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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During the days of 8-12 April 2019 all BASET partners - KISMC, CEED Bulgaria, IDEC, Caban Capital and Creative District, together with investors, finance professionals and lecturers, experts and social ventures from Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium and the UK, took part in a 5-days training in London under the project BASET: Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training, co-financed by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.
 
The training, which was organised and hosted by the BASET project partner - Caban Capital, aimed at delivering a brief overview of the project, its target groups, main objectives and results so far, and more specifically the details of the 3rd intellectual output: Train the Investors Handbook (TIH).
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All participants had the opportunity to support and contribute to the BASET project, as well as learn more about training methods in investing in social ventures as well as provide feedback on the current status of the development of TIH. There were discussions on impact investment and raising funds for social impact, impact measurement as well as challenges in attracting financing for impact, case studies and best practices in angel investment in social enterprises. Moreover, as part of the training, there was a workshop on choosing appropriate business models and marketing strategies for social entrepreneurs.  

Additionally, views were exchanged on important areas within impact investment and investing in social enterprises with a social mission such as the role of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, how crucial the size of the market is when investing in impact as well as the tenacity of those leading social impact projects. During the training and discussions among all participants, a number of factors playing a key role within the impact investment training domain regarding investors were concluded: empathy, impact first - then profit, measuring impact, SDGs, selection process, prioritizing, sustainability and circular economy, data, business models, country legislation, risk, value, ROI, collaboration and consciousness.

​Despite the training and overview of the intellectual outputs - TIH, the participants from all countries, invited by the project partners, actively took part in a specially organised by Caban Capital tour for experiencing the social impact ecosystem in London with the support of Social Enterprise Experience Tour. The tour demonstrated a range of innovative social enterprises in developing areas in London. The enterprises were:
- Shine - a community-led space to shine, a place for people in Haringey to grow ideas and build networks within the local community;
​- Blue House Yard - a redevelopment and re-imagining of an empty and underused site in London; a transformed area for local creatives, entrepreneurs and residents to use for period of 5 years;
- Cakes & Ladders - a board game cafe with a conscience; a double-decker bus in the heart of Wood Green selling locally sourced coffee, cake & toasts, alongside ale and over 500 board games on board;
- Green Rooms - a London's arts hotel; a social enterprise offering affordable accommodation and event spaces inspiring creativity.
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Additionally, Eddie Capstick and Gianprietro Pucciariello's, who are change makers of the social impact's ecosystem in London as well as far beyond, and founders of Appymaps - an app mapping the social impact ecosystem - social businesses within communities, presented their new and exciting impact project to all the participants. 

Currently, Appymaps is focused on 3 things:

• building maps of social impact places and businesses;
• building an app prototype which integrates maps of social impact places and businesses to support communities and individuals in the way they choose where to eat, drink, buy, go to events, get informed and find a job. All communities around the world can now have their own app which includes these features;
• running Social Impact Experience Tours: walking from one social impact venue to another and meeting their founders, which is an incredible experience to be inspired and explore the specific local area.

 
In June 2019, their London Social Impact Map reached 10.000 views.
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During the 5 days of training, all participants had the opportunity to learn more about the work of Caban Capital and its work for accelerating positive impact via the Seedslife Caban Impact Investment. The business model of the fund is to support social entrepreneurs in Africa, while providing an opportunity for investors to participate in high growth emerging markets and benefiting from the longstanding infrastructures created by enterprises nurturing sustainable impact in local communities.

The feedback of all participants' experience was extremely positive and insightful in the topic of social impact not only in London, UK but also in the BASET project partner's countries. All participants exchanged views, experience and took part in discussions which will help with the final shape up of the Train the Investors Handbook and materials in the Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training project, co-funded by the Erasmus plus project of the European Union. Moreover, each participant had the chance to experience and embrace a part of the London's social impact ecosystem and feel the positive energy and passion of running a social enterprise or an enterprise creating social impact. 



Author
Partner @BASET
Caban Capital

Following the previous publications on our blog in the BASET project’s site let us remind you that our definition of an educator in the context of social entrepreneurship was the following: he / she is a person who acts professionally as a trainer, teacher, mentor, coach, adviser, consultant, facilitator or some other kind of a professional, who works with social entrepreneurs in order to facilitate and support a start-up and the development of a social business (venture).

