Over 340 enterprises supported and 160 jobs created: EU-funded project ‘Collaborate For Impact’ presents its results

‘Collaborate For Impact’, the EU-funded market building project in Eastern Europe, coming to an end this summer, shared its main achievements at a closing event in Brussels on 12 June. Impact Europe brought together its national partners (Impact Hub Yerevan, Armenia, CSRDG Georgia, EcoVisio Moldova, Education HUB Azerbaijan and SILab Ukraine), policy makers, fund managers, and ecosystem actors.

The ‘Collaborate For Impact’ project leveraged catalytic EU funding to strengthen the social entrepreneurship ecosystem across five Eastern Partner countries — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. This effort was realised through convening diverse stakeholders at events, learning opportunities and mentoring.

To date, three impact funds have been set up through the project in Armenia, Ukraine and Georgia, that collectively supported 91 social enterprises financially, while providing non-financial support to over 250 social enterprises. In total, over €1.2 million was disbursed in support, creating 166 jobs in the process. Despite the challenging circumstances the funds’ teams mobilised an additional €1 million, deployed mostly as loans. 

More than 25% of stakeholders engaged through the project contributed either directly towards the funds or other impact initiatives of partners in the region. For every euro spent on stakeholder engagement, more than €5 found its way back into the local funds. Additionally, on average, for every euro spent on stakeholder engagement up to almost €8 came back as funding for local impact-related initiatives (including investment in local funds). 

All these results are also summarised  in a report, presented at the closing event.