The BASET project, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, addresses the needs of trainers, mentors, lecturers, SMEs experts, investors and other professional intermediaries (educators, facilitators) of methodological guidelines in training and supporting their target group – social entrepreneurs. 

The main objective of the project is to foster social entrepreneurship through elaborating, testing and providing a set of learning and training instruments to social entrepreneurs’ educators and investors. Hence, the project outcome is a clarified learning model for training educators and investors to contribute to the success of social entrepreneurs.

The model consists of three main intellectual outputs: Social Entrepreneurship Development Model (SEDM) – a very practical and easy-to-use handbook for educators to understand the needs of social ventures and hands-on guidance that helps entrepreneurs carry out their social missions more effectively; Train the Trainers Toolkit (TTT) – providing educators with background knowledge, skills and practical experience, virtual space to support the Social Entrepreneurship Training and technical assistance to social entrepreneurs’ communities.

​And:

Train the Investors Handbook (TIH) – equipping investors/ mentors with practical knowledge and model of working with social entrepreneurs at risk. TIH provides practical knowledge, lessons and hands-on guidance that support investors to understand the social entrepreneurs' needs and train them in all issues related to financing and encouraging social ventures. 

​More specifically, this handbook will prepare investors to measure social impact prior to the potential investment in social impact businesses/ social enterprises, whereas they will act as mentors to social entrepreneurs on that topic and support them with finance, expertise and networks to grow, reach more people, and develop a viable business model for greater impact. ​

​TIH has been developed to optimize and simplify the use of the book, make it easier to digest accordingly and provide insightful information that can be used to train investors as well as educate them to better understand social ventures, how to measure and evaluate social impact and approach investment opportunities providing social impact.

Thus, investors will be capable of delivering enhanced support to social entrepreneurs, including empathetic approaches to their social journeys and how they can reach more people, scale and be financially sustainable. 

We have structured the handbook in a way that:
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• you will learn more about the BASET Project
• you will get an overview of the support for social entrepreneurs, providing insights that would help you understand a vast spectrum of information about pioneer countries and practices in investing in social impact
• we have illustrated the social and impact investment scene using a descriptive approach to provide you with a snapshot of this field, while assisting you in making better decisions in identifying and choosing social investees in your portfolio based on several criteria
• we explain funding and supporting businesses in general, along with the sources of funding available for entrepreneurs, referring to impact and social businesses;
• how to coach and support your social ventures in being motivated and goal-oriented as well as better understand the relationship you can build with them.

Furthermore, you can review some of our case studies and example of support available, whereas for the countries: Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium and the UK, please get in touch by using the BASET project website: www.baset.info
 
We recommend that you review the whole Train the Investors Handbook, while also using the table of contents to jump directly where you feel you may need extra knowledge/ know-how. Additionally, we understand that this handbook is not extensive and conclusive and there’s much more to be added, but we feel that we have grasped an adequate amount of information. 


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Author
Partner @BASET
Caban Capital

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On 25 June 2019 all partners in the BASET project gathered for the final project meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, which was scheduled a day after the international conference 'Investing in Social Challenges', organised by the project coordinator Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC) and the project partner CEED Bulgaria, with the strong support and active participation of IDEC, Caban Capital and Creative District.

The main topics discussed during the meeting were: the upcoming conference in June and the evaluation procedures, finalization of all outputs of the project, with special attention to the final Output 3 - Train the Investors Handbook (TIH), which has to be completed by August 2019. The meeting had a great emphasis on the project dissemination and reports by the partners as well as quality assurance and overview of all project activities until the end of BASET.

Furthermore, all project partners reviewed potential opportunities for continuing the work together on the topic of social entrepreneurship and supporting mentor and investor with more concrete materials and tool.

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