As 2025 comes to a close, we look back with pride and gratitude. This year we welcomed a new members – East Europe Foundation (EEF) Moldova – to the EN community and two new colleagues, Adeline de Jong & Billy Groom who have already become part of the EN family. We also successfully closed three major projects:
Open Business for Community Development (OBCD project) on open business approaches apply to social entrepreneurship and contribute to local development; Check out the proposed SEntreComp Framework (to strengthen the current EU Entrecomp Framework).
Buy Social Europe B2B on social procurement with tools, guides and evidence for SESOs, SEs and corporate procurement professionals (see more here) and our
ESF+ operational grant FY2024, while kicking off a new generation of initiatives including SICOM+ an initiative to develop, test, and scale a brand-new professional profile: the Social Impact Community Manager, Impact Seed, which aims to further build social impact investing in the CEE region, and Impact Intel, which aligns with the previous two with aiming to transform how Investors assess social impact.
Our Driving Positive Change webinars sparked important conversations across the ecosystem, and the SESO Development Framework reached a major milestone with community validation and its first presentation at EMES. A heartfelt thank you to all contributors — especially those who shaped the framework through the learning labs and expert groups.
We also advanced the EU Funding Toolkit, with more interactive updates on 2026 opportunities on the way. Meanwhile, we are in full momentum with the current ESF+ grant and look forward to DG EMPL’s feedback on our new funding proposal.
Also a kind welcome to Maria Ines Barbas and Sophie Utfeld who joined recently as interns to the Comms team!
And of course, we are already counting down to the EN Impact Summit 2026, taking place in Amsterdam on 10–12 March — where we will explore the next EU MFF, social procurement, access to funding, and much more.
Finally, some other suggestions for light holiday reading or listening, we recommend our report on Social Entrepreneurship across Generations and tune in to our podcast series “the Social Economist” (season 3) available on google, spotify and apple.
Thank you for being part of EN this year. We can’t wait to continue building impact together in 2026!
