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

On 12 April 2019 all partners in the BASET project gathered for the 4th project meeting in London, UK after the organised 5-days' Training & Review on the Train the Investors Handbook + Social Impact in London. 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 2nd project training, since all the feedback collected could be discussed and reviewed for taking on board the updating of the drafts of the 3 intellectual outputs: 

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

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The training organised 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 meeting all partners provided feedback on the training and the topics discussed with all participants such as investments in social entrepreneurship, impact investing, venture capital and best practices from Caban Capital. The project partners had an extensive overview of the current status of the project and provided insights from the training's comments and feedback on the TIH. Moreover, Caban Capital and Creative District discussed the final steps for execution of Output 3 - Train the Investors Handbook and what collaborative steps need to be taken to better support investors in social impact.

Furthermore, all project partners covered topics such as quality assurance and evaluation, dissemination of the project as well as the conference that will take place in Sofia in June 2019 to support the BASET project and the investment in social impact. 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.

The UK is viewed by many other countries as a pioneer of social enterprise and the associated practices of social investment and social value. Government statistics identify around 70,000 social enterprises in the UK, contributing £24 billion to the economy and employing nearly a million people.

​In "The Future of Business (State of Social Enterprise Survey 2017)" report the Chair of Social Enterprise UK (the national body for social enterprises in the UK) – Lord Victor Adebowale summarizes that in the last ten years there has been a wave of start-up dynamism with a new generation of businesses choosing the social enterprise approach: “embedding a social purpose in their DNA, acting commercially, and reinvesting their profits to create a more positive change”. Lord Victor also highlights that the social enterprises’ landscape in 2017 looks very different compared to the year of 2007 – pre-2008 crash, pre-austerity, pre-Brexit – and concludes that social enterprises represent the future of how everyone should be doing business. More precisely - by having a sustainable business model with a clear social purpose, working and employing in the most challenging areas and doing so in an accountable, fair and inclusive way.

The report “Social Enterprise in the UK” by the British Council also confirms the significant evolution in the social enterprise sector in the UK such as changes in the government’s approaches, increase in the number of incubators, a new focus on social investment and an enhanced emphasis on measuring social value.  

​It is pivotal to state that based on a national representative sample by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 4.2% of the UK adult working population is estimated to be actively involved in socially entrepreneurial start-up activities whereas the RBS Enterprise Tracker survey in association with UnLtd (the leading provider of support to social entrepreneurs in the UK offering the largest such network in the world) suggests a fifth (19%) of aspiring entrepreneurs would choose to start a social enterprise. That would be highly needed considering the top societal challenges in the UK are poverty and financial insecurity, aging population, youth unemployment and health inequality.

According to the SEFORÏS Country Report “The State of Social Entrepreneurship in the UK” - written by a consortium of 12 organisations from 10 countries including Belgium, China, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the UK - social enterprises are more involved in innovative activities such as creating new or significantly improved products, services and processes, compared to commercial enterprises. The report identifies that the main driver for innovation among social enterprises in the UK is to achieve social and environmental goals such as increasing the quality of social impact, spreading social impact or reducing environmental impact. 

Also, as revealed in the SEFORÏS report, UK social enterprises create and catalyse inclusion and innovation by addressing social issues embedded within their mission and operational model, by employing individuals experiencing barriers of entering the labour market, by attracting population segments less likely to participate in commercial entrepreneurship (e.g. disabled individuals), by being inclusive in their ownership, governance, management and innovation practices.

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Author
Partner @BASET
Caban Capital
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