BASET Project Kick Off in Sofia, Bulgaria [Social Entrepreneurship]

​On 26 October 2017 the BASET project kicked off with a meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria where all partners – the project coordinator Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC) and the project partners CEED Bulgaria, IDEC, Caban Capital and Creative District – launched BASET: Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training [Project No. 2017-1-BG01-KA204-036360].

The project has been successful in the Erasmus+ call in 2017 and consequently co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union for its 2-years' implementation. Erasmus+ is the European Union’s (EU) programme for education, training, youth and sport, with the EU committing £12 billion to the programme between 2014 and 2020. By 2020 it is expected that over 800,000 education and training staff and youth workers will teach or train abroad across Europe with Erasmus+. Projects provide opportunities for learners and staff to improve their skills, enhance their employability and gain cultural awareness.

During the kick off meeting in Sofia all partners discussed their previous experience in social entrepreneurship and agreed on an agenda that would focus on producing quality intellectual outputs that would assist all stakeholders in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. 
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What is BASET?

No matter that we have already mentioned what BASET stands for here’s a quick preview: ‘Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training’. The project duration is 2 years and will continue running until August 2019 which will end in Sofia with an insightful conference about the produced results for social entrepreneurship in Europe.

Although the project has a set end date for its implementation under the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union, we are firmly willing to continue contributing to this topic by using BASET as an already established network and community to create social value and assist finding solutions to the world’s problem our society faces.

In order to understand more about what the project is about, keep reading below...

Why did we start BASET?

We could easily sum up the answer in one sentence but it would hardly cover all. However, let’s sum it up in a sentence:

“We kicked off BASET because we believe that social entrepreneurs can solve crucial problems that we all face.”

But let’s dig in deeper.

After extensive research and looking back at our joint partners’ experience in social entreprneurship we discovered that specialist support for social enterprises is largely absent and where it exists it is often limited or fragmented. There is lack of mentoring and training schemes as well as investment support corresponding to the specific features of social enterprises.

Therefore, with a project such as BASET we are addressing the learning needs of educators (professional teachers, coaches, consultants, mentors, lecturers, SME experts, investors, professionals providing services to entrepreneurs and organisations, staff in business support organisations, training organisations and financial institutions, etc.) for their continuing professional development in social entrepreneurship. Our role is to upskill them in how to train and inspire social entrepreneurs to innovate, use curriculum templates and access business networks. We would introduce them with good practices and know-how on how to carry out mentoring across the innovation lifecycle and how to use new teaching methods based on gamification and visualization.

In the next section you can read more information about BASET’s objectives, methodology, results, impact and learn more about the partners involved in this exciting project which will contribute to the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Europe and beyond.
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Project Objectives

The main objective of the project is to foster social entrepreneurship in Europe through elaborating, testing and providing a set of learning and training instruments to educators.

​All instruments will be tested whereas a group of educators will be trained to offer a set of resources such as training in entrepreneurial skills, mentoring focussed on designing business models and business plans, networking within the broader social entrepreneurship ecosystem and access to grants or seed capital.
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Methodology

For the execution of BASET our activities will concentrate on the preparation of two methodologies and their testing:

1. Through a 5 days’ course for educators (trainers and mentors)
2. Through a 5 days’ course for investors

The methodology concentrates on a collaborative approach based on commonly accepted rules, preliminary defined tasks and critical milestones, strict reporting and effective control through an online project management platform. We believe that communication is key, therefore we have decided to work with cloud integrated platforms to enhance and ease up the collaboration among the whole consortium.
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BASET's Results & Impact

The project outcome is a clarified learning model for training educators to contribute to the success of social entrepreneurs. The model consists of three main outputs

• Social Entrepreneurship Development model – 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 – providing educators with background knowledge, skills and practical experience, virtual space to provide Social Entrepreneurship Training and technical assistance to social entrepreneurs’ communities
• Train the Investors Handbook – equipping investors-mentors with practical knowledge and model of working with social entrepreneurs at risk

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Learn more about the model

​Focus on Sustainability

The methods and the achieved results will contribute to the understanding of the process of social enterprise management through the eyes of the educators in Europe who are involved in the entrepreneurship development and will be able to advance to specificity of the social entrepreneurship in a long-term scale.

With the outcome of the BASET project the educators will be armed with a set of resources that will make the process of training, mentoring and networking for social entrepreneurs sustainable while facilitating their access to effective services and capital.
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In order to have longer-term benefits the project presumes creating a sustainable network of stakeholders and selection processes open to a broader number of trainers and social business cases.
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BASET's Partners

The project consortium comprises of 5 partners from 4 countries:

• Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC) – Bulgaria
  An NGO focusing on developing competences for adults in innovation management, creativity and entrepreneurship
• CEED – Bulgaria
  An experienced business support organisation in the entrepreneurship development in Bulgaria
• IDEC – Greece
  A consultancy with an accredited lifelong learning centre in Greece and organizing in-service training courses for teachers and trainers, informal learning and vocational training
• Caban Capital – UK
  A fund manager providing opportunities for investors to invest in entrepreneurs through services each business requires to be successful
• Creative District – Belgium
  ​A Brussels-based organisation supporting initiatives in the creative and cultural industries for societal impact through providing innovation spaces for guidance and support to entrepreneurs

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Read more about partners

Author
Partners @BASET

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The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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