UnLimited Spain: A systems approach to building the impact economy

Draft September 2022 – Guillermo Casasnovas and Suzanne Jenkins

Late on November 16, 2020, after a long drive from Madrid to the Mediterranean coast,
Manuel Lencero unpacked the car, lit a fire in the chimney, and grabbed a whiteboard to
sketch a map of Spain’s impact economy. The market had changed a lot in the seven years
since he and his friend Ángel Bonet co-founded UnLimited Spain, a foundation whose
purpose was to put social impact at the center of the Spanish business culture and economy
(Exhibit 1). Lencero, CEO, had invited Bonet, president of the board, to spend a few days on
the coast to review the organization’s strategy and discuss: how could UnLimited Spain
continue to promote systemic change in light of market developments?

To date, UnLimited Spain pursued this mission primarily by accelerating “startups with
impact,” or startups with business models centered on addressing social or environmental
needs together with generating profit. It also coordinated a community of business executives
(‘the Circle’) who championed the impact economy and had helped launch new organizations
to meet different sector needs (Exhibit 2). In 2020, the impact economy continued to grow in
spite of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Lencero believed it was a pivotal time to further the
foundation’s mission. He had been asking himself: were they pursuing the right mix of
initiatives? What other opportunities were there to contribute to the desired systemic change?
Which should he prioritize to allocate UnLimited Spain’s limited resources efficiently?
Lencero’s goal for the coming days with Bonet was to answer these questions and prepare a
plan to present to his team at a strategy workshop in one week’s time.

Founding UnLimited Spain

“We wanted to change the rules of the game, but how?” – Manuel Lencero

Lencero inherited a fascination for business from his family and had been a real estate
entrepreneur since he was 20 years old. “The culture around me taught me that my success in
business depended only on the money I earned,” he recalled, “but over time I realized that
this kind of success didn’t bring me happiness.” He decided to look for another way. In 2007,
after a trip to the Himalayas, and at forty-something years old, he helped to start the Vistare
Foundation in Katmandu, which supported local development. “Something was bothering me
on the inside, and I didn’t want to settle for that,” he later recalled.

Around that time, he met Bonet, and the two connected deeply, united by shared values.
Bonet was a business executive who came from a humble background. He started producing
events at age 17, and studied economics and audiovisual communication in college. In 2001,
he founded a strategic marketing and sales consultancy, which he later sold to Deloitte.
Lencero’s interest in social issues resonated with Bonet, and he joined Lencero on the board
of trustees of the Vistare Foundation in 2009.

Soon frustrated with philanthropy and the constant need for fundraising, they decided to offer
pro-bono consulting to help foundations apply business methods. As they explored different
approaches, they were impressed by the growth of “social entrepreneurship,” in which

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Dated January 8, 2022.
entrepreneurs sought to solve society’s most pressing problems, in other parts of the world.
Bill Drayton coined the term in 1972 in the United States and founded Ashoka in 1980 to
support these entrepreneurs.1 Since then, a social entrepreneurship ecosystem, in which
different actors played interdependent roles (innovation, financing, advising, education and
research, networks, dissemination, and more), had developed in countries like the United
States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK) (Exhibit 3).2

In Spain, however, only a handful of actors supported social entrepreneurs. The ethical bank
Triodos financed social and environmental projects since 2004, Ashoka Spain was founded in
2006, and research groups at some business schools published reports. B Lab (with its B Corp
certification), for example, did not designate a Spanish partner until 2015.3 Without a
developed ecosystem, it was difficult for new social enterprises to survive.4 In 2011, Esade
Business School and the bank BBVA jointly launched an acceleration program, but finding
social enterprises to participate in it was a challenge. In fact, few people knew of or accepted
the concept of social entrepreneurship.5 Many in business thought all entrepreneurship was
inherently social, that its social value was to generate economic value, and that companies
centered on solving social problems could not be profitable. Many in the social sector found
it hard to believe that for-profit companies could help solve the social problems they had
been working so long to solve.

Lencero and Bonet started to dream of helping entrepreneurs who wanted to change the world
to succeed, but needed a methodology to do so. They decided to search for a model that was
already working well in other countries and bring it to Spain. In 2012, the two met José Luis
Ruiz de Munain, who built his career in social entrepreneurship and international
development since his first job in 2004, in which he supported the launch of UnLtd Thailand.
In 2013, Lencero, Bonet, and Ruiz de Munain went to visit UnLtd in its place of origin.

