Room for Everyone is a campaign that promotes “Where to Start” as a tool that matches Polish and Ukrainian businesses based on a complementarity data model.

It transforms a narrative of foreign competition from one of scarcity and fear to abundance and opportunity for all.

We used the power of data to bring new Ukrainian and local Polish businesses closer together by creating opportunities for shared success.

The initiative by Mastercard was created in response to a significant cultural and economic shift within Poland due to the influx of Ukrainian refugees.

Two years after Russia's armed invasion of Ukraine, approximately 1.5 million Ukrainians remain in Poland. Over 755,000 Ukraininans work in Poland and there are approximately 180,000 children from Ukraine in schools and kindergartens. Such a huge influx of refugees from Ukraine shifted public opinion.

Support for Ukrainian refugees dropped significantly. After two years of war, only 52 percent of Poles consent to accepting refugees from Ukraine. This is definitely less than at the beginning of the aggression, when over 72 percent of us were in favor of it. This is also less than last year, when support was 67%. Our involvement in helping Ukraine is also decreasing. In February 2022, only 17 percent of Poles declared that they did not intend to support Ukrainians, in 2023 it was already about 34%. According to the latest study, over 41 percent of respondents no longer intend to get involved in aid initiatives related to supporting Ukrainians. (Openfield Study, 2022-2024).

Initial help was replaced by concerns about their own jobs and businesses. During this challenging time, Mastercard saw a chance to change the conversation about immigration from seeing it as a burden to recognizing its benefits. We first helped them to settle in Poland (thanks to the Where to Settle tool), now we help them set up successful businesses.

Due to the war, millions of refugees from Ukraine have fled to Poland, seeking safety across its borders. We first helped them to settle in Poland, thanks to the Where to Settle tool. Now it was time to help them with their businesses.

Two years after Russia's armed invasion of Ukraine, approximately 1.5 million Ukrainians remain in Poland. The initial wave of sympathy and support from Polish society gradually began to change, giving way to economic anxieties and social tensions. Concerns about job security and access to public services led to a significant decline in positive sentiment towards the newcomers (Openfield study from 2022-2024). It started debates within communities and among policymakers about the long-term implications of hosting such a large number of refugees.

Mastercard aimed to shift the negative perceptions of Ukrainian refugees by highlighting the positive economic contributions of Ukrainian-owned businesses in Poland.

Mastercard as a company believes in “doing well by doing good”, supporting financial inclusion thanks to technology and data. The platform was created to promote better integration and economic growth. Using aggregated and anonymized transactional data, foot traffic, air quality information, and insights into business complementarity, "Where to Start" is showing optimal locations where Ukrainian businesses could open next to Polish businesses to the mutual benefit of both. By pairing complementary businesses that could support each other’s growth, such as a restaurant next to a beauty salon, the platform demonstrated beneficial relationships, showing Ukrainians as valuable economic partners.

Mastercard effectively turned data into a tool for social change, promoting economic cooperation that benefited both Polish entrepreneurs and Ukrainian refugees seeking new beginnings. For the first time in history, location intelligence data has been made available to micro-entrepreneurs and delivered to them in a useful and innovative tool.

Data on the perception of Ukrainians in Poland has been collected from various sources, all of which indicate deteriorating attitudes towards refugees. We used existing reports (Openfield Study, 2022-2024) but we also conducted our own study among microentrepreneurs, in which we asked people who had no contact with the tool how they viewed the situation related to Ukrainian businesses. Then we also asked people who had contact with the tool to examine what impact the tool had on their perception of Ukrainian entrepreneurs.

Before starting to design the tool, we also conducted qualitative research (interviews) with micro-entrepreneurs to examine the way they make decisions about the location of their business, in which we identified different approaches to this challenge and tailored the final solution to users' needs. Thanks to this study, we also knew who to target with the tool and how to create a campaign to promote it.

The data used in the tool is anonymized and aggregated transactional data, supplemented with foot traffic and air quality information. The tool also uses data about complementarity, showing how businesses located close to each other work better, for example: bookstore located near a jeweler prospers better, barber and restaurant located nearby prosper better, bakery and beauty salon also (you can find more specific information about this data in confidential part).

This data is tailored to each user's specific situation through a simple tool in which the user first answers a few basic questions to receive a personalized recommendation from Mastercard based on the above-mentioned data.

The tool is targeted to micro-entrepreneurs at various stages of creating their business - from people who are just starting to think about business to people who already have a location-based business, but plan to expand it by opening new locations.

An impact on the lives of Ukrainian and Polish entrepreneurs:

Around 28,000 businesses open in Poland every month. Of the 347,000 new businesses that opened in Poland last year, 10% were location-based businesses. The tool attracted 12,000 users it’s first month. Up to 40% of new business owners used this platform.

It also fueled shifting perceptions of Ukranians for the better:

After using our platform, 55% of Polish entrepreneurs claim that Ukrainian entrepreneurs opening companies in Poland have a positive impact on the economy (a 10% lift from before).

Best of all, it not only helped thousands, it also helped Mastercard:

Among people who used the Where to Start tool, the perception of the Mastercard brand as one that supports entrepreneurs increased significantly (an increase of 21 percentage points, from 34% among people who had no contact with the tool, to 55% among people using the tool).