The Social Entrepreneurship Association of Latvia for the sixth time organised the social entrepreneurship pitch competition “Let The Good Ideas Grow”, which has become a tradition. The competition was held in cooperation with Luminor Bank, Development Finance Institution ALTUM and charity shop network “Otrā Elpa”. The two winners each received a cash prize of €4,000! Each year, the competition is open to existing and emerging social entrepreneurs from all over Latvia who need funding to implement a new social entrepreneurship idea or an existing project. The final of “Let The Good Ideas Grow” was broadcast live on internet news media Delfi.lv.

Winners:

🏆 Jury’s Choice – Association “Tavi draugi” with the idea to refurbish and rent out donated items as inventory.

🏆In the live audience vote – Creative Sustainability Platform Bourzma with the idea to create a textile upcycling workshop for the production of sustainable clothing.

Sympathy Awards:

🏆”Luminor bank” Sympathy Award winner – initiative of Elīna Zandere “Health in Every Bite”, which offers specialised food production for people after oncological and other diseases.

🏆”ALTUM” Sympathy Award winner – association “Krapes muiža” with an idea for environmental improvement to promote rural tourism and the creation of a fishing spot for people in wheelchairs.

🏆 “Otrā Elpa” Sympathy Award – went to “Mombee.lv” – a platform for information, emotional and practical support for expectant and new parents, especially mothers with postnatal depression.

🏆The “Social Entrepreneurship Association of Latvia” Sympathy prize went to Izipizi.lv with the idea to develop a network of food lockers to promote the sale of local food.

The colourful photo exhibition “Social Entrepreneurship in Latvia” introduced the public with 10 Latvian social enterprises and their creators working in different fields. The exhibition happened thanks to the support of Luminor Bank and ALTUM.

The exhibition was not only open to Riga residents and visitors, but also travelled to other cities in Latvia – Liepāja, Valmiera, Lūznava, Jelgava and Balvi!

Heroes of the exhibition: Visi Var; Ramala; Atbalsta māja “Brīvupes”; Visas Iespējas; RB Cafe; Dzīves oāze; Sonido; Difftravel; Barboleta; Neredzamā pasaule/ Sensorium

The exhibition is also available in digital version

At the beginning of September, a long-cherished dream of bringing social enterprises and large enterprises together came true! Under the leadership of SEAL, 15 social entrepreneurs and 15 representatives of big business gathered in the bustling premises of Āgenskalns Market to get to know each other, understand each other’s offer and needs, talk face to face and build new socially responsible business partnerships.

Participants – social enterprises:

| Visi Var | RaMaLa | Dabas Zirgi | Dspc Laipa | Neredzamā Pasaule | Tuvu | Esi/ | RB Cafe |BlindArt | Ziedoņa klase | GLASS POINT | tiptip.lv | Visas Iespējas | Sonido | Zvaigznājs

Participants – large companies:

| Rīgas meži | SCHWENK Latvija | Lidosta Rīga | Eco Baltia VIDE | SAF Tehnika | Valsts nekustamie īpašumi | Rīgas satiksme | Getliņi EKO | Omniva Latvija | DHL Express Latvia | ZAAO | Latvijas valsts meži | Rīgas ūdens | Latvijas Mobilais Telefons

In 2024, we would like to highlight:

🟣Work with the Ministry of Welfare on the Social Economy Plan. Active participation of the SEAL and various recommendations in the development of the plan.

🟠ALTUM grant launch event at Āgenskalns Market. The available funding is 7 million euros and will support around 120 social entrepreneurship business ideas.

🟢Evaluation of the “Augšup” grant programme. 21 applications were received from companies and idea developers from the municipalities of the Pierīga region, who competed for a total amount of 52 thousand euros. SEAL Director Regita Zeiļa was among the jury members who evaluated the applications. 9 social entrepreneurship ideas were funded, two of which are also our members: the Privātā Glūdas pamatskola/mājskola un Laimes bļoda! Watch the event report HERE!

🟣Meeting the European Parliament election candidates. These meetings were important for the Association to understand to what extent the parties are interested in the development of the social economy and what should be done in this field at European level. 5 parties responded to the meeting. Click HERE to view the galleries!

🟠Meeting of social entrepreneurs with Riga City Council representatives. This event was a great opportunity not only to raise awareness about the social economy ecosystem and the role of social enterprises in it, but also to share real stories of social entrepreneurs; experiences, as well as to work practically on various topics relevant to social entrepreneurs. View the gallery HERE!

🟢Following the recommendation and opinion of SEAL , changes have been made to the Public Procurement Law, including the possibility to reserve the possibility to participate in procurement procedures only for candidates or tenderers with SE status and employing target groups (at least 30%). Previously, the law only covered people with disabilities, but now there is a much broader view.

