- History .

We are proud of the partnerships we have established and the initiatives we have started or been a part of. At the very beginning of our work, in September 2010, we were one of the partners of the Erste Foundation in the organization of the "Social Business Tour" program in Belgrade. "Social Business Tour" is a joint initiative of Erste Foundation, Erste Group, "good.bee Credit" financial institution and Gramin creative laboratory, under the auspices of Professor Muhamed Yunus, aimed at promoting the concept.

During 2010 and 2011, we implemented the first joint project "Professional support program for the improvement of the business of social enterprises", within the program "Employment and migration of young people" of four United Nations agencies (UNDP, ILO, UNICEF and IOM) in cooperation with national and to local partners, with the financial support of the Spanish Fund for Achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG F). The idea of the program was to provide already started solidarity enterprises with professional support and thus improve their business, as well as to identify and promote examples of practice in order to serve as an incentive for others to start similar initiatives.

We invested our greatest efforts in the promotion of solidarity and social economy and social entrepreneurship. We worked with young people during 2013 as part of the "Innovative" project, with the support of Solidar Suisse - Office in Belgrade. Our goal was to promote the inclusion of young people in social entrepreneurial initiatives. We worked with young people and with decision makers in local communities. A publication on social entrepreneurship was created for the purposes of the project. During 2013 and 2014, we worked on bringing the concept of social and solidarity economy closer to the widest possible circle of interested individuals and groups in Serbia by editing and distributing newsletters on social entrepreneurship. The newsletter was published with the support of the TASCO office in Serbia (Technical support for civil society organizations).

We started our advocacy activities in 2012, when decision-makers in Serbia began to take an interest in the potential of solidarity entrepreneurship, primarily in the employment of various marginalized groups, the Coalition is actively involved in the discussion of public policies. We were members of the working groups for the drafting of the Law on Social Entrepreneurship and we advocate for the adoption of a comprehensive policy that would holistically respond to the needs of the sector.

During 2019, we initiated an intensive consultation process with all interested parties in order to offer a comprehensive law on social entrepreneurship. As a result of that process, an ex-ante analysis of the social entrepreneurship sector and a proposal for the Law on Social Entrepreneurship were created by civil society with the support of the Prime Minister's Office, the Republic Secretariat for Public Policy, the Team for Poverty Reduction and Social Inclusion and the German Development Cooperation (GIZ ). The law has been sent to the line ministry and its consideration is expected in the following period.

We were also active at the regional and European level. Motivated and based on the Strasbourg Declaration, which defines priorities and recommendations for the action of European Union institutions in the development of social entrepreneurship, in early 2014 we prepared a regional declaration with which we wanted to encourage the development of national public policies on solidarity entrepreneurship in the countries of the Western Balkans and Turkey. Together with representatives of civil society organizations from the region, on March 14, 2014, we signed the "Belgrade Declaration on the Development of Social Entrepreneurship in the Region of the Western Balkans and Turkey." The declaration was signed by more than 450 organizations from the region, which was a significant step for gathering wider support and achieving the legitimacy of the initiative, which aims to propose measures to national, regional and European institutions to improve the national and regional framework for solidarity entrepreneurship and include the region in all European policies and initiatives in the field of solidarity entrepreneurship. Support in that process was provided by the Team of the Deputy Prime Minister for Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction (SIPRU) and the TACSO office in Serbia. As part of this initiative, the first regional network for the development of social entrepreneurship - Social Entrepreneurship Forum - was formed. In addition to us, as representatives of Serbia, the founders of the network are: Partners Albania, Center for Change and Conflict Management (Albania), Mozaik Foundation (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Center for Institutional Development - CIRA (Macedonia), Forum for Civic Initiatives - FCI ( Kosovo), Fund for Active Citizenship - fAKT (Cma Gora), Third Sector Foundation of Turkey - TUSEV (Turkey). The goal of the network is to indicate the steps that must be taken for the development of the solidarity economy as a relevant model for the socially sustainable development of the entire region and to advocate with the EU institutions that the Balkan countries become part of the EU strategies for the development of social entrepreneurship.