On May 30 and May 31, 2024, we visited Copenhagen.
Social Entrepreneurs in Denmark organized the event "Young Social Entrepreneurship – How to Start and Work in New Visionary Ways" at Fishtank social hub in Copenhagen. A nice harbour district that was formerly known for slaughtering fish and whales - now serving as co-working spaces, small cafes, social hubs, art galleries.
The event was attended by 55 participants, including 35 young social entrepreneurs. It was part of an Erasmus+ project “The Present for the future” involving SED from Denmark, The Present from the Netherlands and Brodoto.
Not everything is perfect in Denmark (khm, young homeless people, khm) and every country does have different socio-economic, historical and geographical context. But, this really was a real insight on how the future could look like. Or at least what to strive for (and what mistakes to avoid) in Croatia.
So, how do they do it in Denmark?
Per Bach, our host from SED, made a brief introduction and presentations of examples of good practice among impact enterprises, innovations and initiatives. First, the international were mentioned, such as:
Speaksee - a fantastic device helping deaf people to participate in all conversation, with providing screen translation of speech. Real time subtitles.
Project I Am - an USA based project that distributed more than 135,000 Blessing Bags containing socks, deodorant, hand sanitizer, granola bars, toothbrushes, toothpaste, bottled water, etc. to homeless people in Chicago.
Chatterbox - social enterprise which employs language-savvy refugees as language teachers.
Next up were amazing local initiatives pitching their work:
Stemmer for Hjem (Voices for Home) - unfortunately, Denmark is facing a rising number of young homeless people who can’t afford their rent, which is why they end up on the streets. Stemmer for Hjem is an organization started by young people who have been in this situation, and who help other young people dealing with these issues at the present. Stemmer for Hjem focuses on identifying the needs of homeless youth, providing clear information for quicker help, and equipping social workers to better support these individuals. They also work to raise public awareness, advocate for more affordable housing, and ensure ongoing, flexible support for youth transitioning from services.
The - able helps the refugees. Kristine, the founder, was deeply moved by the sights she saw in Lebanon and Greece, thinking that simple charity does not usually solve the problem. She connects craftsmen from the middle east and Africa with buyers in Europe - private persons and corporates, offering a unique alternative to mass-produced foods, providing companies with ethically and sustainably produced gifts with positive social impact and benefiting the local economy. Creating new value chains and supply chains.
Hjælp Din Næste (Help Your Neighbor) is another initiative helping the homeless. But from a different angle. Young and under 30 leaders Alfred and Albert started the story when they saw a homeless person not being able to enter a store because they did not have a mask during covid-19. They got the feels thought, “this is surely something we can change”. Couple of years later, Hjælp Din Næste collects and distributes clothes, food, and other necessities, provides personalized Christmas gifts for homeless across Denmark, and helps homeless people move into homes with providing furniture, adaptation, cleaning and physical moving. Supported by business partners and volunteers, their income reached over DKK 860,000 in 2023 (115,240.00€).
Brilliant brainstorming session
To create truly specific solutions for really specific problems, SED had a perfect approach in formulating the hackathon - they invited a social enterprise who stated their problems. We tried to find solutions, in 5 mixed groups. Simple and concise.
The enterprise was Medvind, a company with 5 permanent, 15 part-time workers and 40 who work less regularly. They come from socially vulnerable groups such as drug addicts, homeless etc.
They repair bikes. They have checkpoints all over Copenhagen and you can get your bike fixed, oiled and cleaned for 100DKK (13€) in just a couple of minutes, while you do your shopping. What is important to note is that the Danish system allows the workers to earn up to 41,280 DKK (around 5000€) annually tax-free without affecting the benefits. For vulnerable people who often have low income, this can be really beneficial. At the same time, the scheme allows companies to help the socially disadvantaged while solving small tasks in the company or, as in Medvind’s case, offer the company’s employees to have their bikes maintained during working hours. Medvind also has a focus on creating an inclusive, honest and happy work environment, which people sometimes need more than the money. Earl, one of the repair guys, and a former cocaine addict, in a truly honest and emotional pitch has said that he got this job just to get more drugs. He was afraid that Henrik Smedegaard Mortensen, the founder, would find it strange that he earned all that money and still looked bad and strange, that he would start to ask questions. He told everyone that he stole thousands of DKK from him, but eventually started to feel bad about it and took care of himself. He had a community of people that embraced him and made him feel useful. Henrik of course knew it all along, but stayed quiet.
Anyway, the issues Medvind are facing:
1. How do we expand our business collaboration and get more partnerships?
2. How do we strengthen collaboration and support unstructured people: Flexible coordination, peer-to-peer learning, partnerships?
3. Any other ideas? – At the end, Medvind asked an open-ended question if the participants had any ideas for what else Medvind could do to strengthen the company, its work and impact.
They did receive loads of really concrete advice from professionals from all over the world, and, as they were kidding, they were the true winners of this event (not the groups who were “competing” in providing the best advice).
Some crowdfunding, finally
On the second day, we met with the leader of the crowdfunding scene in Denmark, the founder of www.boomerang.dk, Michael Eis. He talked about his experience and steps in promoting crowdfunding as an alternative funding method in Denmark, a journey that started more than a decade ago when the term “crowdfunding” was not a buzz nor used basically anywhere. The session was very valuable for Brodoto, as Croatia is facing the same issues as Denmark did decades ago, and the suggested solutions are logical and implementable.
Some of the problems that were talked about were of legislative nature, in the first place. Croatia does not have a law that recognizes crowdfunding as a transaction method, and taxation takes place as regular income tax or non profit donation. The first step in making crowdfunding more recognized is then, of course, lobbying for making it “legal” and including the decision makers in public events such as conferences and round tables. That will make place for other global platforms such as Kickstarter and Indiegogo to become available again, and payment services like Stripe to offer their services in Croatia.
Denmark is in the process of legalisation and recognition of equity and lending based crowdfunding. They attract investors and the campaigns are much more lucrative than reward based or donation based - which are prevalent in both countries at the moment. There is a considerable amount of equity crowdfunding, however they take place in foreign platforms like the Funderbeam, and tend to displace the capital and consequently the companies out of the native country, since a lot of investors come from countries of platform origin. Michael also presented the funding sources of the Boomerang platform: it is mostly financed by state subsidies, followed by platform fees from the campaigns and small monetization of “how to” educational videos.
What he suggested to Croatian scene is to:
Looking forward to getting back to the future again.
