Latest updates

We are proud to share the highlights from our community and offerings over the last 2 years. We also mention the initiatives dear to our Hub hearts that we delivered in response to the fallouts of Covid-19. In this report, you can read about how we live our purpose and values as an impact business, as well as the impact we have made with our community through our thematic ecosystems to entrepreneur change in food, circularity, fashion, and inclusion.

In three months, these startups will finetune their business plan, strengthen their entrepreneurial skills, and expand their impact business network. Meet the new batch startups that joined our themed edition of Business Model Challenge (BMC) focusing on inclusion!

In three months, these startups will finetune their business plan, strengthen their entrepreneurial skills, and expand their impact business network. Meet the new batch startups that joined our twentieth Business Model Challenge (BMC)!

We interviewden drie belangrijke spelers binnen de textielsector die hebben bijgedragen aan een circulaire modeketen en bespraken wat er nodig is om het circulaire ecosysteem van de provincie Noord-Holland te versterken.

The Investment Ready Program, whose main partner is ING Netherlands Foundation, is our five-month accelerator for circular impact entrepreneurs with scalable solutions to global problems. We guide a cohort of selected participants through a systematic review of their business strategy, model, and team before they craft a validated growth and investment plan. We do this to help them attract the right investor and secure funding that matches their growth ambitions. This year, the Investment Ready Program went international!

Soup that combats food waste and elderly loneliness, a gallery for artists with a psychological vulnerability, and serving boards made from the reclaimed wood of locally felled trees. These are just three of the 27 participants of Boost je Buurt (Dutch for Boost Your Neighbourhood), an initiative of Amsterdam Impact, the City of Amsterdam’s impact entrepreneurship programme.

Om impact entrepreneurs te helpen om hun veerkracht te versterken hebben Impact Hub Amsterdam, Goldschmeding Foundation en Amsterdam Impact het RE:SILIENCE-programma ontwikkeld en eind 2020 aangeboden aan ruim 20 circulaire ondernemers. Het programma bestond uit een combinatie van peer-to-peer intervisiesessies, masterclasses over businessmodellen, sales, growth hacking, finance en team, en individuele mentorgesprekken. We verzamelden de vier belangrijkste lessen rondom veerkracht die naar voren kwamen uit het programma.

Last summer, we published our research into how COVID-19 affected impact entrepreneurs in the food sector. Up next, the follow-up! How are they now and what happened in the meantime?

As Impact Hub Amsterdam turns 12, we’ve decided to make some changes to unleash its higher potential. Our vision, when we started in 2008, was ambitious: a radically better world. In 2020 we take a stand for a fully green and inclusive economy, and draw from our long-standing work with innovators to collectively pioneer change in the mainstream: Impact Hub Amsterdam’s new level of ambition is born.

The Impact the Food Chain Accelerator, part of our Food Ecosystem, is a 5-month program growth programme for impact entrepreneurs who work on the transition to a more sustainable food system. For the 2020 edition, we selected 10 startups that focus on shorter and fairer value chains or sustainable (alternative) food products.

Iron Roots© was founded in 2017, by Ashkan, Stefan & Erik, three friends that were fed up with the fact that more than 90% of all sportswear was made from plastics. When they didn't find a good alternative, they decided to take matters in our own hands.

In 2015, the City of Amsterdam and Impact Hub Amsterdam started a relationship to share ideas, networks, actions and reflections to make the city’s growing social entrepreneurship ecosystem more explicit and better equipped. We are pleased to share what our partnership has accomplished and what we have learned.

Joost de Kluijver is al een lange tijd werkzaam in de mobiele telefonie sector. De telefoon is een icoon geworden van technologische vooruitgang, stelt hij. Met zijn bedrijf Closing the Loop voorkomt Joost dat telefoons na een aantal jaar trouwe dienst op de vuilnisbelt terechtkomen.

For the fourth edition of our SDG Meetup series, organised with C-Change and SDG House, we explored gender equality, which aims to empower all women and girls around the world.

