“I learnt a lot and through a completely different approach.” 25 social entrepreneurs from 11 impact ventures in nine countries benefited from the Social Innovation Tournament (SIT) Scaling Impact Executive Programme, which ended on 25 June 2022 in Lisbon.

We realised that “there is so much more to fund raising than just speaking to investors” said Florence Gschwend (Lixea). “Topics sounded familiar but were presented in a completely different way” added Catherine Schreiber (ADVITOS).

The Scaling Impact Executive Programme is a full-time executive training course designed to help participants develop a scaling plan adapted to the needs of their initiatives, prepare an investment case for its financing, fine-tune their strategy of engagement with key stakeholders, develop their marketing and communication plans, and prepare to pitch their scaling plan to an audience of investors such as the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA). “Social entrepreneurs are the change makers in our society,” said Professor Filipe Santos, dean of Católica-Lisbon and full professor and chair of social entrepreneurship, and visiting professor of social entrepreneurship at INSEAD, who is leading the programme

This sixth edition was organised jointly with Católica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics at its Lisbon campus and welcomed SIT finalists ADVITOS (Germany), Angiodroid and Lifeed (Italy), Lixea (Estonia), Magrid (Luxembourg), MIWA Technologies (Czech Republic), PlacticFri (Sweden), Skillab (Netherlands) and The Newsroom (Portugal).

Other participants included Mapie (Portugal), and Activ’Action (France), a social entrepreneur finalist of the Degroof Petercam Foundation (DPF) social competition, thanks to a partnership with DPF.