At this year’s annual EVPA conference, the EIB Institute hosted a session showcasing how social innovators are adapting their business models to the pandemic situation. We had presentations from eight European social innovators working on health, well-being, employment and inclusion, including both for-profit and non-profit models.

There is a fear that the pandemic will severely affect the operations and survival of social organizations and impact ventures,. This session presented a more positive view of the resilience and innovative agility of social entrepreneurs. And showed that economic disruptions are also an opportunity for faster adoption of social innovations at a societal level.

The solutions developed by social innovators typically involve enabling and building connections among people and communities. In this regard, the eight ventures showcased can be grouped in three clusters.

In three of the ventures, the social entrepreneurs developed a platform to enable digital connections as an alternative to (less-functioning) physical connections, thus decreasing cost and increasing access.

In the other three ventures, the social entrepreneurs developed a model enabling physical connections, matching different types of people for mutual benefit. This was the case of Portuguese venture SPEAK creating peer groups of language learning for the inclusion of migrants and refugees, the Irish venture MyMind enabling access to (mostly) psychological appointments for mental well-being and the Spanish venture Adopt a Grand Parent connecting young adults and elders for companionship.

The final two ventures had totally physical models involving the inclusive creation and/or distribution of physical products. This was the case of the Spanish venture Koiki, using disadvantaged people to perform the last-mile delivery of e-commerce products in a sustainable way, and the Italian venture Quid, producing and selling sustainable fashion products through inclusive employment.

Read the full article about innovating digital solutions by Filipe Santos at Alliance Magazine.