{"id":36874,"date":"2024-07-24T12:12:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-24T12:12:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/?post_type=program&#038;p=36874"},"modified":"2026-11-09T08:13:24","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T08:13:24","slug":"seeding-social-enterprising","status":"publish","type":"program","link":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/program\/seeding-social-enterprising\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeding Social Enterprising 2.0"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><strong>Established in 2020, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finantaresociala.ro\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Social Finance Association (SFA)<\/a> is a Romanian NGO specialized in social finance. It supports social enterprises and other social-impact organizations through financial education, mentoring, organizational development, access to finance, impact measurement, research, advocacy, and digital solutions. As Romania\u2019s only associate member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/febea.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">European Federation of Ethical and Alternative Banks and Financiers (FEBEA)<\/a>, SFA combines local expertise with access to a European network of ethical and alternative finance institutions. As a founding shareholder of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afin.org.ro\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">AFIN IFN<\/a>, SFA brings relevant experience in combining financing, capacity building, and ecosystem development.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>CONTEXT<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Romania&#8217;s social economy remains underdeveloped: only 11% of NGOs generate income, and most achieve only minimal profits, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fdsc.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/STUDIU-INTEGRAL_Romania-2024.Sectorul-neguvernamental.pdf?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAAR31_MvPUMrmM12P3p50t2Rlq8OY9v7OJmxnUa3pSaK0oO1bLrLwOmBEx4c_aem_AfPERR-fEpzRTz1AKY5wIACU1YHo-qLINxnjjGN4Ph1KnVGE2nX9UQWIMUK2C268lB27Vcyg0PRR-ZhnZnh0I2W8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2024 FDSC report<\/a>. Many Romanian NGOs face limited access to finance, grant dependence, managerial constraints, and cash-flow gaps.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Traditional financial institutions often lack products and assessment methods adapted to organizations that combine grants with revenues from economic activities. SFA is currently the only credit institution in Romania dedicated exclusively to NGOs and social entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The pilot phase of this program validated SFA-AFIN\u2019s integrated approach combining social financing with non-financial support including training, mentoring, and networking. The model offers a promising and innovative approach to strengthening the financial sustainability of Romanian NGOs by enabling them to diversify their income sources.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>STRATEGY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The program focuses on three complementary priorities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>SFA-AFIN capacity building<\/strong>:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">i) expand access to ethical finance through a national network of ambassadors and partners;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">ii) strengthen internal operations and enhance capital-raising capacity;<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">iii) digitalize lending (to process more loan applications);<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px;\">iv) tailored internal training for the SFA-AFIN team.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Support for NGOs and social enterprises<\/strong>: build managerial capacity and financial literacy of NGOs and early-stage social enterprises, to strengthen their financial resilience, through organizational assessments, individualized development plans, mentoring and financial products adapted to NGO cash flows.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Improve the social finance ecosystem<\/strong>: build operational capacity through digitalization, additional capital, standardized impact measurement and advocacy for social financing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>EXPECTED RESULTS<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Activate at least 10 ambassadors and strategic partnerships with at least eight NGOs, including community foundations.<\/li>\n<li>Increase loan applications by at least 30% and support at least 50 social entrepreneurs to become AFIN clients.<\/li>\n<li>Assess 30 social-impact organizations and provide mentoring and counseling to at least 25 NGOs and early-stage social enterprises.<\/li>\n<li>Develop a business line with NGO-tailored products and support at least five hybrid grant-and-credit financing packages.<\/li>\n<li>Digitalize operations to reduce processing time, strengthen capital raising, and attract targeted grant funding.<\/li>\n<li>Introduce a standardized social-impact monitoring framework and support public-policy work on alternative NGO financing.<\/li>\n<li>Overall, advance the long-term sustainability of the SFA-AFIN model to better support the NGO and social enterprise sector.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":37320,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"categorie-program":[207,206],"tax_categories":[90],"class_list":["post-36874","program","type-program","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie-program-in-progress","categorie-program-legacy","tax_categories-philanthropy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program\/36874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"categorie-program","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categorie-program?post=36874"},{"taxonomy":"tax_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rafonline.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tax_categories?post=36874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}