Invest for Change

ANDREJA ROSANDIC - IMPACT EUROPE

Our Cooperating Partner during CEE4Impact Day (9th October, Budapest), bringing along a group of impact entrepreneurs and other stakeholders from the Western Balkan region.

Andreja Rosandic (Impact Europe) is currently launching Invest for Change, an EU funded project by DG ENEST implemented by Impact Europe and 6 partners  in the Western Balkans (Partners Albania, Foundation 787, Smart Kolektiv, ADP ZID, ARNO, Innovation Centre Kosovo). As they prepare to partake in the CEE4Impact Day in Budapest, Andreja shares some insights into the current state of development in these markets when it comes to impact investing, and how she sees the roadmap for further improvement.

One of the main challenges many NGOs face today is to balance their financial sustainability with their core mission to generate real-life impact. What do you consider to be the best strategies to find that sweet spot?

Discussions about development and impact often reduce sustainability to numbers—budget size, capital raised, or organizational scale. This view overlooks the true purpose of impact-driven initiatives. Sustainability is not simply about financial growth; it’s about maintaining resilience while staying true to a mission. In my experience, NGOs and social enterprises can lose their sense of purpose when fundraising becomes their primary focus. This transition is gradual, often unnoticed, until organizations prioritize numbers over impact, confusing financial expansion with genuine sustainability.

Financial resilience is essential—without stable resources, organizations cannot plan or deliver results. However, resilience should not come at the expense of purpose. When mission is compromised, financial stability loses its significance. The challenge is to design models where resources flow steadily and decisions remain anchored in core values.

From working with donor-funded projects, I’ve learned that sustainability strategies must be integrated from the start, not added as an afterthought. Real sustainability requires leaders to ask: what model will help us remain strong five or ten years from now, after donor funding ends?

This means sustainability is a continuous practice. Each new partnership, each project, each step into an emerging market asks the same question: does this choice strengthen both our resilience and our purpose? Sustainability becomes a living compass, guiding organizations through uncertainty, helping them balance ambition with integrity, and growth with authenticity.

It must be cultivated in everyday practice, not just stated in mission statements. In Central and Eastern Europe, I’ve seen how small decisions—governance models, partner selection—can either support or undermine long-term missions. These daily choices are as important as strategic plans.

When sustainability is understood this way, it resembles the steady building of an ecosystem rather than a race. Communities thrive when institutions are reliable. Entrepreneurs and NGOs earn trust by being principled and consistent, while investors gain confidence in systems where impact and resilience are intertwined.

In the Western Balkans, I have observed how fragile ecosystems can transform once trust and resilience are embedded. Social enterprises that start small and community-based often grow into regional leaders, precisely because they balance financial pragmatism with authentic commitment to their mission. Their sustainability is not measured by how fast they scale but by how consistently they deliver impact in contexts where resources are scarce.

Leaders carry a unique responsibility in shaping how sustainability is understood and practiced within their organizations. If leadership defines success purely in financial terms, teams and communities will inevitably follow that logic. But if leaders model a balance between resilience and purpose, sustainability becomes embedded in culture rather than treated as an external goal.

You mention the approach of building an ecosystem. What does that entail, and how does policy fit into that story?

Sustainability begins within organizations but is also shaped by policy and ecosystem support. In regions like Central and Eastern Europe, developing impact ecosystems requires more than internal models; NGOs and social enterprises need enabling policies, blended finance, and cross-border collaboration.

Through Invest for Change, Impact Europe and its Western Balkan partners provide funding, facilitate knowledge exchange, and build capacity within their network. This approach shows that sustainability is more than financial—it’s about establishing a shared infrastructure of trust, skills, and partnerships that endure beyond individual projects.

As such, true sustainability should not be seen as a solitary achievement of one NGO, one enterprise, or one investor. It is a collective journey. When organizations work together, share risks, and align their strategies, they become stronger together than they could ever be alone.

My mission is to contribute to this collective journey. I aim to strengthen the entire ecosystem so that social purpose and financial resilience reinforce each other. By building connections, fostering collaboration, and encouraging openness, I hope to help create a Europe where sustainability is understood as balance, not pursuit.

How would you describe the current state of development for social entrepreneurship in the CEE region?

Social entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe has evolved beyond early experiments. The field now has foundational elements—experienced teams, intermediaries, university programs, and public instruments—but is still building depth and continuity. The most successful actors act deliberately, choosing sustainable revenue models, using impact measurement for learning, and forming partnerships beyond single funding cycles. This approach creates organizations that can withstand policy changes and market turbulence.

A visible sign of maturation is the shift from project logic to enterprise logic. Founders increasingly design services for paying customers—municipalities, corporates, or communities—while keeping their social mission central. They seek capital that fits their values, not just any funding, ensuring resilience and purpose remain linked.