UnLtd was born in the UK in 2002, when seven pioneering organizations that supported
social entrepreneurs came together to amplify their impact. It was established as a foundation
with an endowment of public funds. By 2013, it had sister organizations in six countries in
Asia, Africa, and Europe, four of which operated under the UnLtd brand.6 These
organizations operated as independent organizations but coordinated and shared knowledge
through the Global Social Entrepreneurship Network. Focused on accelerating and helping to
scale social enterprises, it supported 1,042 entrepreneurs in 2013.7 “They told us how to do
what we wanted to do,” said Lencero.

Both sides were interested in taking UnLtd’s approach to Spain, and UnLtd (UK) agreed to
share its know-how and allow Lencero and Bonet to use the brand in Spain, operating from a
foundation they had established a few years earlier. UnLtd (UK) also helped secure funding
from the JP Morgan and Edmond de Rothschild foundations to take the first steps. With this,
Lencero and Bonet founded UnLimited Spain in May 2013.

Ruiz de Munain was designated as CEO, and two people were hired to manage the programs
for social entrepreneurs. Lencero and Bonet, together with Ruiz de Munain and three other
people, formed the board of trustees. With the team in place, the next challenge was to adapt
the UnLtd model, which was developed in the UK, to the context in Spain.

Adapting to the Market

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 “When we started, everyone told us we were crazy, that we were totally wrong. We
were swimming against the current.” – Ángel Bonet

UnLimited Spain launched its first incubation and acceleration programs, Arranca (“start”)
and Crece (“grow”), in 2014. The team focused its efforts on gaining traction with and
providing maximum value to both entrepreneurs and sponsors.

Intensive communications efforts were required to find and recruit entrepreneurs because the
entrepreneurs building businesses with social impact did not think of themselves as “social
entrepreneurs” or seek the support of a “social incubator.” Thanks to those efforts, around 30
projects joined each program. A first stage provided group training on hard and soft skills,
and a second stage provided personalized support to between five and ten projects per
program. Entrepreneurs received the same types of support they might receive from
traditional incubators and accelerators—seed capital, training, expert advice, contacts with
investors, and visibility in the media—plus training and support to measure their social
impact. The only cost to the entrepreneurs was the time and effort required to complete the
program; Unlimited Spain did not take an ownership share in any of the projects.

Fundraising efforts focused on attracting corporate sponsors, since it was not feasible to
obtain public funds. Lencero, Bonet, and Ruiz de Munain developed the concept of shared
value acceleration programs, in which corporate sponsors’ employees and executives would
support the entrepreneurs in the program and develop entrepreneurial attitudes and skills.
When the co-founders started to pitch this idea to potential sponsors, the initial response was
discouraging. “The idea did not fit the Spanish business culture. Potential partners told us that
companies exist to pay dividends to shareholders, period. If our conviction hadn’t been so
strong, we would have given up after the first meetings,” recalled Lencero.

In 2015, Ruiz de Munain was invited to work with the Inter-American Development Bank in
Washington, D.C., and Lencero took over as CEO. Lencero hired Ana Ruiz, an MBA
graduate he met through a mentoring program for women entrepreneurs, to manage the
acceleration programs.

Then, in early 2016, the first agreement for a shared value acceleration program was signed
with pharmaceutical company Lilly Spain. Named “Emprende inHealth,”8 it was also
UnLimited Spain’s first sectoral program, focused on supporting innovation in health among
both entrepreneurs and Lilly employees. Lencero explained, “At Lilly, we found a believer in
the marketing director, Ángel Pérez. You have to find these ‘gamechangers’.”

To support the Emprende inHealth program, Lencero hired a communications director, Leire
Vega, to better communicate the concept of social entrepreneurship. He saw communication
as a key tool to change the culture of the business sector.

Lilly Spain, a corporation, and UnLimited Spain, a foundation, had different needs but shared
a common vision and commitment to advancing social entrepreneurship. The two teams co-
created the program through close collaboration. Lilly employees developed new skills while
working with entrepreneurs, and the company gained visibility in general and specialist
media. Feedback from startups was very positive, although only time would tell if the startups
would become successful businesses. Thanks to this, the collaboration was renewed.

