Stories
Discover the impact of financial instruments and how they meet the financing needs of businesses around Europe.
A successful return to the roots
Thanks to the Alter’NA EAFRD guarantee instrument, Héloïse Brunel and her husband Olivier were able to set up as first-generation farmers, after professional retraining. Now, they are growing their small business in the town of Caubon-Saint-Sauveur in Lot-et-Garonne. With organic certification for all its products (milk and grapes – soon to become wine), the fledgling company is developing nicely.
“Together we can do more”
Building on the success of a financial instrument created for a 2007-2013 pilot, the Polish National Fund for Social Entrepreneurship (NFSE) – set up in the 2014-2020 period with €37 million – is helping to protect hundreds of social economy enterprises all over the country. RAZEM (meaning “together” in Polish), an association that supports 200 children and young people with mental and physical disabilities, was fortunate enough to be able to rely on the fund’s support at a difficult time.
Give and take
The European Social Fund (ESF) powered risk-sharing microfinance facility enabled Yanina Taneva, founder of Ideas Factory, to deliver impactful projects in Bulgaria’s poorest regions. The Sofia-based association is driving community-led social changes in places where they are scarce – across generations, in cities and remote villages, and for individuals and municipal authorities.
