Social
Impact
Accelerator
Social innovations for a
positive social and environmental impact
The Social Impact Accelerator is the first accelerator program for social entrepreneurs in Switzerland purely focused on maximizing societal impact. Startups with social innovation at their core and a self-sustaining business model receive resources and support to professionalize their impact and business model. Additionally, the program also offers growth opportunities and the possibility of access to finance. The program is initiated, developed and executed by SENS and SEIF.
About the
Accelerator Program
The Social Impact Accelerator is designed to support Swiss based social entrepreneurs / social impact startups / social impact initiatives who:
take up a social challenge and thus contribute with innovative solutions to the UN Sustainable Development Goals
put the impact at the centre of their activities and can demonstrate this with a Theory of Change
align their business model to scale, replicate or translate a social or societal innovation
are geared to the best possible business model with appropriate financing (financially self-sustaining), and do not pursue an exit strategy or focus on profit
want to keep the responsibility autonomously with the company and offer the stakeholders opportunities for participation and involvement
have a convincing proof of concept
Program
overview
The selected startups and initiatives receive the following support:
Support by Experts and Coaches
Network of Investors, Philantropists and Growth Partners
Increased Visibility throughout switzerland
Alumni offering and network
The Social Impact Accelerator lasts 12 weeks (with a 2-week break). The program consists of sprints, trainings and coaching sessions to support you in your journey together with your peer group (your fellow participants). All program points take place centrally in Zurich on Wednesday mornings.
The program is designed to focus on relevant topics, such as:
- Impact measurement and management
- Business model
- Scaling strategies
- Financial planning
- Funding strategies
- Participatory and democratic governance
- Leadership and resilience
News
The Challenge of Financing Social Startups
With the Closing Night in November last year, the second Impact Accelerator ended. We let the ten startups go after twelve weeks of multi-layered input on impact management, storytelling, pitch training and funding, and valuable mutual exchange. And at the same time, we know that the zebras all face one common challenge:
As a social enterprise the big question is, “How do I finance my organization?”
This blog post explains three specific reasons, why financing is such a big challenge for social startups that dedicate their business model to social impact and thus make a valuable contribution to our society.
The Closing Night
After 12 weeks, 8 modules, 2 community events and countless hours of dedicated work, this year’s Social Impact Accelerator ended with the grand finale at FREITAG Fabrik. The Closing Night gave the ten startups a stage in front of a broad community.
We congratulate all participants and are proud of their development and great commitment during the three months!
After each startup’s pitch, the audience had the opportunity to ask questions and afterward the evening was rounded off with a rich aperitif and networking opportunities.
We would like to thank all participants and the supporters of the closing evening: FREITAG, Liip and Foodward.
If you are interested in more details of the program, you can find this year’s brochure under the following link:
https://socialimpactaccelerator.ch/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/SIA22_Brochure.pdf
Interview with SIA alumni Fairpicture
We would like to present fairpicture the impact company that promotes a fair and ethical perception of the global south, with its visual content.
Fairpicture was part of last year’s Social Impact Accelerator and has an impressive development behind it. We had the pleasure of interviewing Co-Founder Jörg Arnold and would now like to share this with you in our blog post.
From the original drivers, that motivated the startup, to the challenge of financing and depicting the essential values of a solution-oriented society: these minutes are worth it!
Click here and read the full interview.
Many thanks to Jörg Arnold for this interesting and motivating interview for our participants this year!
Participating
Startups
cloudburst
Our mission is to make fair and circular clothing the new normal and make a positive social impact through our profits. That's why cloudburst produces durable clothing made from European organic raw materials and produced entirely in the EU under fair conditions. At the same time, a percentage of sales is given to charities for specific humanitarian projects. Cloudburst is committed to bringing change to everyone's wardrobe and challenging conventional linear production and trade methods.
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Genossenschaft Kaleio
KALEIO is an encouraging and inspiring print magazine for girls between the ages of 8 and 13, free of advertising and limiting stereotypes. The content is focused on articles, science experiments, games and positive female role models. In addition, KALEIO is a platform for parents, teachers and other interested parties on topics such as the advancement of girls, equal opportunities and diversity. The workshops offered for girls and boys support these ideas and focus on the children's strengths. This is precisely our vision: to focus on individual abilities while promoting self-confidence and skills. We strive for a society in which gender or social and cultural background does not determine who you are.
