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.

A year ago, Mastercard’s “Where to Settle” enabled Ukrainian refugees to find the best cities in Poland to settle in based on their personal conditions. This year, we unleashed the power of our data again. We carved a way to bring new Ukrainian and local Polish businesses closer together by creating opportunities for shared success.

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’s 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.

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 80 percent of foreigners currently settling in Poland are Ukrainian citizens. Over 755,000 Ukraininans work in Poland. 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.

Mastercard as a company believes in “doing well by doing good”, supporting financial inclusion thanks to technology and data that Mastercard delivers. Having such a strong statement in its DNA, Mastercard is predestined to support people in refugee crisis and people who do not have equal access to information and data in their business struggles.That was the starting point of “Room for Everyone” project.

Mastercard also needed activities aimed at the B2B sector, in particular its largest part (97% of all B2B in Poland), i.e. micro-entrepreneurs. From the brand's perspective, it was important to provide micro-entrepreneurs with real value based on the data available to Mastercard, so that the target group perceive the brand as supporting entrepreneurs.

The result was to improve the brand's image in the eyes of micro-entrepreneurs, but also to bring about a real change in the socio-economic situation.

In the work on the strategy, at the beginning it was determined through qualitative research (interviews) with micro-entrepreneurs how they choose the location for their business. Mastercard managed to identify the area in which the brand could provide micro-entrepreneurs with real value in the form of conclusions from the transaction data it had.

At the same time, we looked at the broad socio-economic situation and diagnosed the need to improve relations between Polish and Ukrainian businesses opening in Poland (we based our knowledge on many sources of data, also on our previous project, “Where to Settle”.

Thanks to this, we have reached the most important strategic conclusion - there is a place for everyone in business, as long as we rely on data that confirms it and we are able to prove it to Polish micro-entrepreneurs through a tool that will be useful for them from a business perspective.

Mastercard as a company believes in “doing well by doing good”, supporting financial inclusion thanks to technology and data that Mastercard delivers. The platform was created by Mastercard to promote better integration and economic growth. Using aggregated and anonymized transactional data, foot traffic, air quality information, and insights into business complementarity, the tool 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 and promoted beneficial relationships, showing Ukrainians as valuable economic partners. We are turning competition, something that always scared entrepreneurs into something positive, they should actively seek and support.

Mastercard effectively turned data into a tool for social change, promoting economic cooperation that benefited both local Polish entrepreneurs and Ukrainian refugees seeking new beginnings.

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).