European Social Fund Plus (ESF+)
Investors for impact could receive under the ESF+ programme financial support provided by national and regional authorities within their member state, as well as directly from the European Commission. Investors that are supported by the programme work on the realisation of the social rights outlined in the European Pillar of Social Rights or social innovation at a European level.
The ESF+ framework is an EU-wide funding programme that primarily issues grants at the level of member states and which funds initiatives that contribute to the realisation of the goals listed in the European Pillar of Social Rights Action Plan, augment social innovation, and/or diminish member state specific social issues.
The motivation for the creation of the ESF+ framework stems from the desire to decrease disparities between and within member states to fuel the creation of an equal social level playing field across Europe, thereby emphasising the uniqueness and needs of each region.
The ESF+ framework came into force in 2021 and merged the previously separated funding programmes: European Social Fund (ESF), Fund for European Aid to the most Deprived (FEAD) Youth Employment Initiative (YEI) and European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) into a single framework to simplify the use of these funds and ensure greater flexibility. This enables the EU and member states to provide better integrated and more targeted support to social economy actors like investors for impact.
The ESF+ supports investors for impact in multiple ways and it focused on funding European, national and local initiatives in domains such as skills and education, youth, equal labour market opportunities, child poverty, deprivation, health, housing, and social innovation. One of the main goals of this funding programme is also to strengthen social innovation at the level of the member state and cross-boarders, through 2 specially dedicated strands:
Investors for impact could access different funding opportunities of the total EUR 99.3 billion under the ESF+ framework in a distinct way:
EVPA helps to ensure that the ESF+ framework incorporates the needs of investors for impact and created the following material to guide social investors through the framework:
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