Concordia crafts a family space for such youth daily where they receive the support they need and deserve.
NESsT focuses on improving economic autonomy because it improves community autonomy. As much as "Workforce Diversity and Inclusion" is used to solve this problem, it will not. We must pursue Workforce Equity and Justice.
Meet Victor. Victor is a coppersmith in the Romanian village of Brateiu. There used to be 200 Roma coppersmiths in his village. Now there are only six left. He says he’s proud he can continue to practice the craft of his ancestors and make a living doing so.
NESsT's portfolio director for the Andean Region offers three top tips for social entrepreneurs: (1) Look Deep, (2) Seek Feedback and (3) Test, Test, Test.
This fall, NESsT hosted several promising social enterprises from South America at the SOCAP15 conference in San Francisco. The conference is the annual gathering of the Social Capital Markets, a network of organizations dedicated to increasing the flow of capital to effect social good.
This summer, social entrepreneurs across the NESsT portfolio participated in hands-on training and networked with business mentors, investors and peers through a series of retreats and workshops. Held in each country, these events gave enterprise leaders the opportunity to strengthen their business skills, exploring topics as varied as investment readiness, financial management best practices, marketing and social impact measurement.
Isabel Medem, CEO of X-Runner, a Peruvian waterless sanitation system used in the slums of Lima, is the first social entrepreneur to be interviewed by the Latin American Private Equity & Venture Capital Association (LAVCA) about the impact of its efforts on the local community. X-Runner has been a member of the NESsT portfolio in Peru since 2014.
NESsT Poland initiated its first portfolio of social enterprises in 2014, with five enterprises that are beginning to achieve their social impact goals.One very promising NESsT Enterprise is Eko Bielska Kraina, an online marketplace for healthy, certified bio-products made by small-scale farmers and fishermen. Located in southern Poland, Bielska Kraina is a fertile region with a huge potential for sustainable farming and fishery, as well as for becoming a tourist destination for socially and ecologically conscious travelers.
Since its founding in 1997, NESsT has invested financing and business expertise to develop social enterprises that bring innovative solutions to alleviate poverty in emerging market counties. Now, NESsT is teaming up with Kiva, a nonprofit social lending platform, to provide greater capital and a broader foundation of support to our most successful portfolio enterprises.
NESsT was recently involved in one of the first reports promoting intelligent failure within the venture philanthropy and social investment sector. Would you like to learn from our mistakes?If so, have a look at the recently published European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) report on failures, which we contributed our learnings to.