So, what questions such a person (educator) will ask at his/her first meeting with social entrepreneurs, who would like to be supported (trained, mentored, etc.) in doing business with a social mission. The ten group of questions below are included in our Social Entrepreneurship Development Model (SEDM) (read the draft version) as one of the main outputs of the Project BASET. All these questions are taken from good practices of consultants, trainers and advisers on social entrepreneurship. Therefore, the educator should get an initial impression of the entrepreneur's personality about his / her: Motivation, Inherited Mentality, Competencies, Skills, Experience, Empathy, Leadership, Integrity, Social Intelligence, Social Business Model. 

​The proposed ten groups of preliminary questions neither exhaust all possibilities nor claim universality. Any trainer and consultant (educator) could ask more or less of these questions, which are listed below depending on his/her experience. We believe that it is quite important for any educator, however, at the beginning of his/her work with the entrepreneurs to sketch a general picture of the social business idea or case and the profile of its owner.

GROUP 1 
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First group of questions concerns the motivation of the persons who are interviewed. The educator has to understand what is the motivation of these persons and why they would like to start their own business in the areas of tackling social challenges and problems. The entrepreneurs have to be asked if they know what impact they would like to achieve and whether they rely on sustainable decisions. What is their vision and mission? What leads them to the realization of their idea?

GROUP 2

Secondly, it is commonly accepted that the inherited mentality of people is an important factor of their decisions to become entrepreneurs and to help other people. The educator would ask them to share with him/her whether they have in their family entrepreneurs or people who have led other people and/or managed projects, and if they have received tips and good examples from them? Or maybe they have been instructed or influenced by other leaders or concrete examples in a national or a global context?

GROUP 3
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Next, the third group of questions concerns important competences. Do they know the social issues they will have to deal with as entrepreneurs and can they share what knowledge and competences they still lack about this area as well as for the economy and management of a company or organization? Do they know well what difficulties and challenges await them in the course of their journey?

​GROUP 4

The questions for competences are followed by questions on skills, so the forth group of questions are related to important skills. For example, the educators could ask them on what skills they would be able to rely so the creation and/or development of their social venture / project / enterprise is successful? Whether they know what skills they lack for being successful social entrepreneurs?

GROUP 5
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The fifth group of questions are about the social entrepreneurs' experience. The educator will ask those interviewed whether they have personal experience of working with social projects and / or doing classic business? He/she may ask whether they already have work experience in a social enterprise or they have been in a network supporting social causes? Any question that can give more information about the experience of the potential social entrepreneurs can be very supportive for the educator?

GROUP 6

The sixth group of questions is about empathy. If the interviewed claim that they are involved in solving social challenges and problems the educator has to ask them what is the reason for this. Whether this is a philanthropy, social responsibility, the belief that everything is in their hands, or it is their philosophy of life, the understanding that every business is social when it is innovative, the understanding that the social business model is more efficient in comparison with the classic one, or this is a good approach of searching for justice, or they would like to support solving global problems, or all these things or/and something more? Are they ready to achieve their goal despite the anticipated difficulties and losses, or do they believe that they can and do they intend to work towards reducing the risks of failure to a minimum? And /or maybe both?

​GROUP 7

The seventh group of questions concerns leadership and is one of the most important. Do they think that they have the qualities of a leader that can also engage other people in solving the tasks and achieving social impact? Would these qualities be useful so they become business leader as well? Do they know the difference between the two types of leadership?

GROUP 8
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Next, the eighth group consists of questions that concern the integrity of social entrepreneurs. Do they know the moral and ethical norms of doing business with regard to users, investors, customers, beneficiaries, competitors, suppliers, consultants, etc.? Are they ready to give up of their ideas and goals for achieving financial and social impact, if this overrides these norms?

GROUP 9

The ninth group of questions is about the social intelligence of the entrepreneurs. Do they have stakeholders, supporters, partners and / or a network of contacts that support their mission and intend to achieve specific social effect? How do they plan to include them in their initiative / project / enterprise to increase their chances of success?

GROUP 10

And finally, the tenth and may be the most important group of the preliminary questions concerns the business model. Do the entrepreneurs have an initial idea of how they will create and sell something useful to the users, and how they and their target group will benefit? The educators would like to expect that the entrepreneurs could simply answer the questions: who, why, what, how, to whom, and where? Can they develop a more detailed operational business plan and do they know where they would seek some help?

On 26 October 2018 all partners in the BASET project gathered for the 3rd project meeting in Brussels, Belgium after the organised 5-days' Training & Review on the Social Entrepreneurship Model + Train the Trainers Toolkit. The project coordinator Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club (KISMC) and the project partners CEED Bulgaria, IDEC, Caban Capital and Creative District gathered to discuss the current status and results from the intellectual outputs so far as well as next steps for implementing the project BASET: Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training.