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Lencero and his team saw several advantages to the sectoral approach. When recruiting, they
could speak more directly to entrepreneurs of health startups with social impact (Exhibit 4).
Entrepreneurs were able to network with other entrepreneurs in the same sector, who faced
common problems, and to receive support from industry experts. It was also more attractive
to sponsors. For these reasons, the team decided to focus on sectoral shared value programs.

By 2017, UnLimited Spain had a model that worked in the Spanish context—where there
were fewer resources and entrepreneurs were more alone compared to the UK—and
leveraged the talents of its small team. It was, in Bonet’s words, a “boutique” approach:
programs were personalized, detecting and addressing the gaps of each startup. They
measured the impact of the startup, the impact of UnLimited Spain on the startup, and also
the impact of the program on the corporate sponsor.

Growing with the Market

Aiming to transform the Spanish economy into an impact economy, Lencero and Bonet saw
that supporting entrepreneurs was important, but it was just one part of the system. To change
the system, it would be necessary to influence different areas: established companies,
financial markets, government, the social sector, and more.

In 2017, they launched the Circle, a community of executives who believed companies
should be agents of change to improve society and the planet. Bonet, its chair, thought of it as
a think tank that developed and disseminated ideas, messages, and initiatives to change the
definition of success in business. Members attended educational networking events and paid
a membership fee. They could also support acceleration programs by mentoring
entrepreneurs or connecting UnLimited Spain with potential sponsors.

The same year, the two looked into helping Spain become a member of the Global Steering
Group for Impact Investing (GSG). The GSG emerged from the G8-led Social Impact
Investment Task Force in 2013, and it brought together national advisory boards working to
strengthen impact investing and influence public policy in their respective countries.9 For
Spain to join, the private, public, and social sectors needed to collaborate to assess the
national impact economy, create a plan to develop it, and commit to implementing the plan.

UnLimited Spain’s board decided to allocate resources to support Spain’s membership

because they believed the sector would scale more quickly if different actors joined forces to
influence government and institutions. Furthermore, building the ecosystem could lead to a
greater supply of impact investment at the national level that UnLimited Spain’s
entrepreneurs could access. It could also lead to an alliance of impact accelerators that could
make it possible to access European funds to support the foundation’s own activities.

To coordinate the process, UnLimited Spain co-founded an independent nonprofit

organization called Foro Impacto, together with Open Value Foundation (OVF), one of the
first Spanish foundations to invest in social enterprises, and Eurocapital EAF, a private
wealth management company. Ruiz de Munain, recently returned to Spain, became director.
Foro Impacto convened a working group with three commissions focused on the three parts
of the impact investing capital market: supply (capital owners), demand (entrepreneurs and
accelerators), and intermediaries (fund managers, banks, etc.). UnLimited Spain, OVF, and
Eurocapital ceded leadership of the three commissions to other sector representatives – a
social incubator and two impact investing funds. For one year, more than 70 people and

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organizations worked to agree upon an action plan to develop the market (Exhibits 5 and 6).
In June 2019, Spain’s membership in the GSG was formalized, and a national advisory board
called SpainNAB was announced. Foro Impacto became its technical secretary, charged with
coordinating progress on the action plan.

In parallel, Lencero and Bonet launched two other organizations in 2018 and 2019. The first
was Transcendent, a for-profit consultancy that supported traditional companies on their
journey to put impact at the center. Lencero developed the vision with Ángel Pérez, the
“gamechanger” at Lilly Spain. Transcendent launched in October 2018, with Pérez as
Managing Partner and Lencero on the board. Ana Ruiz moved to Transcendent in December.
The two organizations were legally independent but had close ties through their people.

The second was Mumtree, which Lencero and Bonet defined as a “Brilliant Business
Builder.” The idea was to raise and invest capital in growth-stage startups with social impact,
and UnLimited Spain’s acceleration programs would contribute to its investment pipeline. It
launched in September of 2019.

By the end of 2019, there were several projects orbiting UnLimited Spain, each focused on
different aspects of the impact ecosystem in Spain.

