Scaling Catalyst is a 2-year project aiming to build the capacities of support organizations and their ability to support social entrepreneurs towards scaling impact. The project is funded by the European Union and implemented by Reach for Change, ACT GRUPA, GROUPE SOS Pulse, Social Entrepreneurship Association of Latvia, and ScaleChanger. The project will run from September 2024 to August 2026.
Project Highlights
Every day, millions of individuals around the world are innovating and finding solutions to pressing social issues. While each sector has a role to play, we believe social entrepreneurs are uniquely positioned to develop new, more effective and more cost-efficient solutions to societal challenges. Effective initiatives led by smart, local social entrepreneurs have the potential to produce system-changing solutions toward the 2030 SDGs.
Project Highlights
91% of social entrepreneurs in Europe wish to scale their enterprises. Although vocational education and training (VET) provision for this target group has increased in recent years, very few social economy support organizations (SESOs) - e.g. incubators/accelerators/networks - currently provide training programmes linked to scaling. By helping support organizations to increase their knowledge on how to establish a scaling support programme, we will ultimately support Social Entrepreneurs (SEs) across the European market to scale their enterprises.
Project Highlights
Based on data collection and validation of needs, partners will produce and user-test a new Self-assessment tool and Guide on scaling for social economy support organizations (SESOs). They will be disseminated to the wider sector through a series of webinars, a helpdesk and an online campaign. Partners will also individually develop new in-house training tools linked to the topic of scaling, aided by a process of peer learning, and user-testing, that will enable more widespread adoption of scaling programmes for SEs. These tools and training material will benefit SEs across Europe, leading to a more vibrant and well-functioning social economy.
The Self-Assessment tool will measure the readiness of the social enterprise support organizations in developing scaling support to SE and identifying key success factors and key elements that they will need to take into account when designing their programme.
The Self-assessment tool will be available in April 2026. Stay tuned!
The guide will increase the SESOs’ knowledge on the topic of scaling as well as guide them through the process of taking the strategic decisions needed to start providing this type of support as part of their standard training services and products. This practical resource will highlight existing formats and resources and ways for SESOs as a way to dive deeper into topics such as what is scaling, what are the support needs of social entrepreneurs preparing to scale, and how to design relevant selection criteria and support programs for them
The Guide for Social Economy Support Organizations will be available in April 2026. Stay tuned!
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or Universitets- och högskolerådet. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.