The timing of the project meeting was very good, i.e. after the 1st project training, since all the feedback collected could be discussed and reviewed for taking on board the updating of the drafts of the 2 intellectual outputs: 

• Social Entrepreneurship Development Model (SEDM)
• Train the Trainers Toolkit (TTT)

The training orgnised prior the project meeting contributed also to the discussions for the future development cycle of the project as well as post the project duration. During the project KISMC provided a progress update on the SEDM, taking on board the additional comments and feedback from the previously held training with the educators from Bulgaria, Greece, Belgium and the UK. All partners suggested additional aspects that could slightly be improved and updated. Moreover, IDEC and CEED Bulgaria provided insights from the training's comments and feedback on the TTT and led the discussion on the structure and the development on the online platform. On the ground of all discussions, Caban Capital and Creative District took on board a collective overview of the best development of the intellectual output 3 - Train the Investors Handbook.

Furthermore, all project partners covered topics such as quality assurance and evaluation, dissemination of the project as well as project management and next steps. The project meeting helped the entire project team sync their efforts in a direction that would be beneficial to all stakeholders in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. ​The meeting was also focused on discussions about the project activities, financial and administration details.


Author
Partners @BASET

The Social Entrepreneurship Development Model (SEDM), which also serves as a guide for Social Entrepreneurs (SEs) educators, is the 1st output produced under the Project “Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training” (BASET), funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission. It was created by the team of the Knowledge, Innovation and Strategies Management Club and shares the project team insights and its experience of working with entrepreneurs. This guide is followed by two other interrelated outputs - Train the Trainers Toolkit and Train the Investors Handbook. These three tools are components of a package for professionals who support or invest in the social enterprises’ development.

The model builds on the work of partner organisations: Caban Capital - UK, IDEC - Greece, Creative District - Belgium, CEED - Bulgaria and the project coordinator KISMC - Bulgaria, that have experience not only in their countries but also around the world and which collectively can be recognised as visionaries in the development of this important field of knowledge.

The purpose of SEDM is to provide the educators with practical instruments (tools) that will enable them to effectively teach, mentor and facilitate entrepreneurs who have decided to do business with a social mission.
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In the context of social entrepreneurship and for the needs of the BASET project the EDUCATOR definition in this guide is: a person who acts professionally as a trainer, teacher, mentor, coach, advisor, consultant, facilitator or some other kind of professional who works with social entrepreneurs in order to facilitate and support the start-up and the development of a social business (venture).

The guide can help educators to better understand what social entrepreneurship is, what the social entrepreneurs’ profiles look like and what is the typology of the business models used. So, it will enhance the professional development of these group of people by providing them with general and specific knowledge of how to work with social entrepreneurs in an effective way.

During the first stage of the development of the BASET project and after an in-depth research of cases, good practices and findings from other projects, the partners discovered that educators who use well-structured tools can better prepare themselves for their important roles to support social entrepreneurship.  

Ultimately, the guide includes a step-by-step process for assisting social entrepreneurs how to launch new ventures, support educators in exploring and using diverse models of social entrepreneurship and in giving capacity to social entrepreneurs to get a global vision.
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The beta version of the guide is ready and there is an open access to read it here


Author
Coordinator @BASET
KISMC

In Europe the interest about social entrepreneurship is strongly driven by the growing recognition of the role social enterprises can play in fostering social inclusion and inclusive growth. How to design, start, manage and lead businesses that benefit people and the society in a financially sustainable way. This question makes the business modelling in social entrepreneurship one of the key topics for people that help, support and facilitate the social entrepreneurs.
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We realized that managing a social business is not about just adding business skills to the realm of social impact! Balancing a social mission with an intention to trade and manage a business requires a blending of skills which is greater than the sum of each set of skills alone. The social impact inside a business operation is not cost neutral - so both the skills needed to deliver on a social impact and the costs involved in doing so need to be considered in designing a viable and sustainable business model. 

These findings were made during the work on the “Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training” project, funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission under KA2 - Cooperation for Innovation and the Exchange of Good Practices, KA204 - Strategic Partnerships for adult education. The project was motivated by the fact that in Europe the interest about social entrepreneurship is growing and many young people recognize themselves as social entrepreneurs. On the other hand, teachers, trainers and mentors on the classical entrepreneurship discipline have growing number of business cases, that are directly related to the social entrepreneurship.

So, we had to pay attention to the methodological tools of those professionals who have to support and train the people who create from scratch or develop already existing social enterprises. 