The Future of the Foundation

“We felt proud to belong to an organization that was building the ecosystem, but we
needed to think about our vision of the future as a foundation.” – Thaís Bueno

In 2020, as the new projects started to take on a life of their own, Lencero turned his focus to
the future of the foundation. He was pleased with what the organization had accomplished so
far: they had supported 85 Spanish startups, and the survival rate was 85%. The startups had
received more than 1,800 hours of support, created 72 jobs, and reached nearly 4 million
beneficiaries. The foundation had also undertaken more than 20 projects with large
corporations involving more than 350 corporate volunteers.

Still, as social impact was becoming more relevant in the private sector in Spain, Lencero
believed the foundation needed to continue reinventing itself to drive further progress and
offer differentiated value. Lencero wanted to update Unlimited Spain’s strategy, taking into
account the changes in the market and the foundation’s team, programs, and business model.

Market

The most visible change in the impact economy was its growth. Awareness about the impact
of business on society and the intention to generate positive impact had spread beyond the
initial pioneers. In Lencero’s view, this was true not only among entrepreneurs and venture
capital funds but also among corporations, financial markets, civil society, educational
institutions, and some public administrations. One available indicator of growth was the size
of the impact investment market: assets under management by venture capital style impact
funds grew from €90 million in 2018 to €230 million in 2019 and €536 million in 2020.10
The number of certified B corporations grew from 18 in 2015 to nearly 100in 2020.11

Despite the favorable trend, Lencero saw a long road ahead to change the definition of
success in business. He thought that most business executives continued to regard social

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impact as secondary to financial performance. Even those that wanted to prioritize social
impact often didn’t know how to do so and worked in the context of corporate incentive
structures and financial markets that were still centered on financial performance. As long as
this were true, he considered it likely that companies would continue to contribute to negative
social outcomes even as they made efforts to generate positive social impact.

Another concern was that it was very difficult for companies to measure, demonstrate, and
manage their impact. While UnLimited Spain trained the startups it accelerated in this area,
very few did it well. There were numerous, competing international standards, and they
tended to be complex and expensive to implement. Large corporations had more resources to
implement these standards. However, some approaches measured adherence to best practices
rather than the actual social or environmental outcomes generated. Lack of reliable and
comparable impact data made it difficult to distinguish companies that were actually
generating significant social impact from those who merely claimed to do so.

Growth also brought greater competition, as more incubators and accelerators offered support
to startups with impact. UnLimited Spain was one of three market leaders, together with
Ship2B in Barcelona and Social Nest in Valencia. Among other initiatives, Ship2B offered
sectoral acceleration and investment programs, and Social Nest ran programs focusing on
specific entrepreneurial stages or challenges, such as internationalization or investment
readiness. Founded around the same time, the three organizations ‘competed’ with each other
for entrepreneurs and sponsors, but they were all foundations that shared a commitment to
building the market and a concern for its integrity. They worried that new entrants were
branding themselves as “social” without providing high quality training and support in impact
measurement and management. Other shared challenges included securing stable funding that
covered structural costs, as most sponsors would only pay direct program costs on a year-to-
year basis. In countries like the UK and Portugal, the government had stepped in to provide
financial support for social incubators and accelerators, but this had not happened in Spain.

Finally, the Covid-19 pandemic thrust the world into new and uncertain territory as
governments around the world, including Spain, ordered citizens to stay home to minimize
the spread of the virus. The UnLimited Spain team scrambled to move all activities online,
and corporate sponsors stalled plans for sectoral acceleration programs due to uncertainty
around when life would get back to some sort of normal and what the “new normal” would
look like. By November 2020, many in-person activities had resumed, but the outlook was
still uncertain. One thing that was becoming clear was that the pandemic was having unequal
impact on different groups of people, often with those living in poor or minority communities
experiencing the greatest effect on basic needs such as health and education. Lencero hoped
that this would help raise awareness about the impact economy.

