The expert network to support your impact business.
Our friendly online platform helps social enterprises and their impact partners to find changemaker consulting and problem-solving expertise tailored to your specific needs. We assure jointly defined quality criteria and help identify the right experts.
Matchmakers for Changemakers!
Ricardo Oliveira Neves, Ashoka Fellow & Network Ambassador
Our vision
We live in a world full of challenges that call urgently for innovative solutions. These solutions come from Social Enterprises – mission driven organisations, striving to change flawed systems, while at the same time being profitable and self-sustaining.
The traditional consultancy companies have developed tools based on principles valid for decades: Making profit, growing steadily, exceeding your competitors, satisfying shareholders – often at the expense of the environment, human rights of suppliers or the well-being of their own employees. Social Entrepreneurs instead have different mindsets and therefore they need a different kind of consultants – experts that are mission-driven like themselves to offer innovative solutions to make this world a better place.
Our mission
In a bigger view we -as you also do probabily – strive to achieve the 2030 Global Sustainability Goals of the UN and we strongly believe that to reach these goals we need strong and succesful Social Impact Businesses to change too many broken systems.
This is why we aim to make Social Enterprises and Impact Businesses stronger, supporting them with whatever they need.
One of the challenges Social Enterprises face is to find the right experts for their needs. This is why our community-created platform provides professional support and enablement for #Changemakers. We give visibility to consultants, trainers, coaches and other service providers experienced in Social Innovation and Social Business. Consultants that speak the same language, think out of the box as their clients do, analyse flawed systems and find the right leaver for change in a co-creation process with all stakeholders.
With this platform we strive to support social enterprises that burn for ground-breaking positive impacts on society or the natural environment. We foster social enterprises in the following fields, as covered by the United Nations‘ sustainable development goals: Fighting poverty, hunger and inequality; fostering peace and justice, good health, gender equality, decent work, quality education as well as responsible consumption and production; and protecting the environment.
On the other hand, we exclude socially or ecologically harmful activities. No consultant or trainer can be a member of the network if his or her organisation engages in the following: producing or dealing with weapons, supporting ecologically harmful agriculture or non-regenerative energy production, violating the norms of the international labour organisation, corruption, animal testing, overexploiting natural resources, superseding indigenous people.
However, we are aware that social impact business may be forced to accept compromises in a world that does not yet work the way we aspire. We seek supporting new models that overcome existing models, which may imply co-opting existing forces.
Our rules of operation
Length of a service
Various service arrangements are possible, as you agree with a specific service provider. You may hire a consultant for one-time or multiple advice, for a workshop, for longer-term coaching or even for fixed-term in-house management.
Remuneration
We take rates that are not as high as those that larger, fully commercial consultants would take. The reason is that all our experts are impact-oriented, not profit-oriented, just as the social enterprises themselves. We do not prescribe or recommend rates – these are subject to the single agreements between a service provider or expert and his or her customer.
Our Quality Commitement
All members of our network have committed themselves to the following quality criteria in providing their services:
- We work for the benefit of our client – not for our own benefit or for the benefit of a third party.
- We work only in the field of our expertise and provide only proven expertise.
- We treat data from our client confidential.
- The client and the we as service provider shall remain mutually independent from each other.
- We provide services only free of conflicts of interest.
- Before entering an engagement, we openly discuss and clearly agree on expectations and services to be provided.
- When beginning an engagement, we spend sufficient effort to learn about your client’s needs and culture.
- We follow the principles of the Ethical Move when marketing and selling to our customers.
All in all:
Our Clients and we as service providers will treat each other like we would want to be treated – open, fair, trustful and competent.
Stefan Lilischkis, Network Coordinator
Each service provider in our network acts autonomously. However, the Network coordinators may try to help mitigate if clients are not satisfied with the services they received.
After the engagement we provide an evaluation and feedback mechanism that will be co-created with our experts and the clients.