Members elect the SEAL Council at the General Meeting for a two-year term. It acts as the strategic advisory body of the Association, defining the main directions of the SEAL’s activities and voting on the admission of new SEAL members.

The day-to-day duties of the Association are carried out by its Director Regita Zeiļa, Project Manager Līva Švarce and Event Coordinator Līga Ivanova. The team has grown bigger this year with the addition of new colleagues – Project Coordinator Annija Krūmiņa and Project Manager Anete Urka.

This year also marked an expansion of the SEAL’s capacity to participate in the various discussions where important decisions are made. SEAL representation is ensured:

• Ministry of Welfare Social Enterprise Commission (Inga Muižniece, SEAL Council Chair)
• The Council of the Society Integration Foundation (Liene Reine-Miteva, SEAL Council Member)
• EU Funds Monitoring Sub-Committee “A More Social Europe” (Regita Zeiļa, SEAL Director)

The Association is a member of several international networks – ENSIE (European Network of Social Integration Enterprises) and DIESIS Network – one of the largest networks specialising in supporting the social economy, social entrepreneurship and social innovation. Since 2021, SEAL is also a member of the Latvian Civic Alliance, the largest umbrella organisation for the non-governmental sector.

SEAL is a non-governmental membership organisation whose members are not only social enterprises, but also individuals and  associations, companies, foundations that participate in the development of the social entrepreneurship ecosystem. At the end of 2024, there were 140 members in the Association.

Special benefits for SEAL members:

🟢Useful contacts and new cooperation opportunities;

🟢”Member-to-member” discount offers;
🟢First to know in an aggregated form about various funding opportunities, current events in the field;
🟢Participation in networking events, trainings, visits to other social enterprises in Latvia and abroad organised by SEAL;
🟢Participation in discussions with representatives of local governments and ministries and other related organisations and institutions;
🟢Special offers for SEAL members only, such as the opportunity to apply for a Christmas donation worth 400 euros, to apply for health insurance, to upgrade/create your website or other digital solution for free, to be featured in a catalogue with your service/product;
🟢Additional visibility and recognition – on SEAL social media, in the traditional media, at local and international conferences and discussion panels.

2024 events for members: 1.training event “How to communicate to reach your customer?”, 2.inspiration and experience afternoon “Do you need your own podcast?” 3.SEAL General Assembly, 4.Members networking event in Sigulda city at the social enterprise “Visi Var”, 5.Two-day summer holiday event at “Upeslīči Atpūtai”, 6.SEAL members networking and training event at “Atver Durvis Betānijā”, 7.International Social Entrepreneurship Day and SEAL Birthday – experience stories, 8.Christmas event – gingerbread baking at Āgenskalns market.

There was also a meeting with the Riga City Council on support opportunities for social entrepreneurs in Riga, as well as two members meetings with the Ministry of Welfare. In cooperation with “VAIRO”, we organised a seminar for members on financial wellness, as well as an informative webinar on the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme, participated in an event on mentoring skills development, etc.

International exchanges also marked 2024. During this year, members worked with colleagues abroad on topics such as social impact assessment, adult and public education, sustainability and green living, representation of the enterprise and international networking.

In May, three SEAL members travelled to cities in the northern region of Poland to visit social enterprises there. Read more about the trip HERE! In September we hosted the Social Entrepreneurship Association from Poland and the social enterprise KNOF from Slovenia here in Latvia. During three days we introduced the foreign guests to different Latvian social enterprises and organisations that include adult and public education in their activities. In total, 9 SEAL member organisations were involved in hosting the guests. Find out more about the visit HERE!

For the second year in a row, the Baltic Sea Impact Network brings together more than 50 social entrepreneurs from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark and Ukraine, creating a space to gain useful contacts and knowledge for the development of their business. Latvia is represented by 10 social entrepreneurs. In October, 30 members of the network gathered in Tallinn to meet in person and participate in the Impact Day Sustainability Festival. A recap of the event is available HERE!

We hosted Danijela Paska, a researcher representing ACT Grupa, the leading social economy promoters in Croatia, for a two-day exchange visit. Both theoretically and practically, members had the opportunity to learn more about social impact assessment methods. The Croatian researcher also visited SEAL members –  “Latvian Samaritan Association” and “Free Riga”. Find out more about the visit HERE!

In 2024 we would like to highlight:

🟣Participation in the discussion and social experiment on employment opportunities for people with mental disabilities at the “Lampa” discussion festival together with the Latvian Samaritan Association.

