Changing Ireland by significantly increasing the impact of Ireland’s leading social entrepreneurs.
The Challenge
In order to solve some of Ireland’s social and environmental problems, we need innovative thinking and new solutions. We need to challenge the status quo and try new things. We need to focus on effectiveness and on impact.
We are lucky to have people all over Ireland who are developing new solutions to our societal problems. Without support, however, these ideas can struggle to make enough of an impact. We know we can’t afford to wait for these solutions to grow and scale, as the problems we face are immediate and urgent.
The Idea
When a social entrepreneur comes up with a great new solution to social problems, we believe that they should get the funding and support that they need to scale and grow, so that they can impact as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.
At Social Entrepreneurs Ireland, we find the social entrepreneurs who have the most potential to have an impact, work with them intensively to develop their projects and ensure that their ideas are implemented as effectively and efficiently as possible. Our Awards Programmes provides up to €200,000 worth of support per social entrepreneur over the course of up to two years.
The Impact
Over the last 7 years we have supported 161 social entrepreneurs, investing €4.9 million in their projects, and providing significant additional supports. These in turn have directly impacted over 200,000 people across Ireland and created over 800 employment opportunities in the process.
We’ve seen ideas grow from ideas in a bedroom to national movements, people’s passion turned into impact and Ireland fundamentally changed in many ways.
