Has it ever crossed your mind to start something on your own? Do you sometimes daydream of becoming a social entrepreneur and creating a positive impact on the world? But did you miss the idea or the model to get started?
Stop right there! → Here are 6 ideas of social enterprises you can replicate in your country while learning from the initial founders.
Before we tell you more about those projects, let us tell you first what we mean by “replicating” a social enterprise.
It’s time to replicate what works!
Contrary to copy/pasting and stealing an existing idea, replicating a social enterprise is about launching an existing project in your city/country in partnership with the initial team.
You learn from them, collaborate and get a lot of insights from their experiences and learnings.
This will make you save a lot of time, money and energy by building on what already works well instead of reinventing the wheel.
Depending on the replication model (cf. image below), you can also benefit from brand visibility, access to existing tools, CRM, etc. Indeed, there are different ways to replicate a project – whether as a franchisee, a country director, a federation affiliate or an open-source partner. And that can make you save a lot of time, energy and money!
Our goal at Snowball Effect is to find those gems and help you replicate one of them in your city!
So, ready to discover 6 inspiring solutions you could launch in your country?
6 ideas to launch & replicate in your region
Here are 6 ideas from our portfolio to get inspired:
A circular solution to recycle waste from hair salons – Green Salon Collective
Green Salon Collective is a circular economy solution for hair & beauty salons.
They recycle and reuse the waste generated in hair salons to do something useful with it (ex: to clean oil spills in the ocean, compost, etc.)
Curious to know more? Read more here.
A school for changemakers – Ticket for Change
Ticket for Change is a French school and a movement for changemakers created in 2014.
Its mission is to help people find out how they can use their talents in the best possible way to contribute to solving society’s challenges through their work. They help people change careers, become social entrepreneurs and support organisations in their positive transformation.
A project connecting migrants with locals – SPEAK
SPEAK connects migrants and refugees with locals living in the same city through community-led online and offline language groups and cultural exchange events.
The idea underpinning the project is to bring people of different backgrounds together in order to respond to the social challenge of migrants’ exclusion by breaking down the language barrier. The project also focuses on culture and community building. SPEAK’s model furthermore allows migrants to take the lead in teaching their language and culture, increasing their sense of self-esteem as they become part of the solution.
A zero waste shop – Original Unverpackt
Original Unverpackt is one of the first zero-waste shops ever created (opened in Germany in 2014).
A zero-waste shop enables customers to live a more zero waste lifestyle by eliminating packaging and encouraging the use of containers from home to fill and refill with bulk wholefoods, natural beauty and cleaning products plus much more.
Matching disabled people with employers – Jamba Careers for All
JAMBA is the connection between people with diverse abilities (that’s how they call people with disabilities) and their future employers.
First, they support people with diverse abilities to attain key competencies, soft and professional skills. Then, Jamba helps them find a suitable job that matches their requirements. Hence, it is a place for education, internships and career.
Educating kids to become lifelong learners – We Love Reading
We Love Reading changes mindsets through reading to create changemakers.
It fosters the love of reading among children 0-12 by focusing on the read-aloud experience in the native language to plant the love of reading for children to become lifelong learners.
Your next step? Apply & get started with one of these solutions!
The teams behind all those solutions are bringing to you all the know-how, knowledge and experiences they’ve acquired in all those years of work on a golden plate, for you to launch it in your city!
So, what do you say?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Yoon-Joo is a multi-award-winning social entrepreneur and co-founder of Snowball Effect. She and her team enable aspiring social entrepreneurs to replicate proven solutions and learn from successful founders, instead of starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel.
With more than 7 years of experience in the social innovation field, she supported over +100 impact entrepreneurs and social businesses ranging from early-stage to scale-ups in over 15 countries and 3 continents. She previously worked as an open-innovation facilitator, consultant and expansion manager of an impact startup.