More
Verein Helferherz
With our digital platform and integrated gamification, we connect social volunteering with young people. We enable spontaneous as well as regular volunteering with the right organization. In this way, we provide organizations with access to new segments, at the pulse of young people's spontaneous and flexible lifestyles. Our mission is to make social volunteering more attractive for young people and thus contribute to a positive social impact.
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Development Workshop Switzerland; Development Workshop Namibia
The Development Workshop is an NGO that develops land for the urban poor in response to the rapid growth of slums in southern Africa. We develop residential land with basic infrastructure and sell it to low-income urban residents. Secure ownership of land allows our clients to build their homes incrementally, providing access to fundamental resources as an alternative to settling in slums. Our goal is to find the most innovative, effective and efficient ways to make human settlements more sustainable and inclusive.
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Jofi GmbH
The goal of Jofi is to bring together apprenticeship seekers and companies for a joint successful professional future. In this way, the platform aims to promote equal opportunities and reduce unemployment. Jofi enables training companies to contact and hire suitable, pre-selected candidates from a pool of students through interest-based matching. Students create a meaningful application profile and decide for themselves which companies will have access to their data.
More
SturzZentrum Schweiz
SturzZentrum Switzerland reduces fall-related disabilities and premature deaths with a novel fall prevention service. To this end, knowledge from research is disseminated to the population with the help of expert speakers on fall prevention. During these presentations, evidence-based and easily accessible fall prevention strategies will be presented. SturzZentrum Schweiz has set itself the task of building a bridge between the findings of fall prevention research and the state of knowledge of the population.
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Musik-Spitex
Musik-Spitex is a service providing home concerts of professional musicians for disabled elderly and younger people. The mission is to enable cultural inclusion for people who can no longer participate in public events. In doing so, we seek to alleviate loneliness, reach out to people with dementia and create happy moments for them and their carers. In addition, we offer musicians new concerts and performing opportunities.
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Spring ACT – Action. Compassion. Technology.
Spring ACT combines human rights and technology to help eliminate global social injustice. The product - "Sophia" - is the world's first chatbot to help victims of domestic violence gather potential evidence, assess their rights, and learn about options for how to proceed. This product is designed to work globally, around the clock, anonymously, and most importantly, without leaving any digital traces. Since its launch, over 9000 people have chatted with Sophia.
More
AsyLex
AsyLex is a Swiss NGO providing free online legal advice for refugees. We have a team of 150 volunteers and a small (paid) office team that has assisted more than 5,000 clients in the last 5 years. It is our vision that any asylum seeker in Switzerland knows the basics of the asylum procedure, is aware of the criteria for asylum and has access to legal advice at any time. From Switzerland, we have expanded our work to countries such as Italy, Greece and Lebanon. Our goal is to provide access to justice for asylum seekers and refugees on the international level, as most vulnerable people do often not have access to legal counsel.
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Stream by Stream
Stream by Stream supports and encourages young, talented, independent musicians to give them the chance to make a living from their art. Free playlists are offered on different music platforms. This not only promotes culture but also has a positive ecological impact, as the revenue finances reforestation projects. The mission is to prove that social, cultural and philanthropic approaches can contribute to sustainability goals.
More
Sustainable Development Goals
& the zebra analogy
We are on a mission because we as a society have 10 more years to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The Social Impact Accelerator focuses on supporting those startups and initiatives that address the related challenges in maximizing their positive impact on society and the environment and therefore the achievement of the SDGs.
The zebra analogy tells the story of an alternative to the unicorn startups of Silicon Valley and the likes. Zebra startups have three characteristics. First, they are real, which means they focus on present societal realities. Second, they thrive in communities and collaborate with other zebras. And finally, zebra enterprises integrate the maximization of social impact with self-sustaining business models - black and white together make the pattern. The Social Impact Accelerator supports startups and social initiatives in becoming successful zebras.
Timeline
The accelerator program is currently running. The startups pitch at the final event at FREITAG lab in Zurich on November 30, 2022. Click here to sign up for the event.
