Recognising the originality and drive of Ireland's diverse social enterprise and community / voluntary sectors, Rethink Ireland provides funds to scale social innovations that will improve life outcomes and have a widespread impact on critical social problems such as unemployment, poverty, and health.
The not-for-profit sector has developed innovations that can improve life outcomes and cut costs. Just like businesses, these organisations need growth capital, but there is no significant not-for-profit capital market in Ireland. Rethink Ireland's role is to fill the gap by providing 'smart money' to enable the best social innovations to scale up in order to reach as many people as possible.
Rethink Ireland, previously Social Innovation Fund Ireland (SIFI), was founded in 2013. It was catalysed by the Irish Government to create a fund of significant size and impact to foster the development of social innovations with the potential for transformative impact on critical social issues facing Ireland.
