What the UK’s Impact Economy Can Teach CEE – and Why We Need Our Own Report

János Csébfalvi
8 hours ago
3 min read

In 2026, New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) published Impact UK: The size and story of our impact economy 2026, a landmark digital report that does something deceptively simple but profoundly powerful: it makes the impact economy visible.

By systematically mapping and estimating the size of the UK’s impact economy, the report shows that impact is not a niche or fringe activity. On the contrary, NPC estimates the UK impact economy at £428 billion in gross value added – around 15% of UK GDP (Impact UK 2026, pp. 10–13). This figure alone challenges long-held assumptions about where value is created and how social and environmental benefit fits into “the economy”.

For those of us working in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the report is both inspiring — and slightly uncomfortable. Because while many of the same impact-driven activities exist across our region, we simply do not yet have a comparable, shared evidence base.

What makes the Impact UK report so valuable?

The strength of the Impact UK report lies not just in the headline numbers, but in its methodological transparency and ecosystem-wide approach.

The report:

Defines the impact economy as an ecosystem of organisations, individuals, and capital intentionally prioritising public benefit over private gain (p. 8).
Splits the economy into regulated (e.g. charities, universities, housing associations, CICs) and self-regulated (e.g. impact-led businesses) segments (pp. 9–11).
Openly discusses data gaps and methodological challenges, especially when identifying impact-led businesses and working across legal forms (Appendix, p. 46).
Combines quantitative estimates with qualitative case studies, showing how philanthropy, enterprises, and investors interact in practice.

Crucially, NPC frames the report as “a start, rather than an end point”, explicitly inviting critique, refinement, and contributions from across the ecosystem (p. 8). That openness is part of what makes it credible — and useful.

The CEE reality: impact exists, evidence does not (yet)

In CEE, many of the same building blocks are present:

Social enterprises and impact-led businesses
Active foundations and philanthropists
EU-driven ESG and sustainability regulation
Growing interest from private investors and family offices

Yet the region faces structural challenges that make an Impact-UK-style report much harder to produce:

Lack of consistent data. Data is fragmented across countries, registries, and legal forms. In many cases, impact-relevant data is either unavailable, not digitised, or not comparable across borders.
Different legal and institutional systems. Unlike the UK, CEE does not operate within a single regulatory and statistical framework. National charity laws, company forms, and reporting requirements vary widely.
Language barriers. Unlike English-language datasets and research, CEE impact activity is documented in multiple local languages, limiting visibility and cross-border learning.
Methodological gaps. There is no shared regional agreement on definitions, proxies, or methodologies for identifying “impact-led” organisations — a challenge the UK report itself openly acknowledges, even in a more mature ecosystem.
Underrepresentation in European narratives. Without data and stories, CEE risks remaining invisible in European and global impact discussions — reinforcing the false idea that impact is “imported” rather than locally rooted.

Why a CEE impact economy report would matter

A CEE-wide impact economy report would not be about copying the UK model. It would be about creating a shared reference point that reflects regional realities.

Such a report could:

Make the economic relevance of impact visible to policymakers and investors
Support capital mobilisation by reducing perceived risk
Strengthen regional identity and collaboration
Enable better policy design grounded in evidence
Showcase CEE-specific innovation, resilience, and case studies

Just as importantly, it would help answer a simple but powerful question:

“If impact is already happening — why don’t we talk about it as part of our economy?”

A call to build this together

The Impact UK report was not created by a single institution. It was built through collaboration between researchers, practitioners, funders, and policymakers.

If we want something similar for CEE, the same principle applies.

Our call to action:

Share case studies from across the region
Contribute ideas and methodologies that could work in multi-country contexts
Highlight best practices in data collection, measurement, and storytelling
Challenge assumptions about what “counts” as impact