Good practice:

The solidary economy in practice - B4B Hub

B4B Hub started as a pilot initiative with target group of women entrepreneurs from North-West region of Bulgaria and it was innovate form two perspectives: 1/ Till then the support that the stat-ups get was mainly in money grants given under strong conditions mainly by the state (EU grants or from the national budget throughout the state agencies). Granted money are difficult for spending, sometimes the beneficiaries don’t know the right supplier, they need to organize procurements and etc. These obstacles demotivate the entrepreneurs and they give up at an early stage. But when you get support “in kind”, you don’t need to choose supplier or to report expenditures with long list of documents. 2/ On the other hand is the point of view of the business. SMEs not always have their CSR budgets but they want to contribute to the society with their know-how, services or products. When they have reliable partner who contact them with the members of the society that need them, it makes it easier to fulfill their duty and to be helpful with something more than money.

5000 Euro - received as a grant of the Bulgarian Fund for Women (grantee is Gen-eration Foundation, as a local partner in the region of North –West Bulgaria).

Attracted donations worth over 8,000 BGN, which included:
- Registration of a legal entity
- Accounting services
- Making logos and sites
- Hosting and domain for one year
32 candidates
8 assisted novice women entrepreneurs

The model is applicable in different geographical areas and with different target groups involved.
After the pilot issue of the initiative there were a new requests for organizing next edition supporting other vulnerable groups. But soon the pandemic came and the businesses were focused on internal processes and their efforts were mainly on their employees and closest communities. But the observations show that with the start of 2021 SMEs will be more opened to donate and share and they will have the platform to do it.