This report summarises the current state of the external financing markets of the Social Enterprises
targeted by the Employment and Social Innovation (EaSI) guarantee program managed by the
European Investment Fund (EIF) and funded by the European Commission. The report starts by
elaborating on the interpretation of what constitutes a Social Enterprise under the EaSI program. It
goes on to provide an overview of the EaSI Social Enterprise sector in Europe and a discussion of
its external financing market challenges. It furthermore discusses the initiatives undertaken by the
EIF to address the challenges Social Enterprises face on the debt market. While the EIF has
booked significant progress towards improving access to finance of Social Enterprises’, a rough
approximation of the unmet external financing demand on the market reveals that additional
efforts are required to further close the social funding gap.