Team

While Lencero had focused on launching new projects, the foundation’s daily operations
were in the hands of a new generation of leaders (Exhibit 7). Lencero was pleased with the
team’s performance, but the past year had strained the programs staff, who felt pressure to
execute high-impact projects with limited resources while various team members dedicated
significant hours to the new, external projects (Foro Impacto, Transcendent, Mumtree). In
early 2020, Lencero created the figure of Operations Director to manage daily operations and
business development (pursuing new corporate partners for new acceleration programs). He
interviewed external candidates, looking for a senior profile with experience in business

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development. Believing it was very important to maintain the team culture, however, he
ultimately promoted the programs director, Thaís Bueno, to the new role. “We are a very
horizontal team,” Lencero said. “We are all motivated by UnLimited Spain’s purpose, and we
make decisions as a team. We are a family, a tribe with a strong emotional bond.”

Projects

In 2020, UnLimited Spain continued to offer the same programs as before—sectoral

acceleration programs and the Circle—and began to explore potential new initiatives, such as
the development of a national alliance of impact accelerators and new educational tools.

Sectoral acceleration programs. Although three sectoral acceleration programs ran in 2019
(Exhibit 8), only one, Emprende inHealth, continued in 2020. The foundation was negotiating
with two other partners, but one fell through due to the pandemic, and UnLimited Spain
withdrew from the other, even though this implied a significant loss of income, over concerns
the sponsor’s objectives were not aligned with their own. Bueno threw herself into searching
for new partners and programs, a difficult task in the context of the pandemic. In October
2020, they launched a new program in partnership with a prominent foundation, focused on
helping social sector organizations to generate economically sustainable business models.12

The Circle. The Circle grew in 2020, even though activities had to be conducted online due
to the pandemic. Its 88 members included 44 senior business executives, 38 impact
entrepreneurs, and 6 influencers. It also expanded its activities, beyond the original
educational networking events and opportunities to support acceleration programs, to include
activism workshops in which members could help spread UnLimited Spain’s definition of
success in business by developing initiatives to (1) empower “business activists” to transform
companies, (2) disseminate concepts through media and events, and (3) nurture the Circle’s
membership. Bonet, who presided the community, said, “It has become one of the most
important social impact think tanks in the country, with a powerful activism plan.”

Impact accelerator alliance. One of the main recommendations of the SpainNAB action
plan in June 2019 was to create a national alliance of impact accelerators. UnLimited Spain
had begun to work with Ship2B, Social Nest, and others to implement the recommendation.
One objective was to establish quality standards for the acceleration programs, with special
emphasis on participant selection and impact measurement. Another was to attract resources,
since a collaborative project could have greater sway when seeking public funding. They
thought funding was within reach in early 2020, but the process cooled off after the pandemic
hit. In November, alliance members were developing a narrative about the importance of
social impact incubators and accelerators in the country’s post-Covid reconstruction.

Education. The team also identified a need to educate future leaders about the possibility of
creating companies with impact, beyond its acceleration programs. In 2019, the team
participated in events in different regions in Spain and led the first series of talks about social
impact at South Summit, the biggest startup event in southern Europe. In 2020, they aimed to
develop educational materials based on their experience with the 85 entrepreneurs who had
gone through their programs and to specialize more deeply in impact measurement. Financial
support to develop educational initiatives was obtained from Bank of America. Pondering
how to bring relevant content to the greatest possible audience, the team thought about
creating a media initiative disseminate social impact news; they still needed to flesh out their
ideas and think though how it might work.

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While UnLimited Spain focused on the private sector, SpainNAB continued to organize
efforts aimed at engaging the public sector and increasing government support. Lencero
would soon rotate off of SpainNAB’s governing board, after finishing his three-year term. A
new board, with 16 sector representatives, would be elected to steer the work going forward,
with a mandate to fairly represent the interests of different sector participants.

Business model

The new initiatives in 2020 were supposed to diversify the foundation’s sources of income
and help consolidate its business model. By November, however, Lencero projected that
annual revenue would fall about 15% compared to 2019, which would put it below 2018
levels. Of this revenue, 35% came from corporate sponsorship of acceleration programs, 43%
from foundation grants, and 20% from the previous year’s reserves.13 The Edmond de
Rothschild Foundation continued to provide support, as it had done every year since
UnLimited Spain’s founding.

Looking forward, Lencero wanted to develop revenue streams the foundation could rely on
year after year. He worried that courting donors and sponsors every year diverted the team’s
energy from executing and innovating programs.

