The Ukrainian Social Venture Fund (USVF) was established by our EVPA member and partner organisation in Kiev, SILab Ukraine, to invest in and support social enterprises whose business models are based on achieving social, environmental and economic change.
War in Ukraine augmented some of those challenges to unprecedented scale (i.e. access to healthcare, to medical supplies), and created absolutely new ones, like broken supply chains, access to raw materials, access to safe spaces, massive production of survival-kits and equipment for internally displaced people.
USVF launches its first Social Enterprises for Emergency Call for Proposals, which is offered especially to social enterprises operating during wartime.
USVF will offer smart grants to social enterprises that need to transition their production to serve the needs of the civilians or others affected by the war.
Smart grants can also support social enterprises that struggle to continue their operations, as they are addressing the social entrepreneurship acute needs of the different vulnerable groups, or other social or environmental problems. Social Investment in the form of smart grants will try to help those social enterprises to survive the difficult time of war, to build their resilience, enable them to wait-out and be ready for re-construction when the time comes.
The Social Enterprises for Emergency Call will offer smart grants in the amount ranging from 100 000 UAH to 300 000 UAH per one social enterprise.
Grants will be aimed at:
- production/provision of existing goods/services (support of production costs and operating activities)
- launch of new goods or services that meet the needs of the wartime and address the needs of civilians affected (purchase of equipment, consumables, operating activities)
- provision of goods and services for vulnerable groups, enabling them to survive the wartime and to continue their activities (care-takers, transportation services, access to medical supplies, etc. )
This is an amazing example of resilience of social entrepreneurs and their teams.