All Integrated Home Renovation Service (IHRS) providers, at some point in their lives, face the difficult question: How can they ensure the financial sustainability of their model? The question becomes even more pressing when the IHRS provider is successfully operating thanks to EU grants that eventually stop, or when public subsidies are not sufficient and the provider wants to diversify and increase its revenues.

In this AUTUMN meeting of the EU Peers transnational platform, participants were introduced to the three most common IHRS business models: completely dependent on public funds, IHRS using public and private funds, and IHRS with self-sustainable business models independent of public subsidies. The session then focused on strategies some IHRS providers deployed to succeed in the transition from a ‘test’ model fully dependent on EU grants to a model dependent on local, regional, and national funds and subsidies.

The aim was to understand how IHRS managed (or not) the transition from the start-up phase subsidised by EU grants to a sustainable model supported by local, regional or national public funds.