IKEA Foundation and Yunus Social Business launch the Enterprise Support Landscape Study series across four countries and three continents

The reports capture views from social-business entrepreneurs and ecosystem support-providers, highlighting gaps in the social-business support landscape and proposing actionable solutions. The reports add to the mosaic of existing research in these markets.

BERLIN, Germany - 23 November 2021 - IKEA Foundation and Yunus Social Business (YSB) today announce the launch of their Enterprise Support Landscape Study series, a collaborative research project into the social-business landscapes in India, Kenya, Colombia and Brazil. The organisations took a multi-stakeholder approach, surveying 200 social businesses and conducting interviews with 35 ecosystem support-providers such as impact investors, industry bodies, accelerators and incubators.

The Enterprise Support Landscape Studies are a series of four in-depth reports that build on, and add to, existing local research to depict the social-business landscape in India, Kenya, Colombia and Brazil. They show the differences and similarities across these markets, and highlight the gaps in support for social businesses and the misconceptions between support-providers and social-business entrepreneurs.

In particular, the reports examine differences between the demand for, and the supply of, debt-funding, equity-funding and types of non-financial support. As the research took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, the studies also shine a light on how social businesses’ revenues were affected by the crisis, and how social-business entrepreneurs have responded by revisiting their business models. Finally, the reports reveal the uneven way gender, race and location play into the success of social businesses. The reports finish with recommendations for the ecosystem in general and for individual support-providers in particular.

Saskia Bruysten, Co-Founder and CEO of Yunus Social Business, said, “This research reinforces the importance of getting the right kind of support to the right social business at the right time. At Yunus Social Business, we focus on flexible loans and non-financial support, and it’s great to hear directly from social-business entrepreneurs that this is often exactly what is called for. At the same time, we all as ecosystem players have a big role to play in plugging the holes in the landscape. Especially in the midst of the challenges posed by COVID, as an ecosystem we’ve got to roll up our sleeves. We hope that this research will help spark more of the action that’s needed to make the ecosystem flourish even more.”  

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ABOUT IKEA FOUNDATION

The IKEA Foundation is funded by the INGKA Foundation, owner of the Ingka Group of companies. The IKEA Foundation is independent from the retail business, with a sole focus on creating brighter lives on a liveable planet through philanthropy and grantmaking.

ABOUT YUNUS SOCIAL BUSINESS

Yunus Social Business (YSB) is a social-business fund and corporate social innovator, harnessing the power of business to end poverty and the climate crisis. Co-founded in 2011 by Peace Nobel Laureate Prof. Yunus, the business unit Yunus Funds finances and grows social businesses in East Africa, Latin America & India, while Yunus Corporate Innovation transforms corporations into a force for good. To date, social businesses in YSB’s portfolio have impacted the lives of 13 million people and provided higher incomes to 50,000. Investment Readiness Programmes form part of YSB’s wider ambition to contribute to building the ecosystem in the geographies in which YSB is active.

CONTACTS

Guy Sephton

Yunus Social Business

guy.sephton@yunussb.com