SoDivers for Funding of Social Ideas

This session will present incubator, acelerator and investment programmes aiming to support the social entrepreurs and their ideas. We will have great guest speakers that will share the experience from Bulgaria and Greece.  

• Investment for Impact: Instruments for support of Social enterprises - Stoyana Stoeva, Reach for Change, Bulgaria

Reach for Change is an international non-profit founded in Sweden visioning that all children and youth could reach their full potential. The organisation finds local social entrepreneurs and empowers them to develop and scale innovative solutions that help children to better lives. They have co-founded by successful entrepreneurs in the non-profit and the business sectors in 2010, and since then have supported more than 1,000 social entrepreneurs in 18 countries across three continents. Reach for Change Bulgaria runs development programs for social entrepreneurs, tailored to their specific developmental stage. The social entrepreneurs are supported to scale their innovations through capacity-building, network connections and funding, all in partnership with multiple sectors.

Stoyana Stoeva is Program Officer at Reach for Change Bulgaria. Prior to joining the team in 2021, she has  more than 6 years of experience in social entrepreneurship as founder of one of the first social enterprises in the country - The Social Teahouse in Varna, more than 15 yrs experience in the NGO sector working with specific focus on youth empowerment and social innovation..

• Higher Incubator Giving Growth & Sustainability - Anastasia Psoma, HIGGS, Greece

HIGGS is a non-profit organization founded in 2015 with the aim to reinforce non-profit organizations in Greece, through capacity building, delivered via trainings, mentoring, consulting, networking, events and other supportive activities. HIGGS evolves into a hub of creativity and open dialogue aimed at promoting collaboration and innovation in the NPO and social enterprises sector as well as a meeting place of all stakeholders, both literally and symbolically.

Anastasia Psoma, came in contact with the NGO sector almost from the beginning of her career and she quickly realized that this is the field in which she wants to offer and be active. For the last 12 years Anastasia has been working in Greece and abroad, securing resources and promoting the work of important organisations and initiatives. She believes in empowering people and the value of “planting trees in the shade of which we know we will never sit down”. Through her role at HIGGS, she hopes to contribute to strengthening the capabilities and increasing the effectiveness of many remarkable organizations in the Greek NGO ecosystem.

• Do you know investing and funding programmes dedicated to social entrepreneurship in your country? 

Share your knowledge with us.

• Networking and discussion for joint solutions and projects