The Transformational Tech series highlights Cisco's nonprofit grant recipients that use technology to help transform the lives of individuals and communities. NESsT has worked for decades to support social enterprises with grant funding, training, mentorship, and other resources that help to create quality jobs for underserved communities.

The Being Together Foundation is one of the NESsT Poland portfolio enterprises that is providing support to refugees from Ukraine.

NESsT supports social enterprises that provide employment and career development opportunities for underserved communities-a vital, often missing component to humanitarian aid work. NESsT uses an engaged approach, providing tailored financing, a variety of tech-enabled assessment tools and action plans across all stages of development, one-on-one advisory services, and networking support to social entrepreneurs in emerging markets.

NESsT has benefited from Cisco's funding support for multiple initiatives, and now Cisco will provide seed funding for NESsT to establish a NESsT Refugee Employment Initiative, so they can better support and strengthen local social enterprises that create dignified jobs and wraparound services for refugees from Ukraine and other countries.

In 25 years, NESsT has built a strong foundation of supporting social entrepreneurs in emerging markets, especially in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America. When the conflict in Ukraine began, NESsT was already in position to help the more than 4.9 million refugees that have left Ukraine. Many have sought refuge in Poland and Romania, and all of them will need displacement support. Both temporary and permanent employment will help them regain a sense of security.

Growing from seed (funding)

Back in 1997, Nicole Etchart started NESsT out of a need to help nonprofit organizations work in more sustainable ways. The founders felt that traditional companies alone couldn't create enough job opportunities to lift people out of poverty. They also knew that nonprofits were too dependent on short-term grant funding preventing them from achieving long-term impact. So they created NESsT to provide social enterprises, whether for-profit on not-for-profit, with the tools and capital needed to launch financially sustainable businesses while addressing poverty and exclusion.

Future Collars Team preparing SIM cards for refugees. Photo Credit: Future Collars CEO, Joanna Pruszy