In proposed pilot project Province of Antwerp would like to develop and test combination of crowdfunding with public funds to gain the experience in order to increase the impact of the policy instrument. 

Province of Antwerp would like to redesign the current management structure in order to involve citizens actively in the fund. 

Assumptions are that:

• Citizens are willing to co-invest in social enterprises.
• Citizens are willing to give up financial return, but the financial risks for citizens who invest, should be mitigated.
• Citizens each have professional and other expertise which may be relevant: 
  • In the analysis of credit applications
  • In the investment phase 
• There is still a big untapped potential of social enterprises who lack access to bank finance or traditional investors, mainly in the early stages of their develoment and in cases in which the ambition to scale the organisation is limited (due to ambition level or scaling strategy)
• There is an untapped potential of ESIF-funds to leverage on the resources provided by the Province of Antwerp and citizens from the region. 

Within this pilot Province of Antwerp builds on the already existing policy instrument and test whether the above mentioned assumptions are correct. 

1. Broaden the scope of policy challenges addressed. 
2. Design and optimise the structure of the fund to allow for new investors to come on board 
3. Build pipeline of investable projects
4. Develop a communication strategy
5. Launch a first crowd-funding campaing
6. Test and implement processes to involve citizens in the analysis phase of individual investment opportunities
7. Define a modus operandi for the management of the fund after the pilot phase
8. Investigate opportunities to get investments from ESIF-sources for the fund itself, for non-financial support complementing the offer of subordinated loans and/or cover the operating costs of the fund