Founded in 2014, the Wellspring Initiative is a collaborative social enterprise comprising a company with registered offices in Europe and an NGO with registered offices in Asia.
The Wellspring Initiative brings together entrepreneurs, experts and thought leaders from different continents under one roof and around a common purpose: to rethink government, the private sector and civil society, to unlock potential through dialogue, collaboration and ground-breaking development strategies and to reclaim democracy and development, so that they really deliver for the poor.
Wellspring is a collaborative social enterprise which aims to bring best private sector practices to non-profit organizations and international development agencies, encouraging their sustainability, while at the same time bringing non-profit expertise in ethical approaches, corporate or social accountability to the private sector. We see it as making the social more enterprising and the enterprising more social. And as a hybrid social enterprise we aim to model these practices in all our work.
Wellspring’s work is supported by a global community of entrepreneurs, expert practitioners and though leaders with expertise and experience in our fields of focus across Asia, Middle-East-North Africa, Europe and the Pacific. Our teams therefore have access to our community of practice who remain available to provide capacity development, technical input, advice or analysis. We are committed to continuing professional development and reflective practice and take pride in the fact that Wellspring teams consist of innovative, committed and resourceful experts.
We focus on achieving results in the following complementary areas:
Private Sector Development: We work with small and medium-sized enterprises to help them realize their potential and have a long-term, sustainable impact on social and economic development.
Democratic Governance: We work with governments and civil society through capacity and institutional development in Civil Service and Public Administration Reform, Local Governance, Civil Society Development Constitutional Deevlopment, Electoral Support, Parliamentary Development, Human Rights, Gender Equality and Women’s Political Participation.
Sector Development [e.g. Health, Education, Agriculture]: We employ multi-stakeholder dialogue processes, research and analysis, strategy and policy development and technical support to bring government, donors, private sector, civil society, together to find effective and innovative approaches to sustainable sectoral development. This has included health, education and rural development support including supporting the work of technical working groups to promote partnership and dialogue at sector and thematic level.
Aid Effectiveness: Wellspring works to increase the effectiveness of development aid in achieving economic and human development. We work with development partners to improve accountability, national ownership, coordination and support for improved governance.
Conflict Transformation: We conduct conflict analysis, design and facilitate structured multi-stakeholder dialogue processes and engage in conflict transformation in a range of settings including disputes between ethnic and religious groups, internal organizational crises and multi-stakeholder and policy dialogue at national and local levels.
