EU-Supported COVID-19 Relief Fund

Within the scope of the project, Impact Hub Yerevan has announced a call for applications for the EU-Supported COVID-19 Relief Fund, which aims to support social enterprises in Armenia to overcome the negative impact of the pandemic and make them more resilient to similar crises in the future.

Social enterprises were invited to apply for projects with a budget between 3.5 million and 9 million AMD [approximately 5,640-14,510 EUR]. The average grant size for the EU-Supported COVID-19 Relief Fund is expected to be around 6.2 million AMD [10,000 EUR] but larger budgets could be considered based on the needs of the applicant as well as the social impact and profitability of the particular social enterprise. All activities funded have to take place/be implemented within the borders of the Republic of Armenia. 

Participants were asked to provide a budget where at least 20% will be directed to medium-to-long-term activities (resilience building), e.g. developing e-commerce, additional sales channels, new products/services. In order to qualify, entities had to be registered as CSOs/NGOs, Foundations, LLCs or Sole Proprietors, consider themselves to be social enterprises and match the definition of social enterprises as set by the European Union.

Qualified entities included those that were registered and/or operational in March 2020 as well as those that had planned to launch operations in early 2020 but whose plans were derailed because of COVID-19 and lockdown. The entity also needed to be registered at the time of application and operate within the Republic of Armenia.

Applicants were judged based on the following criteria. 

• Relevance of social mission (20%)
• The solution proposed by social enterprise and social impact to date (20%)
• Business model and financing to date, business forecast (20%)
• Budget figures and rationale (20%)
• Potential for scaling of social impact (20%) 

35 successful applicants received the whole grant amount upon signing the contract.