Social Entrepreneurs Ireland: Impact Programme

Overview

The programme focuses on four key areas: building a stronger organisation, developing resilient leadership, amplifying your voice, and creating long-lasting social change. Whether it’s refining your strategy, strengthening governance, or expanding your reach, we work with you to identify your biggest opportunities for growth and impact. Join Ireland’s largest community of social entrepreneurs and take your impact to the next level.

Support

The programme provides target support and engagement through a series of structured activities: Discovery sessions to get to know each other, the team in SEI and your story; Co-Design days to collectively plan the programme; Group sessions including workshops and work discussion groups; Individual Supports including coaching, mentoring and consultancy. These sessions are facilitated by members of our team and wider community including our supporters, fellow support organisations, partners, funders and sector expert consultants.

All activities are aligned with four focus areas:

• Stronger Organisation: Training, advice and support in areas related to improving an organisation’s structure, operational capacity, solution delivery, financial capacity and impact measurement.
• Resilient Leaders: Leadership development and grown to strengthen the resilience and adaptability of social entrepreneurs.
• Influential Impactful Voice: Connecting and communicating with a range of stakeholders.
• Long-Lasting Social Change: Tackling the problem, not just delivering the solution including networking building and collaborations within the eco-system.

Time-commitment

The programme is designed to be flexible and tailored to individual needs. Awardees will engage in approximately 2-4 days per month, participating in a mix of 1:1 meetings, expert-led workshops, and collaborative group sessions. As the programme progresses, time commitments may increase, particularly as participants work toward tangible deliverables.

Funding

• Each awardee receives €20,000 in unrestricted funding.
  • Funding can be allocated to scaling needs such as team expansion, legal structuring, and strategic marketing.
• Participants access additional supports worth €20,000-€30,000 per organisation, including expert consultancy, leadership development, and bespoke training.

Eligibility Criteria: 

• You (and your project/organisation partner(s)) must be aged 18 years or over at the time of applying for the programme.    
• Your project/organisation is legally incorporated, registered with a recognised legal structure or as a sole trader.  
• You must be the person (or people in the case of a partnership) leading on this idea – the main driver(s) and decision maker(s) such as founder, CEO, project lead or general manager.  
• The primary activities of your project/organisation is in Ireland.    
• You must have identified a social or environmental problem and have an effective solution to solve it.   
• Your project/organisation is currently operational, having progressed beyond the initial pilot stage.
• You have concrete evidence demonstrating the measurable impact of your project/organisation on your target beneficiaries/audience.
• You are willing and able to commit to the following:
  • working a minimum of 20 hours a week on your project/organisation for at least the duration of the programme.
  • attending mandatory Selection Process events outlined in the programme guide.
  • engaging with the programme for the equivalent of 2 to 4 days per month.

They welcome applications from people of all backgrounds and are committed to providing equal opportunities regardless of gender identity, marital status, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity or religion. (The Equal Status Acts 2000-2018)