SUPPORT FOR NEW SES: FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE – MIDTERM WORKSHOP IN ITALY
In conclusion of the the first phase of the pilot, the Italian partners Finpiemonte and Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini organized the mid-term meeting March 22 entitled « Support for new SEs: from theory to practice »
The meeting was aimed to provide the pilot participants with an overall vision of the actors involved, the priorities and methods of intervention of the different types of organisations that, in their mission, offer financial support to business projects with a social impact and to local development initiatives.
The workshop had a training and informative purpose and involved a panel of experts from public and private financial sector in support of social entrepreneurship. An overview of the pilot was provided by SAA - School of Business Administration of the University of Turin, responsible for the first phase of the pilot.
It was emphasized that many projects at the beginning of the pilot were not ready to be implemented since they were mostly "social driven" projects more than "economically driven". Opportunities related to Public Finance have been presented as well as some banking financial tools such as crowfunding, private equity funds , bonds at controlled prices. The representative of institutional philanthropy explained they are experimenting a new financial tool called « Almost recoverable grant » Finally, calls for social enterprises on mountain areas currently open have been presented.
The workshop ended with an interesting debate on what elements are taken into consideration by financial actors to provide funding to a social projects and what are the their expectations.
From the roundtable it emerged that funders are looking for projects with a measurable social impact, able to involve a multitude of stakeholders, with a multidisciplinary team and economically sustainable.
