enterability has provided tailored start-up consulting for people with severe disabilities who wish to start a business or who are already self-employed, as general entrepreneurship training programmes are often not adequately able to assist these entrepreneurs. The programme has been offered by the Berlin Integration Office (Integrationsfachdienst) since 2013, having been established by Social Impact gGmbH in 2004. 

SINGA is a non-governmental organisation that offers pre-incubation, incubation and acceleration programmes as well as support programmes to newly arrived immigrants and local residents with a project related to migration. The programme offers individual follow-up and group workshops to help entrepreneurs develop the foundations of their project and find the type of support best suited to their needs. Participants who wish to pursue additional opportunities have access to resources and tools, including taking additional courses to improve their language skills. 

The action plan "More female entrepreneurs for small and medium-sized enterprises” (Der Aktionsplan Mehr Unternehmerinnen für den Mittelstand) was developed as part of an initiative by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) for “Women in SMEs Crafts, Foundations and Start-ups” with the aim to increase the number of women entrepreneurs. It is the result of a partnership-based intensive co-operation between five federal ministries and 27 stakeholders that included associations, networks and scientific institutions.

Social Entrepreneurship Network Deutschland e.V. (SEND) was founded in 2017 as an association to represent the interests of the social enterprises in Germany. It is a national network of social enterprises that provides social enterprises with a voice to advocate for policy, financial support mechanisms and increase awareness about social entrepreneurship among policy makers, within the mainstream economy and civil society. Given the absence of a German federal structure administering social entrepreneurship, in 2016 SEND began as the first working group at the federal level as Federal Association of German Start-ups (Bundesverband Deutsche Startups eV). To create awareness on social enterprises, SEND wrote a position paper for German policy makers using inputs from over 200 social enterprises. Ever since, SEND became a structured network representing the interests of over 700 members across Germany.

SEND connects social entrepreneurs with the policy makers at the federal and the sub-national levels and helps develop position papers for the social entrepreneurship ecosystem in Germany. Thanks to SEND, numerous social entrepreneurship actors across Germany can now collaborate with political actors to tackle problems and drive forward policy developments.

The New Start-Up Subsidy (Gründungszuschuss) is a national welfare bridge scheme that supports the unemployed in business creation. It offers financial support to unemployed people in creating a business as an alternative method to moving back into work. The subsidy covers basic costs of living and social security contributions during the initial stages of start-up to increase the chances of new venture survival.

The ‘NEnA’ scheme provides training, coaching and mentoring for female scientists in nano technology fields who are involved in starting up a business. After the women go through a screening of their competences and start-up potential, interdisciplinary teams of founders are formed who then develop their business idea during the programme.

The bundesweite gründerinnenagentur (BGA) is a federal agency that acts as a Germany-wide one-stop shop for information and support services for women entrepreneurs. Its objectives are to (i) gather information and offer female-specific support services in all sectors and at all stages of business development; (ii) develop women’s entrepreneurship networks; (iii) promote women’s entrepreneurship role models; and (iv) promote an entrepreneurial culture among women and society.

The BGA supports the entrepreneurial self-employment of women in order to mobilise the potential of women in industry and the market. The major objectives are to
(i) gather information and offer female-specific support services in all sectors and at all stages of business development;
(ii) develop women’s entrepreneurship networks;
(iii) promote women’s entrepreneurship role models; and
(iv) promote an entrepreneurial culture among women and society.

FASE is a financial intermediary providing hybrid financing to social enterprises. It uses a highly tailored, “deal-by-deal” approach in order to design innovative financing schemes that match the needs of social enterprises and impact investors. The main objective of FASE is to mobilise growth capital for early-stage social enterprises to enable them to scale their impact.