🟠Opening of the photo exhibition “Social Entrepreneurship in Latvia”. In cooperation with Luminor Bank and ALTUM, SEAL invited the public to get acquainted with 10 Latvian social enterprises and their creators working in different fields. The exhibition toured several Latvian cities and was featured in more than 20 media publications. View the digital version of the exhibition HERE!

🟢Information event in cooperation with the Ministry of Welfare on European Union funding opportunities for social entrepreneurs. 42 participants attended the event.

🟣Presentation at the conference “Opportunities and Challenges of the Social Economy” within the Social Entrepreneurship Week. The final conference was well attended by sector related organisations, politicians, social entrepreneurs and other stakeholders.

🟠Leading a panel discussion on youth entrepreneurship at the Baltic Sustainability Awards event.

In 2024, we worked on a record number of projects – 13 – many of which started in that year.

In 2024, we started work on:

The Interreg project aims to improve the social entrepreneurship environment at regional level – in the case of this project focusing specifically on Zemgale and Northern Lithuania. The project will: develop practical educational materials on social entrepreneurship for schools and business centres, strengthen the skills of social entrepreneurs and organise experience exchange trips, improve the capacity of the public sector to develop social entrepreneurship.

SICC – Social Innovation Competence Centre. Conventional solutions to many challenges are no longer effective, which is the main reason why Social Innovation Competence Centres are being set up across Europe. In the long term, such a centre will be established in Latvia by the Centre for Social Integration and SEAL will have the opportunity to contribute to its creation.

DO Impact project will provide various opportunities for SMEs to learn digital technologies and data management to address social challenges more effectively.

Scaling Catalyst – 91% of social entrepreneurs across Europe want to scale their businesses and the Scaling Catalyst project aims to provide social entrepreneurs and their supporting organisations with the tools they need to scale.

ValuEU project aims to bring together higher education institutions and social innovation actors, as these groups play a key role in the innovation landscape and often university students/graduates become agents of innovation and change in society. New problem-solving models based on the experience of the target audiences will be developed in cooperation with both parties.

ThinkGoal offers Latvian social entrepreneurs the opportunity to exchange experiences with Polish and Slovenian social entrepreneurs and support organisations on sustainability, adult and community education.

ImpactED is developing an educational game on social entrepreneurship that can be used as a teaching tool in schools to make learning about social entrepreneurship more engaging.

In 2024, we continued our work on:

BSIN – Baltic Sea Impact Network aims to build international cooperation and exchange of experience among social entrepreneurs. The network has 50 members from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Denmark and Sweden.

EU Fund Guardians provide the SEAL with the opportunity to participate in the Monitoring Sub-Committee “A More Social Europe” of the European Union Funds 2021- 2027 programming period and to work together with different ministries, to take part in discussions on investments.

BuySocial – the cooperation of many European countries in this project significantly raises awareness and cooperation opportunities between social and traditional enterprises. This means more successful and socially responsible partnerships.

B-Wise project ended in November 2024. For four years, European countries collected and analysed data on social entrepreneurs for labour integration and looked for ways to support them. During the project, the Latvian Samaritan Association obtained licences for three training programmes.

PODIMP project ended in April 2024. Its main objective was to use the podcast as a tool to create communication materials on the social impact of social entrepreneurs.

THANK YOU TO OUR MEMBERS, PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS! MAY 2025 BRING NEW OPPORTUNITIES!

Social tourism is inclusive for different groups of people and accessible to everyone. Since 2014, the discussions on the concept of social tourism have started and there were several attempts to introduce it in Latvia. Social entrepreneurs seem to be the most suitable to implement the concept of social tourism, however social entrepreneurship in the tourism and hospitality sector has only recently emerged. 

Social entrepreneurship is a type of business where the main objective is not to make a profit for business owners, but to solve a social problem or to create a benefit for society and to reduce the negative impact on the environment and disadvantaged communities. Social entrepreneurship is also increasingly developing in the regions of Latvia, and tourism is an area that has great potential for financial diversification of organisations, which is often one of the biggest challenges for businesses in the regions.

Tourism trends after Covid-19

The tourism industry is based on directing the flow of travellers and regulating their presence in specific places – tourist destinations. Tourism products are very diverse, both services and goods – they are unlimited in time and space. Business thrives where opportunities and an enabling environment are created. COVID 19 pandemic has had a major impact on the tourism industry and has changed the habits of tourists. Local tourism has been boosted, tourism services are becoming more specific and varied, and businesses are diversifying their products. This summer’s campaign “Visit Latvia’s Castles and Manors 2022” that was organised by the Latvian Association of Castles and Manors in cooperation with LIAA, shows that at the moment the most frequent travellers are families, couples and small groups of friends. International tourism has seen a decline in the share of group trips and in the markets generating tourists. In general, an increase of interest has been observed in nature tourism, individual experiences, including catering in non-traditional settings such as ‘Home Café Days’ or dinner on the lake. More and more people are thinking about health and health prevention measures. There is also a demand for masterclasses offering activities related to art, gastronomy, sports, spending time with loved ones and pets. There are many successful examples of animal therapy, allowing people to interact with trained dogs, horses and other pets.