Application
29 June – 8 August 2022Selection process
8 August – 29 August 2022Accelerator
19 September – 30 November 2022Closing Event
30 November 2022Community
Through coaching sessions and networking events, participating startups and initiatives have the ability to connect with impact investors, philanthropists and growth and scaling partners. They will be part of a community that will maximize their impact.
Initiators
The Social Impact Accelerator is co-initiated by SENS and SEIF.
As a national platform, SENS represents and promotes impact-oriented companies in Switzerland, connecting them across sectors and with the European environment.
SEIF offers specialized coaching, trainings, consulting and impact investment opportunities to support impact entrepreneurs to advance their businesses, enter the market, grow and scale successfully
Team
The SIA project team consists of five members with extensive experience in the areas of social innovation, sustainability and entrepreneurship.
Partners
The social impact accelerator is made possible thanks to the support of our partners.
Main Partner
Die Stiftung Mercator Schweiz setzt sich für eine offene, solidarische und ökologisch nachhaltige Gesellschaft ein, die allen Menschen gerechte Chancen und Möglichkeiten zur Mitgestaltung bietet.
Location Partner
Supporters
Interested in becoming a program partner? Contact us: info@socialimpactaccelerator.ch
Contact
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to contact us:
Review
SIA 2021
Last year was the first edition of the Social Impact Accelerator. The following 10 startups successfully completed the program.
Read more about SIA 2021 and the participants in the brochure.
FAQ
The SIA program is designed for startups and initiatives that are ready to scale. Therefore, you should have at least a first proof of concept/market.
Sure!
For sure! Social impact includes every SDG and therefore all climate and environmental topics are relevant.
The Jury will look at the following criteria: professional skills of the team, innovation, impact at the core, quality of the business model (financially self-sustaining), proof of concept, replicability and scalability.
We recommend blocking the acceleration days early, every Wednesday during the program. However, we also understand that there are reasons why you cannot participate on particular days. Participants should be able to attend at least 80% of the acceleration days, otherwise we cannot recommend participating in the program.
The program is free-of-charge for participants. All costs are covered by the initiators (does not include travel or personal expenses). There is also no need to relinquish a stake in the company. In return, full commitment is required from the participants.
No, it is up to the entrepreneurs themselves to decide who participates in each acceleration day. A maximum of two people per startup can take part in a single acceleration day.
Your application will be carefully assessed in terms of the program requirements. We will then announce our pre-selection results. These applicants will then be invited to pitch in front of an expert jury on August 29, 2022. It is up to the jury to decide who will be accepted to the program.
No. No equity will be taken.
All the activities will be carried out in English.
An incubator focuses primarily on fostering and stimulating innovation and usually emphasises establishing and perfecting certain aspects of a company's business before exploring ways to grow. Accelerators focus primarily on accelerating and scaling up companies or organisations. Items such as coaching, mentoring, and access or exposure to some type of funding may be included in both programs.
In our view, we see that there are many programs through Universities and Impact Hubs that support impact entrepreneurs who have completed the ideation stage and still need to perfect aspects of their business before focusing on growth. Many of these incubators take both for profit and not-for-profit applicants.
We saw a gap in the area of scaling and growth for impact entrepreneurs with a not-for-profit structure. Therefore, we aim to be the next step for those impact driven organisations coming out of incubators who wish to now focus on scaling their impact. In doing so, we hope to become a useful addition to this already great and growing ecosystem that supports impact driven entrepreneurs, organisations and associations.
The impact
we want to achieve
The challenges our society and environment are facing are stated by the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). What they further show us is that these goals have a dimension that can’t be achieved with the policies of governments or other public institutions alone, but need approaches that go beyond this. With social entrepreneurship, innovations are developed to generate positive impact with entrepreneurial methods that are long-lasting and scalable. By supporting these innovative business models, positive impact on society will be accelerated.
Our Impact targets are as follows:
- Accelerate the growth of social impact startups and thus scaling of the positive social and/or environmental impact.
- Raising awareness within the business sector, startup community and the public for a different form of entrepreneurship (participatory, oriented towards the common good and having a strong positive impact on society and the environment) and for a more solidary economic system.
The following values are the backbone of our program:
- Scalable positive impact
- Participation & Collaboration
- Sustainable ownership & financing
- Innovations for society & environment