The health landscape is changing globally.
Demographic trends such as growing aging societies put health and social services systems in many countries under pressure to manage the rapidly increasing cost. On the other side, a growth of income and purchasing power in the past years is opening new opportunities for financing health related activities. In this time of new opportunities, non-profit organizations have a unique chance to establish themselves in the health and social services sector to provide services to the population paid by a mix of financing sources to be explored and to anchor one pillar of their organisations’ mission in a sustainable market-driven business.
REDpreneur is the first-of-its-kind innovation and acceleration program of the Red Cross to support innovative impact driven enterprises in the health and care sector and offer a unique immersive learning experience for NGO and corporate leaders (see REDpreneur and other Red Cross Innovations on the new established RED Social Innovation Platform).
The Program was created by the Austrian Red Cross international cooperation department as a result of a yearlong dialogue with specialists to assess its opportunities in the impact investing field. The need for the program is based on demographic trends, structural and developmental changes as well as shifts in financing models of the public, non-profit and private sectors. The 2-year program funded by the Austrian Development Cooperation supports Red Cross societies and social entrepreneurs, focusing on East and South East Europe and the South Caucasus, to develop impactful and sustainable ventures that seek to improve the access to and the quality of health and social services in their home countries. The goal is to evolve new business models that enable them to be self-reliant and financially sustainable at least in one core activity, thus stronger in providing other types of humanitarian support needed in their country.
The general part of the Program, the Online Training Academy, took place from February-May 2021. Successful Training Academy graduates and new Venture Ideas have now got the possibility to apply for the REDpreneur Master Class (starting in June 2021) for in-depth knowledge to get financial and business plans of selected business ideas ready for launching. The Master Class will take a deep look at impact ventures and offers a holistic and well-rounded approach to early-stage business development, through group sessions and targeted and individualized coaching, including 2 in person Workshops, planned in autumn 2021. This great possibility of meeting relevant stakeholders in the social business sphere and health sector, such as guest speakers, investors, entrepreneurs, experts and members of the Red Cross Movement is now open for registration for NGO´s and social entrepreneur Venture Teams willing to translate a business idea from planning phase to implementation. The Master Class will also open to Corporate Learners which wants to profit from the benefits of the program.
Find more information, register for the Master Class or subscribe for the newsletter on the REDpreneur website