Latvian social enterprises in tourism

Armands Muižnieks, a professional guide, lecturer at Turiba University and RSU, says that in one of the international conferences it was mentioned that the traveler society is changing from an information society to a dreamer society. Travelers are fascinated by sensations and adventures and less interested in information that is available to everyone. Latvian social enterprises such as “Emociju laboratorija” and “Glass Point ” offer previously mentioned masterclasses in the arts. The social enterprise “Brīvupes” in the municipality of Balvi offers animal therapy – canister therapy with dogs. The social enterprise “Nature horses” in Ķekava municipality offers experience with horses and promotes their welfare. This is also a time of opportunity for entrepreneurs from small tourist destinations in the regions, towns and countryside to create an offer that may not be their main source of income, but that can help to diversify and stabilize their income. Sometimes ideas are born by chance, adapting observations or examples seen on trips abroad. This year, a new social enterprise, “Kultūras tūrisms”, has started their activity, Indulis Bērziņš, the founder says:

“What I do is nothing new. The first Glemping came about a long time ago, when rich people brought luxury tents to sleep in the middle of nowhere in the desert. However, our niche is to be able to stay in places in Latvia where it hasn’t been possible before, and to be at the heart of great cultural places and people who are already successfully welcoming guests, just without overnight accommodation. This is a new offer in Latvia and possibly in the world.”

Current tourism trends also mean a distinctive tourism product targeted at a specific market segment – one that is not a mass tourism product. There is therefore great potential for tailor-made tourism services, such as a floating raft in a Finnish lake with facilities for wheelchair users to fish through holes drilled in the floor – just like ice fishing, with safety precautions. Muižnieks also mentions the example of how he and a wheelchair-using student from SIVA College thought about creating high beds for growing vegetables and spices so that wheelchair users could sow, plant, weed and harvest their own crops. Another successful Latvian example is the social enterprise “Visi var” in Sigulda, which both produces its own design and household goods, involving people with disabilities, and also sells the goods it produces. These include various themed candles, crockery, clothing and accessories, and could certainly be souvenirs of various tourist destinations if production is expanded.

Accessibility 

Accessible environment in general is of great importance – for example, in Liepāja, a blind guide Artūrs Līvmanis offers guided tours. As he says in an interview, “Liepaja has a good system of traffic lights and sound, as well as a public transport loudspeaker that announces the number and destination of the bus at each stop, so you can hear it outside.” Accessibility and universal design are issues that should be on the agenda of every tourism service. For tourism to thrive, there must be tourist attractions (man-made or natural), accessible environment (including easy-to-use transport systems) and adequate tourism infrastructure. This is an issue for many tourism destinations in different regions of Latvia and needs to be addressed. Once this is sorted out, operators will find ways to provide services. For example, the social enterprise “Difftravel” is already exploring accessibility and offering tours for people with mobility, visual or hearing impairments to appropriate locations in the Baltic States and plans to develop further destinations for trips abroad.

Social entrepreneurs have a much better understanding of social issues and where to develop tourism and hospitality services for different groups in society. For example, the social enterprise “Neredzmā pasaule” offers guided tours in the dark led by blind guides. Such specific services are one way of promoting public awareness and integration of people with disabilities. The most important aspect of such offers is that the service must comply with the principles of social entrepreneurship. The service must be safe, of good quality and accessible; it cannot be only a marketing slogan. Often entrepreneurs get carried away with the idea and forget that the interests of the client are the most important aspect of successfully selling the service. Competition in the tourism industry is high, so the quality of the service is important. The recipient of a service will not choose a service or product just because it is offered by a social enterprise. At the same time, it is important to explain to the general public why the results and impact of the work of social entrepreneurs is important, and sometimes the prices of the service may be higher – it is not profit for the owner, it has a higher added value.

Muižnieks also points out that on average it takes three years for a company to conquer a market and feel stable. It takes time and human resources to prepare and prioritise a tourism product, find partners, find sales channels, attract customers through social media, etc. Once a clear offer has been defined, it is necessary to involve sector or industry associations to find partners who can advise on marketing activities or implementation. In the tourism and hospitality sectors, cooperation plays an important role. In the tourism sector, help is available at national level from the LIAA Tourism Department, regional tourism associations, tourist information offices and centres, professional associations and business incubators.

This article was written in the framework of the project “Social Entrepreneurs for Tourism”, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Latvia.