In line with this, he thought about bringing the foundation and Transcendent under the
ownership of a common organization. Transcendent was created as a separate entity to
preserve the purity of the foundation’s mission, but in practice the two organizations shared a
common purpose and supported each other. Associating Transcendent with UnLimited
Spain’s brand might increase the organization’s appeal to customers and could guarantee that
some profit was reinvested into the foundation.

Lencero originally hoped Mumtree would also provide financial support to the foundation,
but he had doubts about its future. Fundraising had proven difficult during the pandemic, and
other impact investment funds, led by teams of experienced financial professionals, were
already filling the gap that he and Bonet had aspired to help fill with Mumtree.

Lencero believed firmly in the value of each of UnLimited Spain’s initiatives and in the need
to fund ongoing innovation. However, to ensure efficient use of the organization’s current
resources and to make a case for funding innovation, he wanted to pause and review the
organization’s strategy in terms of what activities might create the most change in the system.

A Strategy to Change the System

As the logs in the fireplace warmed the living room, Lencero looked at the whiteboard. In the
middle, he had written, “Our mission: inspire a new business culture that puts social and
environmental impact at the center,” in big letters. Around it, he had listed the main pillars of
the impact economy ecosystem and initiatives UnLimited Spain and its co-founders had
developed. He was ready to discuss with Bonet: What change and growth levers could help
drive change beyond those who were already convinced? How could UnLimited Spain’s team
and resources best work in this direction? Should they focus on strengthening and leveraging
existing programs? If so, which ones? Or was there opportunity to innovate new programs
that could help take Spain’s impact economy to the next level?

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Lencero hoped that during their days on the coast, he and Bonet would develop an answer to
the underlying question: What strategy should they carry out to contribute to systemic change
while consolidating a sustainable organization?

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Exhibit 1: UnLimited Spain’s Co-Founders

Manuel Lencero

Ángel Bonet

Source: UnLimited Spain

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Exhibit 2: Family of Organizations Created around UnLimited Spain

Source: Elaborated by the authors in collaboration with Manuel Lencero and Leire Vega.

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Exhibit 3: Global Social Entrepreneurship & Impact Investing Pioneers

Ashoka was founded by Bill Drayton in 1980 in the United States to help support, connect, and build up social
entrepreneurs and their ideas. For more than 35 years, its flagship Ashoka Fellows program has built and
nurtured the largest network of leading social entrepreneurs in the world, with more than 3,500 entrepreneurs in
95 countries by 2020. In a 2018 impact survey, 92% of fellows affirmed the Ashoka stipend helped them focus
full time on their idea, and 86% reported that Ashoka helped apply a systems view. By 2020, Ashoka ran several
additional initiatives, including education programs for youth to support its vision for a world where “Everyone
is a Changemaker,” initiatives to connect and foster collaborations between leaders in government and business
sectors, and legal initiatives that highlight the connections between law and social entrepreneurship.

Acumen, founded by Jacqueline Novogratz in 2001 in the United States, uses the power of entrepreneurship to
build a world where everyone has the opportunity to live with dignity. It invests “patient capital” in social
enterprises to bridge the gap between the efficiency and scale of market-based approaches and the social impact
of pure philanthropy. It also provides non-financial support to help these enterprises succeed and scale long-
term solutions to poverty. By 2020, it managed investments in both early-stage and high-growth social
enterprises, the latter through funds that delivered both social and financial returns. It has made 139 investments
in total since 2001, primarily in North America, Latin America, Africa, India, and Pakistan. Since 2007,
Acumen and its partners also trained 715 Acumen Fellows. In 2020, it launched the “Acumen Academy,” with
educational resources for social innovators, and three COVID-19 emergency relief funds: two funds totaling
USD $6.5 million for Acumen investees, and a USD $80 million debt relief fund for energy access.

UnLtd was founded in 2002 in the United Kingdom, when seven organizations that supported social
entrepreneurs came together to amplify their impact. Its startup awards provide financing to entrepreneurs to
start or grow social enterprises, using income generated from an endowment from the Millenium Commission.
Since then, UnLtd has grown to help accelerate the impact of scaling ventures; to help identify and address
barriers faced by social entrepreneurs through research, policy work and campaigns; and to partner with others
on collaborative initiatives. In 2020, UnLtd gave £13.2 million in funding to 662 social entrepreneurs in the UK,
59% of which were women and 83% of which felt more able to create social change after working with UnLtd.
These social enterprises reached 333,000 direct beneficiaries and were able to raise an additional £3 million in
new investment following their awards from UnLtd.

