The person you are reading

I am Stefan Chichevaliev, and I work at the point where the social economy, business, and academia meet, three worlds that share goals and often speak different languages.

By role, I am Founder and Executive Director of SENIC, a Brussels-based consultancy that helps social and sustainable enterprises design, fund, and measure their impact. We write proposals and build consortia for EU-funded projects, design policy and programmes for public institutions, and measure impact for organisations that want their numbers to mean something. I am also Professor of Social Entrepreneurship at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where my research looks at entrepreneurship ecosystems, innovation, and the conditions under which sustainable ventures move from local pilots to structural change.

Fifteen years in business development and thirteen building companies taught me one thing the sector rarely says out loud. Profit is not the enemy of the mission. It is what funds it. The refusal to make money is what keeps impact work small, fragile, and dependent on grants that may or may not arrive.

That is what this newsletter is about. Once a month, one argument, in my own voice, on getting funded without becoming grant-dependent, building organisations that last, and measuring impact that survives scrutiny. Some of it is what I am learning as I build SENIC and Atlas. Some of it is what I get wrong.

It is not a how-to series. It is the argument underneath the how-to, from someone still in the work.

If that is your world too, subscribe. I would like to hear what you are building.

— Profit, on purpose.