Slovakia – Pontis
Foundation
Pontis is of the largest
grant-awarding foundations in Slovakia. They support corporate and individual
philanthropy, corporate volunteering, and corporate social responsibility
promotion. Through these activities, the organization has sponsored and
promoted social innovations in the country for almost 20 years. Pontis is the
first organization in Slovakia in cooperation with the widely known Ashoka
Company, to create the Map of Social Innovators, in which almost 1000 social
entrepreneurs from Slovakia in different areas are mapped.
Slovakia – Mladiinfo
Slovensko
Mladiinfo Slovensko is part of the
Mladiinfo network composed of five organizations from WB and CEE. Their work
focuses on the youth activism through different tools such as social entrepreneurship,
social innovations, volunteering, and youth engagement. Their activities are
structured for young people who want to improve their life skills, increase
their employability through the process of non-formal education.
Hungary – Central
Europe Association
CEA is an organization working
mainly in the V4 area, with focus on enhancement of the leadership skills and
mindset of young people in the public and the private sector. They are the
interlocutor between the V4 youth and the public stakeholders, offering opportunities
for cooperation, employment and innovative solutions for socio-economic
problems in the region. The organization has been active in advocacy and
lobbying in socio-economic policies and legislation, and through the Emerging
Europe
Czech Republic – Czech
Youth Association z.s.
Czech Youth Association z.s. is NGO
focused on non-formal education for youth from the V4 countries and Europe. CYA
work varies from human rights and democracy topics, intercultural and
soft-skills to entrepreneurship education. Under the Visegrad Fund and other
European funds, the organization has implemented and partnered on several
projects on the topic of youth unemployment and entrepreneurship as a tool for
enhancing employability and empowerment.
Serbia – Ana
and Vlade Divac Foundation
Ana and Vlade Divac Foundation has
worked in the field of social entrepreneurship and social innovation since its
founding. As the largest Foundation in Serbia, it has been the pillar of
promoting social entrepreneurship and social innovations thought various projects
such as Idea for a Better Tomorrow, Divac Agricultural Funds, Ja sam Odvazna,
etc. In the last four years the Foundation is actively involved in improvement
of legislative and policy framework of social entrepreneurship and youth
employment in Serbia and the WB region, as well as raising public awareness and
importance of the social economy.
Poland – Association
Institute of New Technologies
The Association Institute of New
Technologies (INT) since 2004 has been working for the promotion,
dissemination, and collection of best practices among entrepreneurs and
non-governmental organizations in the use of new technologies and social
innovation. INT is accredited training center by Entrepreneurship Development
Foundation cooperating with many companies in the V4, as well as works as
EURODESK center and Europe Direct Information Point in Poland.
Bosnia
and Herzegovina – Social Innovation Incubator MUNJA
MUNJA is one of the leading NGOs in
Bosnia and Herzegovina in the field of social innovation. The organization runs
hocu.ba – the largest info platform for young people and promotion of social
innovations and entrepreneurship. For the last 7 years MUNJA is implementing
Business Challenge (part of West Balkans BC), the largest competitions for
students in the field of entrepreneurship. The other organizational work mainly
aims to support youth employment and employability through increasing the
entrepreneurship skills of young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, combining
theory, practical skills, research and coaching
Montenegro – Mladiinfo Montenegro
As part
of the Mladiinfo network, Mladiinfo Montenegro works on social entrepreneurship
and social innovation education predominantly in the WB region. Under EU funded
programs jointly with partners from the EU, the organization supports the
training and development in the field of social entrepreneurship of young
people from Montenegro. Mladiinfo Montenegro is also a partner and promoter of
the Social Impact Award in Montenegro, and member of the national network for
education and development of social entrepreneurship. Besides this, Mladiinfo
Montenegro works on advocacy and lobbying for improvement of the national legal
and policy framework for social entrepreneurship.
Albania – Beyond Barriers
Association
Beyond
Barriers Association is one of Albania’s largest and most active youth
organizations acting in the fields of social inclusion, volunteering and
entrepreneurial education for more than 13 years. The organization is part of
the Platform for social innovations in youth employment, offering
entrepreneurial and social innovation education for young people in WB and
Turkey, with special emphasis on youth with disadvantages and youth from rural
areas . It has produced several manuals, guides and research on the topic of social
innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as several regional policy papers in
this area. BBA has more than 100 local volunteers who run the activities of the
organization and regularly create research based advocacy campaigns to foster
and promote non-formal educational methods and social entrepreneurship, thus
influence the local and national youth policies.
Kosovo – Balkan Green Foundation
(BGF)
Balkan
Green Foundation (BGF) is a regional organization that promotes inclusive and
equitable progress within the Western Balkans on sustainable development
domain. BGF places a strong focus on advocating for solutions that promote
development policies, which are in line with world’s latest developments,
global challenges and national agendas for EU integration. The Foundation is
implementing Philanthropy for Green Ideas (PGI) that stimulates and encourages
ambitious social entrepreneurs within the WB in generating green business ideas
that utilize local resources and revitalize disappearing traditional production
chains and community-based markets. The Foundation has a regional platform and
database of more than 200 green social enterprises from the WB region and
supports regional green social innovations and social entrepreneurship
competitions.