How We Helped 6000 Social-Impact Organisations Shape Policy

When the European Commission realised it lacked hard data on the social-economy sector, it didn’t ask for another anecdotal white paper—it wanted a census. Our mixed team of econometricians and ethnographers designed a “knowledge harvest” that mapped 6 000 co-ops, mutuals, and purpose-driven SMEs. Instead of a one-size survey, we analysed all their anecdotal evidence from a 3 day summit and conducted deep-dive interviews to capture everything from capital structure to community trust.

What we found surprised policymakers: growth bottlenecks weren’t capital access but missing secondary markets for mission-locked equity and patchy board skills. Those insights became the backbone of the Social-Economy Action Plan now steering multi- billion in targeted instruments. For local actors, the census unlocked a common language; for Brussels, it de-risked regulation by grounding debates in evidence rather than ideology.

Why it matters – rigorous field scans compress years of “coffee chats” into actionable market maps, letting capital flow sooner and with far fewer blind spots.