The Investment Ready Program, whose main partner is ING Netherlands Foundation, is our five-month accelerator for circular impact entrepreneurs with scalable solutions to global problems. We guide a cohort of selected participants through a systematic review of their business strategy, model, and team before they craft a validated growth and investment plan. We do this to help them attract the right investor and secure funding that matches their growth ambitions. Read on to meet the IRP alumni of 2020!

As we get closer to the lucky 13th edition of our Business Model Challenge (BMC) accelerator, which already helped 270 startups develop a better business model, here’s what you can learn from the top 3 finalists of the previous BMC edition.

In 2015, the City of Amsterdam and Impact Hub Amsterdam started a relationship to share ideas, networks, actions and reflections to make the city’s growing social entrepreneurship ecosystem more explicit and better equipped. As we reflect on three years of collaboration, we are pleased to share what our partnership has accomplished and what we have learned.

You can’t deny it: the circular economy is booming. De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek is our partner and gives Impact Hub members and program participants legal advice in setting up or running an impact business.

We investigated how impact entrepreneurs in the food sector and their stakeholders were affected by the COVID-19 crisis and identified interventions that can accelerate the transition to a sustainable food system.

The Young Impactmakers community hosted a Sustainable Travels event and invited impact-driven enterprises to pitch their ideas on environmentally and socially responsible ways of travelling.

Impact Hub Amsterdam, Amsterdam Impact (the City of Amsterdam’s impact entrepreneurship programme) and ABN AMRO organised a 5-day digital soft-landing visit to Berlin for 6 sustainable food companies looking to expand into the German market.

In this special SDG Meetup, we explored inclusion from the same plural perspective, through the lenses of SDG 5: Gender Equality, SDG 10: Reduce Inequality and SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. Keep reading to find out how Klabu, WelcomeApp and Meer Vrouwen in de Politiek (Dutch for ‘More Women in Politics’) contribute to achieving one or more of these SDGs.

Impact the Food Chain Accelerator, part of our Food Ecosystem, is a 5-month program for impact entrepreneurs who work on the transition to a more sustainable food system. For the 2019 edition, we selected 12 startups that focus on shorter and fairer value chains, circularity against food waste, or sustainable (alternative) products.

Originally founded as ‘The Hub’ in 2005 in a 4th floor reclaimed space in London's Islington, Impact Hub has grown bottom up into a global ecology of social innovation communities across 50 countries. Read about its early years!

The inspiration to write this article is based on a series of experiences spanning the co-building of our Impact Hub in Amsterdam, working with TILT to host a collaborative space design process with Impact Hub Siracusa, witnessing the evolution of Elos Institute’s work with the Oasis Game in (re-)building neighbourhoods, and a community conversation in (previously existing) Impact Hub Seattle exploring “How can we together create a collaborative, inspired, and connected place that will powerfully support and accelerate our entrepreneurial work, our collective impact and our mutual success?” These events - coupled with my work in community-building in diverse settings and cultures - have led me to see collaborative space-making as a living process and practice much needed in our places.

Business plays a significant role in driving societal evolution. It provides livelihood support for billions, fuels progress, and offers a way to freedom and independence. Social enterprises attempt to put purpose at the core of business endeavors for a better result on people, planet, and profit. However, no business is safe from risk. Today, many businesses are bumping up against hardship as they continue to be informed by outdated economic paradigms and run with strained management practices even as they face increased competition. When the inevitable challenges surface for social enterprises, do they honor their purpose or default to economic imperatives?

We have all experienced the messiness of collaboration: the divergent perspectives that we wonder how to marry, the many coloured post-its that litter the walls having grown out of their intended organised-by-cluster layering, the agreed action steps that lost original inspiration as soon as the group re-encountered the everyday life of email and phone calls. What makes collaboration worth it?

Social entrepreneurs and governments speak different languages. However, understanding each other is essential to achieve quality of life through the businesses we start, grow and scale.

On November 2014 at Impact Hub Amsterdam, 30 civil servants, politicians and social entrepreneurs were brought together for a two-part innovation lab - named the Societal Renewal Lab - where a dedicated group with diverse perspectives was invited to take a deeper dive into understanding the system constraints that get in the way of collaboration around shared goals for a healthier society. We focused on the question: How can we create an enabling environment for social enterprising?