2023 Impact Report

The Social Impact Alliance for Central & Eastern Europe proudly presents its 2023 Impact Report, highlighting how we foster a positive change in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

In 2023, we continued demonstrating a steadfast commitment to our 5-year goals: raising awareness, creating a supportive ecosystem, identifying solutions, encouraging collective action, and equipping decision-makers with reliable data.

Our major achievement was the successful completion of an extensive knowledge-building initiative that began in 2020. This collaborative effort involved close cooperation with nearly 300 key stakeholders, primarily umbrella organizations that network thousands of entities, including businesses, investors, nonprofits, as well as government and academic institutions spanning 11 countries of Central and Eastern Europe. These countries include Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Additionally, we extended our research to include Ukraine.

As a result of this work, in September last year, after 4 years of research, over 230 expert meetings and 7,600 quantitative interviews, we published a comprehensive analysis, “Unlocking Private Capital for Social Good in Central & Eastern Europe”. It includes recommendations as to what activities should be prioritized in order to increase the flow of private capital toward impactful solutions, enhance its effectiveness, help establish priorities and direct further action.

The paper version of this report was distributed to over 500 national, EU and global stakeholders. We secured an impressive 1,000 publications in global and local media outlets. The total media reach expanded to 82 million, with 180,000 engaged through social media channels. We executed over 40 PR and targeted mailing campaigns and organized an in-person event in Brussels, marking a significant milestone in our think tank’s outreach strategy.

This reliable data is freely accessible on our website. It was downloaded 1,719 times from people and organizations from 74 countries last year. You may access it here.

PARTNERSHIPS AS OUR CORE VALUE

This would not be possible without strategic partnerships which we established with law firms and organizations that are shaping the national social impact ecosystems in all 11 CEE countries. They provided invaluable access to and understanding of local contexts, actors and solutions. We want to express our deep gratitude to all organizations listed below. Thank you for your support.

Strategic Partners

Whose financial and pro bono support enabled us to conduct research in 11 CEE countries and Ukraine

Country Partners

Who provided valuable insights into the local context, actors, and legal environment

WHAT’S NEXT?

We are working with national and regional stakeholders as well as European and global ecosystem builders to implement a systemic change that will get us closer to our ultimate goal – so that:

CEE citizens live, invest and do business
in a SUSTAINABLE and IMPACT-ORIENTED way.

One of the ways to get there is to grow awareness among leaders from public and private sector and build a culture of responsibility and giving among children and youth. We are verifying how to leverage the potential of existing systems to get the message through. We want to thank all people and organizations involved in these collective intelligence discussions in September last year in Vienna and during PEXforum that was held in Rome in January 2024.

When we say “Central and Eastern Europe”, we mean 11 countries, over 100 million people, 800 thousand nonprofit organizations and a huge potential. The social impact infrastructure is already in place, there is an increasing willingness and external pressures to get involved and, most of all, after 30 years of a free market economy, there is private capital. But there are also challenges to face – lack of awareness, education, cooperation, trust between capital owners and impact providers or transparent and supportive legislation. Central and Eastern Europe is a great testing ground for initiatives that can be scaled to other regions at a similar stage of development. But, as with all systemic changes, collaboration is the key.

Anna Korzeniewska

For more information, please download the 2023 Impact Report.