Driving Force - Business Development

For you who run a business and want to use the location's and your conditions to create concrete business development. Benefit for your business and for your location or rural area.

You can receive up to 50,000 SEK in support for an initiative. Read more below!

Leader enables power to your drive

Driving Force Business Development targets you as a business owner and entrepreneur
who have ideas that can develop your business, your location, or rural area.

ABOUT THE PROJECT

NOTE You can apply for support within Driving Force from October 1, 2026.

Do you have an idea that can take your business a step further?

Driving Force Business Development is for you who want to try something new, develop your operations, or find new ways forward for your entrepreneurship. Through Driving Force, you can receive support for smaller, concrete initiatives that create development - something that might not have happened otherwise. 

We are particularly looking for ideas where businesses join forces - perhaps around a common destination, a local product, a new market, a smart solution, or a competence initiative that more than your business can benefit from.

It can, for example, involve:

  • carrying out a joint development effort together with other businesses
  • seeking help to develop a new business idea, method, or form of collaboration
  • developing new products, services, or experiences
  • packaging and reaching new target groups through new working methods in communication and marketing
  • strengthening the company's competence in areas such as AI, digitalization, or sustainable development

Leader Sörmlandskusten can support with up to 70% of an initiative, and you as a business owner cover at least 30% of the cost yourself. It is always purchased service/expense, and you cannot purchase services from yourself.

Here’s how the application process works:

NOTE You can apply for support within Driving Force from October 1, 2026.

Expression of interest form

1. Submit your expression of interest
Download and fill out the form on the page and briefly describe your idea. Send it to matilda@leadersormlandskusten.se and you will receive feedback.

2. Feedback from the Leader Office
We will contact you after an initial assessment. Promising ideas will be taken forward.

Submit the application and budget (max 5 cost items)
You submit an application with a simple budget for the initiative. Support is normally given for 25,000–50,000 SEK excluding VAT.

4. Decisions & agreements
If the project is prioritized, you will receive a concise agreement with clear terms and conditions.

5. Implement the subproject
You carry out the initiative (2–6 months) and save invoices and proof of payment.

6. Accounting & payment
The support is paid out when you have submitted a report with paid invoices and payment documentation from the bank.

 

 

Competence development and competence supply

  • A course/training for more entrepreneurs – strengthen competence together
  • Joint networking day for more businesses where you have knowledge sessions and inspiration to strengthen your knowledge and competence, keeping you updated with current monitoring of the external environment
  • Analysis of the company's competence supply and action plan for this, e.g., microlearning or routines for knowledge transfer

Examples you can apply for support for

New target groups, methods, and working methods

  • Develop collaboration with other businesses by creating packaged offers together

  • Conduct joint study visits or business marketing trips with other businesses, to find new target groups, inspiration, increased competence

  • Analysis and consulting efforts related to new working methods, new target groups, new methods

 

 

New products, goods, and markets

  • Develop new products or goods together with other businesses
  • Shared costs for certifications or labels to enable the sale of new products
  • Costs associated with introducing your product to wholesalers or stores

Digitalization & smart technology

  • Analysis of the company's opportunities with digitalization and automation – increase the company's digital competence

  • Develop the company by enabling digital courses or consulting

Marketing

  • Strengthen a destination or place together with other companies and actors through new marketing/ joint material
  • Create a joint website/web destination for your joint marketing
  • Strengthen a destination's actors through a common story and vision - marketing through storytelling
  • Joint marketing to get more customers to understand the value (and pricing) of local, locally grown, certified food and drink
  • Develop new material (image/video) to reach new target groups, preferably in collaboration with more actors

Transition and sustainability

  • Analyses or consulting efforts related to product development for environmental sustainability
  • Analyses or consulting efforts related to the company's work for reduced environmental impact
  • Study visits related to product development, methods, and working practices for environmental sustainability

ABOUT THE PROJECT

We want to grant support to 10-15 companies in total during the period 2026-2027.

Criteria for applying:

  • You are active within the Leader Sörmlandskusten area
  • You are a sole or micro-enterprise (max 9 employees) or are an organization that supports multiple companies 
  • Other external co-financing must not occur
  • One sub-project per company and year
  • Max five purchases per sub-project
  • Only purchased services and purchased expenses - not own salary or payment for own work

You cannot receive support for:

  • Ongoing operations or salaries
  • Own work
  • Investments related to primary production
  • Already started or completed activities
  • Investment costs over 24,000 kronor excluding VAT with a lifespan of more than three years

The project targets the entire Leader Sörmlandskusten area, i.e. companies operating in Trosa, Nyköping's rural areas and small towns, Oxelösund, Södertälje, Salem (Rönninge), and Botkyrka (Grödinge). 

 

Selection and criteria

Decisions are made continuously by a decision group, and the decision is based on the project's selection criteria.

All sub-projects must meet basic criteria related to sustainability, local needs, the initiative's basis in equality and non-discrimination.

Read selection criteria here

Sub-projects in an umbrella project

You can receive support for one initiative per year.

The sub-projects are part of an umbrella project. This means that Leader Sörmlandskusten runs a larger project, and within it, local actors can apply for smaller initiatives. This means:

  • faster decision

  • less administration

  • simple applications

  • support for small development efforts 

The project is partially funded by the EU

The project is funded by the municipalities included in the Leader area, the Swedish state, and the EU.

Basic criteria

🌱 Contributes to business development
The initiative should contribute to business development and strengthen your company's competitiveness and create development

💡 Innovative and creative
The initiative should be something new and innovative that is not your regular business, but a ”step forward”

⚖️ Feasibility and cost-effectiveness
The initiative should provide good benefits in relation to the cost and have a reasonable budget in relation to the scope

🤝 Collaboration and participation
Initiatives that involve multiple actors or local networks of entrepreneurs are prioritized

🌍 Sustainable solutions and adaptation of your business
Initiatives that promote sustainability, circularity, or energy efficiency are given higher priority