas Foundation for Civil Society – Cluj-Napoca Branch.

In December 2019, representatives of the partner organizations participated in the first transnational project management and implementation meeting, held in Cluj-Napoca.