If you are interested to read more about the article:
BUSINESS MODELLING IN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

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Author 
Coordinator @BASET
KISMC
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Each partner had the chance to talk about the social entrepreneurship environment in their country whereas many case studies encouraged interesting discussions comparing the ecosystems in a variety of European regions. Furthermore, the main topic that everyone provided feedback was on the SEDM progress - such as results from the focus group that took place in Sofia, framework and suggestions for the content of the model and the main concepts, existing models and frameworks for social and business enterprises were analyzed together with previous and ongoing Erasmus+ projects on Social entrepreneurship.

The project meeting helped the entire project team sync their efforts in a direction that would be beneficial to all stakeholders in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. ​The meeting was also focused on discussions about the project activities, dissemination strategy, financial and administration details. All partners agreed on next steps and the evaluation and quality assurance framework for the project.

Author
Partners @BASET

On 31 January a group of stakeholders in social entrepreneurship gathered together with the teams of the project coordinator KISMC and the project partner CEED Bulgaria in Sofia, Bulgaria. The group gathering took place as part of the main project objective of BASET: Boost Aid for Social Entrepreneurship through Training which is to establish and maintain a well-developed and a more effective the process of training the trainers of social entrepreneurs (SE).

During the focus group day all stakeholders participated in clarifying the training needs of the educators and the elaborated model for training. Also, three reference points regarding the training of SE trainers were propose:
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• Train the trainers' process
• The framework of the Social Entrepreneurship Development Model (SEDM) and the content of the training (modules)
• The instruments

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​The focus groups was created to ensure a common understanding on attractiveness, usability, ergonomics and functionality that the BASET project should have. Hence, the focus group supported the early validation of the users of the model as well as helped in understanding their profiles and characteristics in terms of what information was of their interest, which channels were more appropriate for reaching them, etc. These activities as part of the Intellectual Output 1 defined and clarified the necessary skills, knowledge and competences for further outputs and final project results.

Moreover, all participants exchanged views on the framework of SEDM or more precisely on the following related to its structure:

• Social Entrepreneurship and Social Enterprise basics 
• Marketing Social Ventures models 
• Coaching Social Entrepreneurs models 

Author 
Partners @BASET
KISMC & CEED Bulgaria

​Social entrepreneurship usually emerges when companies, charities and governments fail in their attempts to correct social dysfunction. In Europe the interest in the topic of social entrepreneurship is strongly driven by the growing recognition of the role social enterprises play in fostering social inclusion, inclusive growth and environmental or economic impact.

Social entrepreneurship is at the intersection of social inclusion, market orientation and innovation. It encompasses the activities and processes undertaken to discover, define and exploit opportunities in order to enhance social wealth by creating new ventures or managing existing organizations in an innovative manner. Moreover, social entrepreneurship has attracted an increasing attention because of its potential to tackle crucial societal issues and achieve a wider social impact.

In the meantime, environmental and welfare issues, an increasing economic inequality and lack of basic healthcare, energy or clean water in different parts of the world have triggered an enormous social entrepreneurship wave to discover new ways of finding a solution to all these global problems including hunger, access to education and combating climate change.

According to the Millenial Impact Report, 94% of the millennials are interested in using their skills to benefit a cause and they appreciate the power of making choices focused on finding value. Social consciousness and responsibility are obviously on the rise and companies that support causes are gaining traction with the Millennial customer.

​To briefly summarize, an article of Harvard Business Review describes very well what business models actually are and why they matter. They outline the simplicity of what a business model is, that it actually is a story explaining how an enterprise works and that a good business model answers Peter Drucker’s questions such as: who is the customer; what does the customer value;  how do we make money in this business; what is the underlying economic logic that explains how we can deliver value to customers at an appropriate cost. Therefore, put in a short sentence: a 'business model' describes how a company creates and captures value.

Additionally, after reviewing an article by Forbes about 5 reasons why social entrepreneurship is the new business model, we would like to summarize them briefly below:

• It connects you to your life purpose
• It keeps you motivated
• It brings you lasting happiness
• It helps you help others discover their life purpose
• It is what today's consumers want

The difference between business models and social entrepreneurship business models is that those of the social entrepreneurs serve to tackle environmental, societal, economical and other issues that we face nowadays. As Forbes states the new business models have a higher purpose than just making profit. Rather, social entrepreneurs find motivation to help others and connect to the purpose of their living.

​People are generally more interested in making a positive impact on the world and social entrepreneurship is taking off as a success formula. Social entrepreneurship offers insights stimulating ideas for more sustainable business strategies, which contribute directly to sustainable development and greater social responsibility.


Author
Partners @BASET
KISMC & CABAN
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