Zarah Bruhn has been helping refugees find jobs with her social start-up Socialbee since 2015 – and has now been awarded a female founder prize for this. In an interview, she tells how her company earns money with it and what challenges it faces.
Ms. Bruhn, you are one of the winners of this year’s Veuve Clicquot Bold Woman Award. What does your startup Socialbee do, what is it about?
Socialbee integrates refugees into the labor market and helps them build a new life in Germany. Everyone should be able to make it in Germany. In practice, we achieve this through recruitment projects. For example, we are now accompanying 20 women over two years on their career path into nursing. Before the trainee program starts in the company, they complete a two to three-month training course with us. But integration is not a one-way street, so we also train the company side. In this way we fight against the shortage of skilled workers and the long-term unemployment of refugees.
How did you come up with the idea of ??founding a start-up for refugees?
I myself worked in the financing of start-ups alongside my studies. During the refugee crisis, I helped as a volunteer at the weekend. At some point I didn’t want to just help on the weekends anymore and asked myself how I could use my working hours sensibly. I knew many founders and realized an affair of the heart. Then one thing led to another, I happened to meet my co-founder and we took on the very difficult issues of integration and temporary work at the time.
How do you make money with this?
The companies contribute to the costs of our upskilling programs. We offer the refugees training and support to prepare them for their new job. After they are hired, we look after them for a year. This is usually financed by the companies because they are interested in a long-term employment relationship. We try to keep these costs under control by hosting joint programs with several companies. But we are also a non-profit company and are supported by large foundations.
How far are you in your development? Can you reveal numbers?
We make around 3 million euros in sales with 15 qualification projects, which is how we manage to train and place several hundred refugees a year. We are very interested in expanding to other European countries. We have already had successful projects in Switzerland and Austria.
What are the next steps? What are the biggest challenges ahead of you?
On the one hand, there are the classic personnel issues that concern us, but also the conflict in Ukraine. New demands are placed on us, the needs of each target group are different and adapted programs are needed.
The award is given specifically to female founders. Is it harder for you as a founder?
From the systems perspective, I answer the question with yes. For example, there are not enough female investors. But I see “mini highways” for women. Today we are one step further and have metaphorically put our finger in the wound. From an individual perspective, I would therefore answer today that current female founders have good starting conditions.
Why do so few women start businesses? What would have to change to make it better?
It needs role models and start-up support programs for women, more attention to the topic and strong networks among women.
In addition to your work as a founder, you have also been working as an officer for social innovations for the Federal Ministry of Education for some time. Why are you doing this additionally?
I’m still CEO at Socialbee, just not to the fullest. The job as officer was incredibly appealing to me, because of course there is a lot of leverage here. To really achieve change, you have to achieve systemic change, and that is exactly what you can do in politics.
How has the new position changed your view of the start-up scene?
In fact, I made politics permeable for female founders and social entrepreneurs. The government view helps me to take a systemic bird’s eye view. In my daily work, I ask myself which start-up instruments can also help us socially. In theory, many start-up programs are open to social entrepreneurs, but in practice things looked different for a long time. I have also experienced this first hand. My personal motivation today is to make social entrepreneurship better for everyone who comes after me.
Ann-Sophie Herzner spoke to Zarah Brunh
This interview first appeared on Capital.de.
