Regional Incubator for Social Entrepreneurship
You’re a young, full of energy, with a team and an idea to positively influence your community ?!
Do you have an idea or innovative solution for a new and better way to approach education, women empowerment, culture, rural development, health or employment in your community? Social entrepreneurship skills, knowledge and experience will help you solve social and/or environmental issues that you are passionate about and help you make profit while doing it!
Here’s your chance! Join RISE Journey and get:
– Tailor-made programme to help you develop your idea
– Support from passionate trainers and mentors
– Access to regional changemakers community
– Mobility in the Western Balkan region!
RISE Journey
RISE supports young change-makers in developing their impactful ideas into sustainable social businesses. Our tailor-made support program, RISE Journey, is being implemented by 10 partners from the Western Balkans, Germany and France. For more information you may also check the project page at: www.risewb.org
Who Can Apply?
Groups of young people (of a minimum of 2 persons/group) from 18 to 35 years old, from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, that have:
- Availability and readiness to participate in a program with 4 hours of active participation per week and meetups during 3 months of ideation phase, whether these are in online or offline format
- High motivation to learn about social entrepreneurship and to be involved in a regional intercultural program
- The ambition to develop a concrete idea with social impact
- The willingness to learn from other actors in the region
- At least, have identified a social/environmental issue they want to tackle
- At most, worked on their idea on a small scale / at a personal level, without having engaged in a real business activity yet.
- Their idea impact is regional or local
Who Cannot Apply?
- Incorporated / registered entities
- Political parties, government and state agencies
- Scholarships ideas
- Capital funding ideas
- Research ideas
- Ideas with discriminatory practices, risking to create or reinforce divisions
- Ideas where the main impact is outside the region
What Are Our Criteria For Selection?
Key criteria: The key criteria that applicants will need to demonstrate are:
- Strong motivation to participate in the program, the mindset of a true change-maker and commitment to fully participate in 3 months of ideation program
- How the idea tackles a critical social/environmental issue
- The potential for the idea to become a sustainable business
- More than half of the team members speak English.
Advantageous criteria: Additional points are going to be awarded if the idea:
- Is innovative and implemented in a local context
- Has the potential to scale or replicate in the region.
- Has the potential to create additional jobs.
- Respects gender-equality principles
What is RISE?
RISE – Regional Incubator for Social Entrepreneurs (www.risewb.org) is a project for the motivated, committed youth, willing to learn and change things for the betterment of the Western Balkans. We aim to support your social business ideas that will make the region a better place.
RISE Journey is a specially tailored programme that is free-of-charge to participate in and it will help you learn, grow, and make a change in your surroundings. We focus on cooperation, ideas exchange, and peer learning to get better results. RISE Journey also provides you with the chance to participate in special mobility and business development grants in the second phase of the Journey, helping you to explore the regional social business practices and give you a financial kick-off.
Who are we?
We are a group of 10 partners from the Western Balkans, Germany and France, looking for young change-makers from the region, like yourself, to help us develop social businesses for better societies. We strongly believe that social entrepreneurship can be a great bridge between young people, but also societies, and that it can bring amazing opportunities for growth and development.
This is why we have formed a network of 6 local incubators which will be a valuable support to all of the great ideas emerging in the Western Balkans. We are dedicated to support the young people of the region come closer together and engage them in building a prosperous and stable region, because we know that they can do it.
What is a Social Business?
A social business/enterprise is an operator in the social economy whose main objective is to have a social impact rather than make a profit for their owners or shareholders.
Basically, it’s business for social good!
It operates by providing goods and services for the market in an entrepreneurial and innovative fashion and uses its profits primarily to achieve social objectives.
It is managed in an open and responsible manner and, in particular, involves employees, consumers and stakeholders affected by its commercial activities.
Supporters and partners
