Making the Grade:

A report to supporters of the Private Equity Shares Campaign 2008 for Central & Eastern Europe

Executive Summary

The primary goal of Private Equity Shares 2008 was to enhance the financial capability of NESsT to support social enterprises extending much-needed economic opportunities and social benefits to marginalized communities across the CEE region.

Specifically, Private Equity Shares enabled NESsT to:

1. Increase funds available to support our CEE portfolio
Your support increased funds available to NESsT to ‘invest’ in CEE by 68% alongside those raised from other foundations and trusts.

2. Increase the financial & social results of our CEE portfolio
Your support helped our portfolio achieve impressive results in 2009:

• 100% are meeting or exceeding their social goals and 65% are meeting or exceeding both their financial and social goals;
• the portfolio realized an average increase of more than 250% in the number of beneficiaries reached;
• the average level of self-generated income increased by 11% across the entire portfolio (with the highest reaching 91%).

3. Increase the number of CEE social enterprises receiving support
Your support enabled NESsT to:

• more than double the size of our later-stage portfolio from 8 to 17, primarily through PES-funded expansion in Croatia and in Romania;
• provide basic training to 78 new, early-stage social enterprises and mentoring to 20 to complete a rigorous business planning process;
• complete 4 national social enterprise competitions and launch a
• second in Romania (following a strong response of 52 applications from Romania alone).

4. Promote private equity philanthropy and volunteerism in CEE
Through the Private Equity Shares network, NESsT was able to:

• galvanize hundreds of hours of in-kind support from 84 volunteers;
• connect over 200 CEE private equity professionals with our portfolio at our 2009 Social Enterprise Marketplace in Budapest;
• sign partner agreements with leading private equity associations and media/press reaching thousands of private equity professionals.

We hope you’ll be pleased with the “social return on investment” NESsT has been able to achieve thanks to your generous support!