In January 2018, the Badur Foundation re-launched its Social Enterprise Competition to develop social enterprises that improve the employment chances and livelihood of people in deep poverty. The competition provided organisations working in highly disadvantaged communities with vital professional and financial support for starting a new social enterprise.
The Call for Application was launched in January 2018 and close to twenty applications were received. After the thorough assessment of the applications, Badur selected five organisations and commissioned NESsT to provide 5-month training and one-to-one mentoring to elaborate their business plans.
The selected organisations and teams were:
Élményakadémia (Academy of Experiences)
Nem Adom Fel (Never Give Up) Association - Nem Adom Fel Ház Szendrőlád
From April to August, the teams worked intensively to validate and develop their business model with the professional help of Badur and NESsT. The final pitch was made in September, when all teams presented their business plan to the Evaluation Committee.
Awardees
Based on the final pitches, the Board of Trustees selected Ethnic Talents as the winner of the Springboard 2018 programme. Ethnic Talents aims to capitalise on the booming movie industry in Hungary and the subsequent demand for unique and diverse faces. This could provide a great employment opportunity for people coming from a minority background. In close collaboration with grassroots organisations, Ethnic Talents intends to recruit amateurs (especially Roma) to work as extras or actors in movies. This will provide an opportunity for hundreds of people to earn additional annual income. Being introduced to the movie industry may also create new prospects for many by linking them with other career opportunities in the world of film. Additionally, the project’s impact on the representation of Roma could be significant. To support its establishment, the Foundation awarded a grant to cover the start-up costs and the initial operational loss. In addition, the Ethnic Talents team receives professional mentoring in relation to strategic, financial and operational management. Read more here.
The Foundation also awarded further professional support to the Academy of Experiences. The Academy uses experiential learning to foster the complex skills development of marginalised youth. In recent years, there has been an increasing demand for their services by for-profit customers, who realised that experiential learning can be effectively used to develop skills among their employees. For the Academy of Experiences, these contracts have represented a new way to generate income. Within the framework of the Springboard programme, they wished to explore how to take their activities to the next level, intending to centralise their training and programmes in order to increase efficiency. Not only would this improve the overall sustainability of the organisation, but from the extra profit generated they could offer additional programmes to at-risk youth, their main target group. The Foundation awarded the Academy of Experiences with additional mentoring so that their business plan and financial model can be optimised.
Last but not least, Badur awarded support to the Never Give Up Association. The Association currently runs three community centres in economically disadvantaged regions of Hungary. They have a holistic approach: they organise community events, offer educational and recreational activities to children and create job opportunities for adults. Through the Springboard programme, the Association developed a business plan for a Black Soldier Fly farm in cooperation with Bugfood Foundation. Black Soldier Fly larvae has been experimented with in several areas of the world to produce protein-rich animal feed. The Never Give Up Association would like to set up a farm that would use this innovative technology in order to create further employment opportunities in one of the communities they currently serve. The Foundation awarded further professional mentoring to the Association to develop their business plan in order to gauge the demand for such innovative technology within the Hungarian market.
