The extent of the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is, frankly, bewildering. For us at Yunus Social Business, both as individuals and as an organisation, 2020 was a year that posed huge challenges.
In the midst of these setbacks, one thing has brought us particular encouragement: through our partnerships with our funders, through our collaboration with our portfolio social businesses and through teamwork with our remarkable colleagues and team members, we have been able to carry out work which has shown us that we are an organisation that lives up to its mission and remains true to its purpose.
Discover more in our 2020 Annual Report.

For us, COVID-19 has made clearer than ever the importance of social businesses within our societies and economies throughout the world. How many times have we heard about “building back better” or increased focus on “stakeholder capitalism”? Social businesses represent the better, more inclusive capitalism that we all want to see, and businesses great and small throughout the world have a huge amount to learn from them.
Going forward, we at Yunus Social Business will continue to do everything in our power to finance and support these game-changing social businesses and bring more attention to them, as they deserve. At the same time, we will continue to work with corporations and support them in learning best practices from the fantastic social-business entrepreneurs in our portfolio and beyond.

Every week, through March, YSB’s new CEO Jana Lessenich will ask one of our female social business entrepreneurs questions about leadership and their lives. Stay tuned to this space to read their inspiring insights!

What are Social Intrapreneur programs, and how do organisations build them? Is there a route to a post-COVID future where corporations are accelerating social innovation by empowering their own employees?

Neben der Digitalisierung müssen sich Unternehmen der „social disruption“ stellen. Unsere Gründerin Saskia Bruysten ist überzeugt: Wer einen positiven Beitrag zur Gesellschaft nicht bald als Teil seines Kerngeschäfts versteht, ist bald weg vom Fenster.