Last week Africademics founder and director Lena Gronbach, our team member and career coach Thorsten Löffler, and representatives of seven other social businesses were invited to participate in the ‘Scale for Good‘ retreat by Social Impact gGmbH.
We spent four days at the ‘Alte Schule’ in the beautiful village of Stegelitz in Brandenburg, Germany, where we engaged in intense planning and strategy sessions, discussed ideas, shared experiences and – most importantly – learned from each other.
Guided by our two facilitators Milena Glimbovski and Bianca Zeller, and nourished by delicious locally-grown food prepared by 1a Gemüse, we took a deep dive into the challenges and opportunities of scaling our organizations and our impact. It was a wonderful opportunity to take some time out of our busy days to stop, reflect, re-group and plan ahead with more focus and clarity!
Topics covered in the workshops and discussions included:
- Scaling models for social impact organizations
- Peer-to-peer feedback on pressing questions and challenges
- Options for financing organizational growth
- Best practices for fundraising, impact investment and other financing strategies
- Navigating larger teams, onboarding and volunteer management
- Strategies for resilience, sustainable change and clear communication
- … and much more!
A big thank you to the Social Impact team organizing this great event, and to all the other participants and organizations for their inputs, stories, information and connections. The retreat was made possible by funding from the ESF Plus Programm ‘Nachhaltig Wirken’.
