Dignita is not an external partner of Not For Sale. It is Not For Sale. Dignita is a social enterprise restaurant founded by Not For Sale Netherlands in 2015, operating through the Stichting Dignita foundation. Its motto Eat Well, Do Good is not a tagline. It is the operating model: 100% of restaurant profits fund survivor training and anti-trafficking programming through Not For Sale Netherlands.
Dignita is the clearest demonstration of the Impact Stack in action in Europe, and proof that a self-sustaining enterprise can serve as both the delivery mechanism and the funding source for anti-trafficking work.
The Model
The Dignita Academy, developed in collaboration with ROC van Amsterdam (Amsterdam’s regional training center), offers government-accredited work-based learning programs for survivors of trafficking, refugees, and other vulnerable individuals. Training tracks include basic kitchen techniques, barista skills, nail styling and beauty, and administration through FAIR Finances, a B.V. established in 2021. The food and drinks trainees produce during training are served directly on the Dignita restaurant menu meaning their work has real commercial value from day one.
The Story
Not For Sale Netherlands began in 2012 when social worker Toos Heemskerk-Schep partnered with Not For Sale to launch Home Soup — a soup-making program inside an Amsterdam safe house that gave trafficking survivors a certificate, a skill, and income from selling the soup.
In 2015, that proof of concept was scaled into Dignita, a commercially competitive brunch restaurant in Amsterdam’s Vondelpark. A second location followed in the Hoftuin in 2017, and a third in Westerpark in 2020. Dignita currently operates from its Hoftuin location (Vondelpark and Westerpark have since closed). All profits return to Stichting Dignita to fund the next cohort of trainees. CNN and VICE have both profiled the model.
Why Dignita Matters
Dignita proved that the Impact Stack works in reverse. In Peru, Not For Sale moved from direct service through research and into enterprise. In the Netherlands, a commercially viable restaurant (tier three) was reverse-engineered to embed direct service (tier one) at its core. The research and business development (tier two) connected the two.
Not For Sale is now exploring replication of the Dignita model in Eastern Europe — where many of the survivors it serves in Amsterdam originally come from.
Visit Dignita
Nieuwe Herengracht 18a, Amsterdam — Open daily 09:30–16:30
