Help and FAQ

  1. What is Social Entrepreneurship?
  2. How do we select the social enterprises for Sosense?
  3. What amount of your donation reaches the social enterprise?
  4. How can you support a social enterprise
  5. Where can you see your donations
  6. How to request a donation receipt
  7. How to get information on the impact of your donation?
  8. What are impact vouchers?
  9. How to purchase impact vouchers?
  10. How to redeem an impact voucher?
  11. How to open a user account?
  12. What are the advantages of opening a user account?
  13. How to raise awareness for your social enterprise?

1 What is Social Entrepreneurship

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS are people that tackle large-scale social and environmental problems by creating and implementing innovative and sustainable solutions. Their success is measured not by how much profit they generate but how much social impact/value they create.

SOCIAL ENTERPRISES are organizations created by social entrepreneurs to achieve their social mission. These enterprises can be non-profits or for-profits and they apply market-based strategies.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP refers to the approach and work of social entrepreneurs.

2 How do we select the social enterprises for Sosense?

We have an efficient and scalable approach to ensure the quality of the social enterprises that are listed on the Sosense-Platform. Our main focus is on international social enterprises but Sosense, being a Swiss platform, also lists Swiss-based social enterprises.

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
We select social entrepreneurs from a universe of vetted and award-winning social enterprises that have already gone through a rigorous due diligence by established and trusted organizations in the space of social entrepreneurship. These organizations are:

  • Ashoka, Innovators of the Public
  • Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship
  • The Skoll Foundation
  • LGT Venture Philanthropy

SWISS-BASED SOCIAL ENTERPRISES
We select Swiss social enterprises from:

  • the universe of vetted and award-winning social enterprises
  • winners and runner-ups of competitions in Switzerland such as the Schwab Foundation’s Social Entrepreneur of the Year, Venture Kick and the Hub Fellows
  • organizations that have been supported by Avina Stiftung
  • organizations that can present to Socential the PwC Social Enterprise Due Diligence evaluation report

Donors will be able to see for each of the social enterprises on sosense.org the organization(s) that have conducted a due diligence. These are shown in the impact opportunity page of the social enterprise under “trusted by”.

3 What amount of your donation reaches the social enterprise?

Sosense acts as mediator between the donors and the social enterprises. It is our aim to minimize fundraising costs and maximize efficiency. We strive to achieve this with the help of an online platform, standardized processes and with our high awareness for cost efficiency.
For the management and development of the Sosense platform we charge a 10% service fee from donations. (this excludes transaction costs i.e. credit card charges and bank transfer fees)
The service fee is used to cover part of our costs which include:

  • Development and maintenance of the platform
  • Evaluation and listing of social enterprises
  • Managing payment procedure
  • Marketing activities to raise awareness of the social enterprises

4 How to support a social enterprise?

  1. Click on “Make an Impact”
  2. Browse through the impact opportunities or search/filter the selection of social enterprises by country and/or category in which you would like to support.
  3. Look into the selected social enterprises and their impact.
  4. Choose the social enterprise you wish to support.
  5. Support the enterprise with an amount of your choice. Pay either by credit card or if the donation amount is above CHF1‘000 (for Swiss residents) you can order a payment slip.
  6. If you have an impact voucher you can click on “Redeem Voucher“and support the social enterprise with the value of your impact voucher.

5 Where can you see your donations?

If you have a user account and are logged in you can click on “Dashboard” and you will see a tab “My Impact” where you can see at any given time all the donations that you have made (to which organizations, by which amount and when).

6 How to request a donation receipt?

If you have a user account and are logged in you can click on “Dashboard” and then “My Impact” where you will see all the donations you have made. You can order your donation receipts for tax exemption at any time by contacting admin@sosense.org
You will not be able to receive a donation receipt for any impact vouchers you have redeemed but not purchased.

7 How to get information on the impact of your donation?

In compliance with the terms and condition the social enterprises are obliged to deliver a regular report on the Sosense platform about their activities. You can find these updates by clicking on “updates” on the profile of any given organisation.
If you have a user account you have the option to receive regular updates automatically. Click on “follow organisation” and you will be getting information about any new updates in the “news” section on the dashboard.

8 What are impact vouchers?

The Sosense impact voucher is an innovative and fun gift for friends, family, clients, employees, and partners, in other words, for anyone that is important to you or your company. The impact voucher can be adapted (depending on the purchased amount) to reflect your corporate identity.
The recipient of the impact voucher can support an organisation of his/her choice and help to create a sustainable impact.

9 How to purchase impact vouchers?

You can purchase impact vouchers on the Sosense platform from the home page. Click on “purchase impact voucher”. Enter the purchase order/quantity and the required information. Pay with your credit card. If you are a Swiss resident and if your purchase is above CHF 1'000 you can also order a payment slip.

10 How to redeem impact vouchers?

  1. Click on “Make an impact“.
  2. Browse through the impact opportunities or search/filter the selection of social enterprises by country and/or category in which you would like to support.
  3. Look into the selected social enterprises and their impact.
  4. Choose the social enterprise you wish to support.
  5. Click on “redeem impact voucher” to support the social enterprise of your choice with the value of your voucher.

11 How to open an user account?

Opening an account is free of charge. To open a user account just click on “Sign In” (on the top right of the page). Then fill in your data.
Please note that you can choose a “public” or “private” profile.

  • PRIVATE PROFILE: If you opt for a “private profile”, all of your activities/donations will remain anonymous.
  • PUBLIC PROFILE: If you choose a “public profile” you have the option of making your activities public on the Sosense platform. With every new donation you make you can decide if you want to make it public or private. In order to register your own social enterprise you need a “public profile”.

You can edit your profile at any given time (dashboard/my profile/my account).

12 What are the advantages of opening a user account?

You do not need a user account in order to support a social enterprise by a donation or an impact voucher. Yet, having a user account can work to your advantage:

  • FULL OVERVIEW OF YOUR DONATION ACTIVITIES: If you have a user account and are logged in you can click on “dashboard/my impact” at any given time in order to review and follow up on which organisation you have supported when and with what amount and how many impact vouchers you have purchased.
  • DONATION RECEIPT UPON REQUEST: If you are in Dashboard/My impact you can order a donation receipt any time by contacting admin@sosense.org
  • GET INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR PREFERRED SOCIAL ENTERPRISES: If you have a user account you have the possibility of receiving information about any updates automatically. Click on “follow this organisation”. If you are logged in you will receive automated updates (dashboard/news).

13 How to raise awareness for a social enterprise?

The Sosense platform works with a variety of social media tools. This allows you to recommend social enterprises you consider especially worthy of your trust and support to friends and colleagues.

  • FACEBOOK: Click on “I Like” to recommend the social enterprise to your friends.
  • E-MAIL: Click on “E-Mail“to recommend the social enterprise to one or more contacts via e-mail.
  • TWITTER: Click on „Twitter“to recommend the social enterprise to your twitter contacts.

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