What, in your opinion, is needed to take the next step?

In my experience, attracting investors depends on risk clarity rather than flashy slogans. Investors need clear returns, realistic timelines, and evidence of social results. Blended finance instruments, such as first-loss guarantees and outcome-linked components, protect early movers and reward real results. Support for entrepreneurs, financial modeling capacity, and shared templates create coherence and shorten the path to investment.

The entrepreneurs themselves are drawn to momentum and meaning. Visibility matters, but not the performative kind. Regional showcases that foreground unit economics, customer traction, and verified impact create a culture where excellence is recognized and imitated. Cross-border cohorts help founders see that their markets are not limited to national borders and that partnerships can unlock scale without sacrificing proximity to community. The region’s talent—especially young people seeking purposeful work—responds to credible pathways: micro-credentials in impact skills, secondments across funds and enterprises, and mentorship that is practical, candid, and generous. When purpose-driven careers feel viable, the pipeline of entrepreneurs thickens, and the field accelerates without losing its soul.

Data sharing is another key lever. When organizations share anonymized deal terms and outcome data, they lower perceived risk and create a culture of open learning. In CEE, this transparency is essential infrastructure, showing investors a disciplined and caring market.

Ultimately, the CEE impact story is primed to advance by aligning capital with purpose, building lasting institutions, and valuing patience over speed. The region is ready for investment from partners who understand that durable impact comes from revenue logic, values-led leadership, and trusted communities.

Can you compare to situation in the Western Balkans, where you are currently initiating the EU-funded Invest for Change project?

The Western Balkans are at a different stage—newer and more fragile, but full of potential. Here, the ecosystem is a network of bridges: connecting NGOs and entrepreneurs, local authorities and impact funds, diaspora networks and local teams. Sustainability means continuity—organizations that persist, leaders who remain accessible, and partnerships that endure.

The most striking trend is the gravitational pull of EU alignment. As regulatory frameworks evolve and funding programs nudge collaboration, organizations find incentives to professionalize, measure outcomes, and build mixed revenue. This does not instantly create investable businesses, but it does create habits: documenting costs and unit economics; structuring contracts that pay for performance rather than activity; using digital tools to document beneficiary journeys. These habits are the scaffolding of investment readiness and the antidote to grant dependency.

That being said, the remaining challenges are real and cannot be simply wished away. Fragmentation diffuses effort. Talented young people still leave in large numbers. Local capital remains cautious, and the language of impact investing can feel distant from day-to-day realities. Yet even here, the sustainability lens provides direction. The answer is not to chase every funding window or to stretch mandates to fit external priorities. The answer is to make deliberate commitments and build patient capacity: to choose two or three service lines that communities value, to price them honestly, to document the results carefully, and to open the books to partners who might one day invest. This operational seriousness, repeated across dozens of organizations, changes the narrative from “promising potential” to “reliable counterparties.”

What other opportunities do you see for impact investing in regions like the Western Balkans?

Opportunities cluster wherever trust can be made tangible. Diaspora engagement, for instance, becomes potent when it moves from sentiment to structure: investment vehicles with clear governance, community projects that report outcomes with the same rigor as financials, mentorship programs that tie to concrete milestones rather than one-off visits. Similarly, green and digital transitions—so central to European policy—translate into investable propositions when costs and savings are mapped over time, when local authorities are part of solution design, and when beneficiaries see the benefit in their bills, their streets, and their skills. None of this requires spectacle; it requires credible partnerships that keep showing up.

Storytelling should highlight substance—organizations that deliver during crises, enterprises that train and place young people, and funds that support through challenges. These narratives attract investors willing to share risk and build local capacity.

Policy and ecosystem actors can accelerate progress by prioritizing continuity—multi-year agreements, technical assistance tied to real delivery, and regional platforms for collaboration. Trust accumulates when contracts are honored, investments respect missions, and partners measure what matters. Trust is the currency that transforms thin markets into durable ones.

If the CEE narrative is about making adolescence productive, the Western Balkans narrative is about establishing a dependable rhythm. The goal is not to imitate others but to build authentic communities, honest pricing, and resilient coalitions. This aligns with the sustainability ethic: aligning money with mission, programs with evidence, and ambition with patience.

Together, CEE’s maturing entrepreneurship and the Western Balkans’ bridge-building ecosystem suggest a coherent path. Social impact in this region will grow as actors prioritize balance, depth, and shared infrastructure. Investors and entrepreneurs will be drawn not by loud pitches, but by trusted partners, measurable progress, and markets where resilience and purpose move together.

ANDREA ROSANDIC

Cooperating Partner at this year's CEE4Impact Day

Join us on the 9th October!

Details HERE