About us

YSB Balkans believes in the power of business to solve social problems and serve humanity. It is co-founded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Muhammad Yunus, and is headquartered in Tirana, Albania. It first started as a social business development project in Albania in June 2012, and then was formally registered in February 2013 as an NGO (named Foundation “Yunus Social Business Fund Albania”). Since 2015, aiming to further widen its impact in the region, it has expanded to cover the six non-EU Western Balkan (WB6) countries, under its “Yunus Social Business Balkans” name.

YSB Balkans’ vision is that entrepreneurs in the WB6 countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia) are empowered to take bold actions towards bringing significant positive change to the society. Hence, our mission is to enterprise people and equip entrepreneurs with the knowledge, skills, tools and means to design, test, build and grow entrepreneurship initiatives that have the potential to create positive impact for the society.

YSB Balkans supports entrepreneurs and development of the inclusive and social entrepreneurship sector in the region through: (i) designing and implementing social/impact entrepreneurship inspiration and awareness campaigns; (ii) running incubation and acceleration programs; (iii) investment readiness programs; (iv) providing coaching and mentoring to social and impact entrepreneurs; (v) facilitating access to financing for social and impact oriented startups; (vi) providing guidance and implementation support to entrepreneurship development projects and actors; and (vii) supporting development of an enabling entrepreneurship ecosystem in the region.

YSB Balkans is among the pioneers of the social and impact entrepreneurship ecosystem in WB6 region. It launched its first incubator and accelerator programs in 2013 and, since then, it has established a proven track record of activities in supporting startups/businesses with potential for positive social impact, through capacity building (training, coaching, mentorship and accompaniment) as well as access to financing and networks. During these years, YSB has implemented several projects, working in close cooperation and partnership with a large number of local, regional and international actors, joining forces towards common goals of promoting entrepreneurship and supporting impactful and social entrepreneurs to tackle societal problems in financially sustainable way.

Our core team