Investing for an Impactful European Social Economy

ended

The project will deliver strong capacity building actions to support access to EU funding and facilitate interactions between the impact community and EU and national policy makers towards an effective implementation and further development of key EU policy instruments (with a strong focus on InvestEU and ESF+). EVPA will analyse and highlight impact sector developments and articulate community's needs towards policy makers. It will also offer policy insights and engage its members around EU priorities, e.g. the Pact for Skills, Access to Finance for Social Economy, Measuring Social Impact. The project incorporates further practitioners' based research and capacity building actions for impact measurement and management (IMM) - a defining element of investing for impact, key requisite for effective funding strategies and mechanisms against green and social washing. These efforts will feed in and contribute to the design of the EU social taxonomy. The data and research work included in this proposal will identify main trends, with a new attention to social entrepreneurship statistics, expanding our main focus, which still remains social investment. EVPA will build on its extensive data and experience base to identify key sector/thematic-specific funding and capacity gaps. It will also leverage its privileged cross-sector base to mobilise resources in support to EU policy priorities, e.g. upskilling and reskilling, just transition, digitalisation, migration and inclusion, culture and media. The project will also promote and develop strategic partnerships across the impact ecosystem: between demand and the supply; field work and research; policy design and delivery. EVPA will continue to build and advocate for the social investment sector at pan-European level and beyond, while putting increased focus on connecting national and regional dimension and emerging local actors for a cohesive and inclusive Europe.