The Edmond de Rothschild Foundations
FR | EN 
RSS Facebook
 

ESSEC business school: Rothschild-Antropia “Scale Up”

Antropia is the first incubator for social entrepreneurs in France. The mandate of this unique incubator is to support the launch and development of innovative projects with a proven social, economic and environmental purpose.
While numerous initiatives may have tangible local outreach, scaling-up is a key challenge for social enterprises.

Based on this observation, the Foundations have partnered with ESSEC-Antropia to develop innovative, high-level coaching of social entrepreneurs to promote growth and replicability.

Top-level coaching for selected entrepreneurs

To maximize the impact of social enterprises, it is necessary to combine human training with financial investment. The Rothschild-Antropia program is groundbreaking in that it provides both financial assistance and coaching
to selected entrepreneurs for two years, including access to:

•  a senior expert in social entrepreneurship;
•  special advisors (tax, finance, strategy);
•  students and alumni of the Social Entrepreneurship Chair at ESSEC;
•  group training on all key issues related to the development of social 
   enterprises.

This program is also unique because it focuses on both the organization and its founder.

Leading social enterprises

As the Rothschild-Antropia Program identifies only the best in what is available in the “social market” for scaling-up, it has defined strict selection criteria, including:

•  significant and demonstrable social impact
•  a proven track-record in revenue-generation
•  outstanding potential for development and/or expansion
•  effective contribution to Social Return on Investment (SROI)

The promotion of sustainable and value-driven social entrepreneurship in France

The Rothschild-Antropia partnership can play a key role in supporting individual action and business-driven solutions to the ever-increasing challenges facing French society. Supporting these businesses nationally should help convince public authorities and civil society of the relevancy of social entrepreneurship as a valuable option going forward.

> Antropia: http://antropia.essec.fr/

2010-2011 Winners

  • Extramuros offers original creations made from recycled materials. The company employs people who are being reintegrated into the workforce and it benefits from the creative talents of a director who studied Italian design. Thanks to contracts entered into with major French businesses, Extramuros recycles, for example, used postal service bags, which are made into contemporary handbags, and transforms old wooden trestles into furniture.
  • Puerto Cacao currently operates two bars in Paris featuring fair chocolate. This company works at the interface between fair trade and social rehabilitation, making a double impact by improving the standard of living for small cocoa producers in Venezuela and by recruiting only employees from workplace reintegration programs in France.

2011-2012 winners

  • Farinez-vous is a traditional and socially-responsible bakery that serves baked goods and seasonal fare made with high-quality ingredients using a small-scale, local production chain.

  • MKT Sociétal operates secure call centers in detention centers, offering inmates employment and job-skills opportunities. Advantages to the program include wages 15% higher than regular prison rates, pay per hour rather than per call, presence of the MKT team inside detention centers, training development and funding by OSIRIS, a non-profit that helps inmates find work upon their release.

  • ATF Gaia is a disability-friendly company based in Moissy Cramayel, east of Paris. Its employees, 80% of whom are disabled, work to develop the company’s activities: recovery of IT equipment from businesses (recycling and reselling or disassembly), IT resource management (installation and onsite assistance, data migration and confidentiality management, and technical support).
  • Misericordia is an ethical luxury clothing line both designed and manufactured in a production studio in Peru, with a workforce of 45 people from underprivileged backgrounds who have no access to formal education. Misericordia clothing is sold in some 100 upscale boutiques in 20 countries including France (Colette, Le Bon Marché), Japan, the United States and Sweden.

  • Juratri is a social employment cooperative for the collection, sorting and disassembling of recyclable waste. Located in Jura, Juratri is the biggest social employment initiatives and one of the biggest employers in the Franche-Comté region.