Our Future Foundation and SIBUR will hold an intensive educational course for social entrepreneurs
18 june 2021
On June 18 through 20, the Our Future Foundation and SIBUR''s Formula for Good Deeds social investment program will hold an intensive educational course for social entrepreneurs in Tobolsk. This is a follow-on to the PROCity program that has been running in Tobolsk since 2019 with the company's support.
The three-day intensive course will include educational lectures and master classes on the fundamentals of doing business, as well as business games that will allow entrepreneurs to take a new look at their own business models and find ideas to help them overcome their current challenges and take their business to the next level. On the final day of the course, its participants will be presenting the results of their work done as part of this acceleration program.
The class will be moderated by Pavel Mikhailov, an entrepreneur with 10 years of experience and a tracker who has more than 4,000 hours of consulting on clients’ businesses, and Evgeny Tsarkov, an expert in IT product management, Internet marketing, and business development.
The intensive three-day educational course in Tobolsk is one of the phases of the Growth Formula acceleration program that was developed specifically for social entrepreneurs by the Our Future Foundation and by SIBUR.
The goal of Growth Formula is not just to teach entrepreneurs the basics of conducting a successful business, but also to create a community of professionals. Our platform brings together entrepreneurs who are on the same wavelength, who are really eager to help address social challenges, who face similar problems as they try to implement their projects. Through direct interactions with guest experts and their colleagues in the field, the participants get to know new partners and learn new ideas for their subsequent development, and sometimes discover unexpected solutions for their businesses, Natalia Zvereva, director of the Our Future Foundation, notes.
Since 2019, SIBUR has supported more than 20 initiatives of small and medium enterprises and social entrepreneurship organizations based in Tobolsk. For several years, the company has been successfully carrying out its Sustainable Development Strategy in the regions where it conducts its operations, and in doing so, it has been paying particular attention to supporting social partnerships with various public and non-profit institutions. One of the Strategy’s objectives is to start a separate focus area within the Company’s Formula for Good Deeds program that would concentrate on developing social entrepreneurship initiatives. The list of effective tools that could be used to fulfil this objective includes developing and implementing dedicated business acceleration programs, conducting intensive educational programs and courses, and running anti-crisis marathons. This year, we will focus on identifying and expounding on entrepreneurs’ initiatives in a situation where new challenges require us to transform and create more comfortable urban environments for our residents and tourists, Elena Belskaya, Head of Government Relations at ZapSibNeftekhim LLC, said.
The Growth Formula program seeks to promote accelerated and quality development of social entrepreneurs’ businesses while scaling up and magnifying the social effect of their efforts. Participation in the acceleration program is free, but the class of trainees was put together on the basis of a competitive selection.
Background information:
Our Future, the Foundation for Regional Social Programs is a non-profit organization with a mission to promote and effect positive social change by investing resources and knowledge in the development of social entrepreneurship. The Foundation for Regional Social Programs Our Future was established in 2007 to implement long-term socially relevant programs and projects where the principles of social entrepreneurship can be successfully applied. Further details about the program are available on our official website at http://www.nb-fund.ru/.
Social entrepreneurship is defined as a business activity seeking to achieve socially beneficial goals while also contributing to addressing social challenges affecting citizens and society at large.
The Formula for Good Deeds, SIBUR's social investment program was launched on February 1, 2016, in all key cities where the company has a presence. It has been focusing on six key areas that address the most important social issues such as urban development, education and science, sports and healthy living, environmental protection, culture, and volunteering. For more information about the program, please visit www.formula-hd.ru.
The PROGorod Program, implemented with SIBUR’s support in 2019, was designed to promote comprehensive development of the social entrepreneurship community of Tobolsk and Tobolsk District. As part of this program, a special educational course on social entrepreneurship was organized for city and district residents, along with a contest of projects. Over 70 applications were entered for consideration by the contest commission, out of which 10 projects were supported in areas associated with children’s education and development, healthy living, museum-related activities, and sports, for a total investment amount of over 1.7 million rubles. As a result of the PROCity Program’s implementation in 2019, 24 new jobs were created (13 of them for people with disabilities) and more than 32,500 social services to the local residents were rendered. The program helped the residents of Tobolsk to better understand the nuances of social entrepreneurship, and identify new opportunities and niches for business development while also assisting them with creating their own projects in the social field.