Up-skill and retrain EU social economy professional to help them raise, access and manage funds

<< Background >>The Skill-Pro project emerged from the need to address the challenges faced by social economy organisations due to the COVID-19 crisis. This crisis highlighted the essential role of these entities in supporting communities, promoting inclusion and generating opportunities. However, it also showed their vulnerabilities, especially in terms of financial sustainability, adaptation to new realities and capacity to respond to the demands of their beneficiaries. One of the main challenges identified was the need to raise awareness among public authorities and society about the contribution of these entities in building more resilient societies. In addition, a lack of competencies in fundraising and strategic resource management was identified.To respond to these needs, the project was based on three pillars: strengthening cooperation with public authorities, raising awareness of the importance of the sector and training professionals in accessing funding. Through these actions, Skill-Pro has strengthened the sector's capacity to address financial challenges and contribute to Europe's economic recovery.<< Objectives >>The Skill-Pro project strengthened the capacity of social economy organisations to access finance, facilitating their recovery from the pandemic and consolidating their role in generating employment and opportunities in Europe. Specifically, the project had two key objectives: 1) raise awareness on the solidarity initiatives taken during and post- crisis, as well as the key role played by social economy enterprises and organisations and encourage dialogue and co-planning of measures with public authorities to address the needs of social economy organisations to help in the recovery process; 2) to increase the skills of Social Economy actors in securing and managing funds.<< Implementation >>The project was implemented through four main activities: 1) Project management - A coordination system was established with the signature of a Partners Agreement, with meetings for an efficient management of the tasks, as well as technical and financial follow-up 2) Understanding and tackling the needs of social economy actors Spain, Malta and Italy - A study was carried out in the 3 countries to identify the main challenges of social economy actors in accessing and managing finance. This analysis allowed defining the training programme to the needs detected 3) re-training and up-skilling social economy professionals in project design, fundraising and project management - A training programme was designed and delivered to professionals of the sector, with 8 sessions (totalling 16 hours). The modules addressed project design, management, fundraising, networking and financing strategies 4) Dissemination & exploitation of results - A communication strategy was implemented to share the project results with stakeholders and the general public. Through various channels, visibility was promoted and the sustainability and replicability of the actions developed was fostered.<< Results >>The main results and concrete outputs of the project were: - Implementation of an Awareness Campaign, which improved the understanding of the importance of the social economy. - Cooperation and co-planning between social economy organisations and public authorities, in 3 events with stakeholders (two transnational in Spain and Italy and one national in Malta) held in each of the countries. - Needs analysis report, based on 15 structured interviews and 87 answers to a questionnaire of social economy professionals, this report was elaborated with the needs regarding access to funding of these actors, which served to structure the training programme. - Design and implementation of a training programme aimed at strengthening the competences of social economy professionals in fundraising and fund management. It consisted of 8 sessions (totalling 16 hours of training), online, with a total of 67 registrations and the final participation of 39 people, and its contents were: Funding opportunities, project design I&II, project management I&II, networking and fundraising I&II. - Dissemination of results with the elaboration of key communication materials (visual identity, 4 newsletters, LinkedIn, Facebook and 3 press releases).