We are a social co-investment fund that supports entrepreneurs and organizations capable of driving deep social change with non-reimbursable capital.
What is FES?
The Fundación Fondo para Emprendimientos Solidarios (FES) is a private initiative funded by its founding partners: business leaders willing to help improve Uruguay's social reality.
Its purpose is to act as a catalyst for projects with high innovation potential, providing financial tools and non-reimbursable funds to people and organizations with the experience to solve social problems.
Impact
Social initiatives across the country.
Direct and indirect beneficiaries.
Education, employability, vulnerability and social inclusion, environment, and volunteering.
The year the fund was born.
Where we are today
We are not currently accepting new applications. We are working to open new programs soon.
Beyond funding social organizations' projects, FES launched and runs Involucrate, Uruguay's platform for volunteering and connecting with social organizations. Today it is the main initiative we sustain.
Involucrate
Uruguay's volunteering and social-organization connection platform, launched and operated by FES.
Featured projects
Recruits outstanding young professionals to teach at secondary schools in critical contexts, aiming to close the education gap and inspire students.
FES impact
FES backed the recruitment, monitoring, summer training, and mentoring of the program's first cohorts of teachers. That early support helped the organization mature, join the Special Donations regime, and build long-term corporate partnerships. Former teachers now run it themselves.
Channels innovation through open contests that invite entrepreneurs to design technological solutions to address pedagogical and management gaps in national education.
FES impact
FES covered the technology platform, the ideation workshops, and the seed capital for the winning startups. The investment worked as a bridge: it attracted major corporate sponsors and helped build an open-innovation ecosystem that now runs on its own.
A network dedicated to rescuing and redistributing surplus fruits and vegetables in good condition from the wholesale market, preventing food waste by delivering these products to dozens of social organizations.
FES impact
FES paid for its early logistics: standardized crates, a rented operating site, and a cargo vehicle. Solving that bottleneck let the network scale fast. It is now a self-sustaining social enterprise, and it helped drive the creation of the Food Donation Law.
