Four cities in South Holland have already taken the lead: Delft, The Hague, Dordrecht, and Rotterdam. Given their positive experiences, we as a province cannot lag behind. Meindert Stolk, deputy of Economy and Innovation, has signed the City Deal Impact Entrepreneurship on behalf of the Provincial Executive. With this, the province joins over sixty other partners who together want to normalize impact entrepreneurship in the Netherlands.

Impact Entrepreneurship

The term impact entrepreneurship refers to companies that aim to achieve social goals in an entrepreneurial manner. For example, they provide jobs for people with special support needs, combat poverty, devise innovative solutions to achieve sustainability goals, or work in other ways on societal challenges. Due to this different approach, it is often difficult for impact entrepreneurs to find the right financing for their business. Additionally, advice on impact entrepreneurship is not yet widely available for starting entrepreneurs. New generations also learn little about it in education. But also: how do you recognize which enterprises actually contribute to society and which do so only for show? How do you measure that contribution? And how can municipalities, provinces, or ministries leverage their purchasing power to promote impact entrepreneurship within the boundaries of the Procurement Act?

Contributing to Broad Prosperity

To find answers to these and other questions, the City Deal Impact Entrepreneurship was launched in 2021. This is a large collaboration involving ministries, provinces, municipalities, impact entrepreneurs, financiers, funds, consultancy firms, and other parties. By exchanging ideas and experimenting a lot, the partners are collectively seeking solutions to remove barriers to impact entrepreneurship. The collaboration, originally set for three years, has been extended by another two years in 2024.

Meindert Stolk: The extended City Deal gives us access to a toolbox of good examples, knowledge, experiences, and a network. For example, in the area of purchasing that is impact-oriented, but also allows space for smaller companies to compete. With our participation, we want to support economic activities that contribute to broad prosperity: creating economic, ecological, and social value.

Edwin Teljeur, project leader of the City Deal Impact Entrepreneurship, is extremely pleased with the participation: Municipalities like Rotterdam and The Hague are true pioneers in how they deal with impact entrepreneurs in their city. With the weight of the province of South Holland behind it, even more wonderful things will be set in motion. The entire partner network will watch this with interest. At the same time, very interesting developments are taking place in other municipalities and provinces, which will undoubtedly also provide new knowledge and inspiration for South Holland. Together we stand strong to achieve that common goal: to normalize impact entrepreneurship in the Netherlands.