FAQ

Table of contents

What legal form do I need to have in order to apply?

The goal of the programme is to scale your enterprise or its impact using financially sustainable business models. Therefore, we accept most for-profit legal forms. 

The following formats are eligible:

  • Social enterprises or high-impact enterprises
  • Start-ups with an impact goal
  • Businesses established by NGOs, who have the independence necessary to invest their resources in growing their business
  • Corporate Special Purpose Vehicles with an impact goal
  • Impact spin-offs created by universities or for-profit businesses
  • For-profit businesses transitioning into high-impact models (e.g. through amending their target groups or business model, or adapting their products/services/processes)
  • Businesses developed within nonprofits, that are ready to scale out from the nonprofit

The track you’re selected to participate in will be determined by your business stage.

For the Base track, you need to have existing paying customers.

For the Advanced track, at least one year of recurring revenue is required.

The goal of the program is to scale your enterprise or your enterprise impact using financially sustainable business models. Therefore we accept most for-profit legal forms.  On the other hand, we cannot accept most nonprofit forms (especially foundations, associations, charities), unless they are created specifically for business activities (e.g. Social Enterprise, Nonprofit Ltd.) or unless they are planning to establish a for-profit arm, and separate it into a for-profit legal form.

Legal Form

Austria

Hungary

Romania

Association

Yes, if…

No

YES, running a business or registered as an SE

Cooperative

Yes, if…

No

YES

Foundation

No

No*

YES, running a business or registered as an SE

Limited Liability Company

Yes

YES

YES

Limited Partnership

No

No

NA

Nonprofit Limited Liability Company

Yes

YES

NA

Social Cooperative

Yes, if…

No

NA

Social Enterprise

n/a in Austria

n/a

YES (any form)

Sole Proprietorship

No

No

No

*Exception: If you are running a business and willing to separate it into a for-profit legal form

All of the following alternative business approaches are eligible:

  • Social enterprises or high impact enterprises
  • Start-ups with an impact goal
  • Businesses established by NGOs, who have the independence necessary to invest their resources in growing their business
  • Corporate Special Purpose Vehicles with an impact goal
  • Impact spin-offs created by universities or for-profit businesses
  • For-profit businesses transitioning into high-impact models (e.g. through amending their target groups or business model, or adapting their products/services/processes)
  • Businesses developed within nonprofits, that are ready to scale out from the nonprofit

There are no firm revenue or size thresholds in this programme. In terms of size, we expect participation of organizations having a team of at minimum 2-3 people. In terms of revenue, we accept enterprises that strive to scale, have objective to grow revenue or impact.

As we aim to help enterprises scale their impact, we are looking for participants ideally with an already established business, a proven product/service portfolio, a stable or growing revenue, and a good team already in place.

However, we are not assigning numbers to these criteria intentionally, as we understand that in different countries and industries, and in case of different business models, growth may have different prerequisites. Because of this, in some cases prototypes, minimum viable products, pre-orders may also make your business eligible.

Our eligibility criteria are as follows:

  • First, you need to meet some basic, self-explanatory criteria – you must not be in bankruptcy or work in any of the restricted sectors (e.g. coal mining, weapon manufacturing and commerce, pornography).
  • You must be a legal representative of the company or official core team member.
  • You need to comply with some conflict of interest rules – e.g. you must not be a mentor or a Selection Committee member in the program if you have a stake in one of the participating businesses
  • You need to commit to allocate the time necessary for the program, including not just attending the consultancy and mentoring, but performing any work assigned to you and implementing the recommendations in your daily operations. To be able to do that, we strongly encourage not taking part in any other capacity-building programs during this time.
  • If you need to exit the program, please tell the program managers right away and provide your good reasons why. We might be able to include other applicants to take the place instead of you.
  • You must not discriminate in your work e.g. based on gender, nationality or race.
  • Further country-specific eligibility criteria may be present, please see them on the country pages.

As a first step, all applicants must comply with our Application Rules (hyperlink to separate document) to ensure our business ethics are in place. Then, we are evaluating applications based on the following criteria:

  1. Maturity:
    1. Team size and maturity (core team, experts)
    2. Traction
  2. Impact:
    1. Impact orientation and intentionality
    2. Validity of the expected impact
  3. Scalability:
    1. Ambition to grow impact, vision to leave a MARC on the world
    2. Scalability of the business model and the impact

We expect you to dedicate your time and efforts to the development process, and we will make the most these 6 months. Attending the consultancy, mentoring and group capacity building sessions is obligatory once admitted to the programme.

We establish a Selection Committee in each country covering different competencies and experiences to cover all relevant aspects. The list of experts will be made public during the evaluation process and not before, to exclude any possibility of influencing the jury.

To ensure impartiality, each Committee will include delegates from our local development partner and the local Erste Social Banking team, as well as experts or investors independent from our program. The selection is also overviewed by a regional Selection Overseeing Committee.

The method chosen by MARC core-team for designating the final selected participants in this programme represents an extensive process of evaluating all the projects submitted.

The evaluation process of the projects submitted by companies within the programme is one based on professionalism, transparency, encouragement of intellectual property protection, objectivity, gender equality, and non-discrimination. Due to the characteristics of the evaluation process described, MARC core-team will not accept appeals from the candidates regarding the evaluation results.

We started working on the exact make-up of these Committees, as well as on all the transparency and impartiality rules, but this is planned to be final after launch.

Yes. Beyond social enterprises, we also seek for-profit entrepreneurs who may not yet have a dedicated impact element in their business model but are open to transform their business to make the world a better place.

All selected participants participate in only those elements of the program, which are relevant and helpful for them, therefore this depends on your current scale and level of finance-readiness and your current stage of the impact-growth journey. In general, weekly or bi-weekly workshops or one-on-one mentoring meetings will happen for 1-5 months pending on need, accompanied by ongoing networking and alumni activities for several years.