Banco Sabadell Foundation, together with Fundación Ship2B are launching B-Value, a transformation program for not for profit social institutions who have an innovative project which they would like to implement from scratch, or rethink. The aim of this new initiative is to help the institutions to define their value proposals and business models with a social impact, to improve their communication and establish strategic alliances with a shared value, to ensure that they are social organisations which are more innovative and evolve towards new models of sustainability. Currently, 121 institutions have shown an interest and the inscription process for forming part of this first edition has already begun.

“Increasing social and economic challenges mean that every day it becomes more and more necessary to innovate”, says Miquel Molins, Chairman of Banco Sabadell Foundation. Josep Santacreu, Chairman of Fundación Ship2B, highlights that one of the reasons why this program has been created is to “strengthen the institutions which have a trajectory in which they have generated a social impact through the use of a method which adds value”.

The program also aims to create alliances in the sector in order to achieve a greater impact, says Sonia Mulero, Deputy-Director of Banco Sabadell Foundation. “We have the responsibility of uniting institutions to share knowledge and to work for common causes. The key is ‘coopetition [competing by cooperating]”.

Stages of B-Value

The deadline for registering is January 10th, 2017 After the completion of the first online stage, in which all of the institutions will take part, 10 finalist proposals will be chosen for the launch of a crowdfunding campaign through which they will share and validate their proposals. Lastly, the projects will be presented in a Demo Day in June 2017, where Banco Sabadell Foundation will award the different prizes.

Some of the institutions who are interested in participating in the program ensure us that “it is important to create areas of trust between institutions in order to achieve changes. It is much more profitable to collaborate than to compete”, says Teresa Rodríguez, Director of Fundación Balia; “A world which collaborates is a key factor and helps to achieve a greater impact, for this reason, being able to work with other institutions is key and can be transformational”, says Juan Kindelan, Chair of Fundación Tomillo.

They all agree on the importance of the role of innovation in the social sector. According to Jordi Pascual, voice of the innovation of the Mesa del Tercer Sector, “B-Value will be key to improving the value proposals of social institutions; and developing this type of network and incentivising innovation is necessary”. From the Asociación de Fundaciones Españolas [Spanish Association of Foundations], its Chairman Javier Nadal ensures us that “innovation is in the DNA of foundations, and for this reason, they have the advantage of being social laboratories. ”.