B Lab, which began in 2006 in the United States, became known for certifying B Corporations, which are
companies that meet high standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency.
Aiming to change the economic system through its international network, it works to change the rules of the
game by creating standards, policies, tools, and programs that shift the behavior, culture, and structural
underpinnings of capitalism. It mobilizes the B Corp community towards collective action to address society’s
most critical challenges. By 2020, there were over 4,000 certified B Corporations in more than 150 industries in
77 countries across 6 continents.

The Global Impact Investment Network was founded in New York in 2009 to champion impact investing and
increase its scale and effectiveness around the world. By convening impact investors to facilitate knowledge
exchange, highlighting innovative investment approaches, building the evidence base for the industry, and
producing valuable tools and resources, the GIIN sought to accelerate the industry's development through
focused leadership and collective action. Its primary areas of focus in 2020 were: industry network and events;
tools and resources for impact measurement and management; training programs for impact investors and fund
managers; industry research, market data, and publications; and market leadership initiatives.

Sources:
Acumen. “2020 Annual Report.” https://acumen.org/wp-content/uploads/2020-Acumen-Annual-Report.pdf.
Acumen. “About Acumen.” Acumen.org/about.
Ashoka. “Our Programs Worldwide.” https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/our-programs.
Ashoka. “Ashoka’s Impact Snapshot.” https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/ashokas-impact-snapshot.
B Lab. “2020 Annual Report.” https://assets.ctfassets.net/l575jm7617lt/4NX33XW2fuX2jcMyrplLU1/
9dd8874c707745b0a6986e80613629cb/2020_B_Lab_Annual_Report_Final__1_.pdf
B Lab. “About B Lab.” https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/movement/about-b-lab.
GlIN. “About the GIIN.” https://thegiin.org/about/.
UnLtd. “2020 Our Year in Impact.” https://www.unltd.org.uk/impact2020.
UnLtd. “What we do.” https://www.unltd.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/.

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Exhibit 4: Communication

Watch at:
https://youtu.be/
l9RLnYv0dzo

Translation:

SUPPORTING
ENTREPRENEURS
TO BUILD THE
CITIES OF THE
FUTURE

Translation:

EMPRENDE iN HEALTH

DO YOU WANT TO
REVOLUTIONIZE THE
HEALTH SECTOR AND
GENERATE SOCIAL IMPACT
WITH YOUR STARTUP?

5th EDITION

SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Source: Unlimited Spain

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Exhibit 5: The Spanish Impact Investment Ecosystem (2019)

Note: The following is a translated excerpt from: Hehenberger, L., Casasnovas, G., Urriolagoita, L.,
Blanco, L., Ruiz de Munain, J.L. (June, 2019). “Hacia una economía de impacto: Recomendaciones para
impulsar la inversión de impacto en España.” Asociación Foro Impacto. pp. 25-26.

Although the impact investing ecosystem in Spain is still incipient,† strong interest has emerged among
actors from different sectors. Some pioneering organizations have experimented with financing social
enterprises in recent years, whether through projects linked to incubators and accelerators, investment
funds with below-market return expectations, or microfinance of ethical banking services. Most of these
organizations have been very involved in the development of the sector, becoming fundamental pieces in
the Spanish impact investment market.

As in other countries, impact funds have become leaders in the ecosystem, with a clear focus on measuring
said impact, achieving financial return for their investors, and their vocation to contribute to market-
building initiatives. They currently manage around 90 million euros [2018 data], and new funds emerge
every year, expanding and diversifying the financing possibilities for social enterprises. However, as can
be seen in [the figure Spanish Impact Investment Ecosystem], the impact investing ecosystem in Spain
goes beyond impact funds. Equally important are the different segments that demand and supply capital,
financial and non-financial intermediaries, the so-called impact buyers, and market infrastructure elements.

Figure: Spanish Impact Investment Ecosystem

Impact buyers Demand for capital Intermediation Supply of capital

Public Social sector / Financial Public

administrations social economy Impact administrations
Consumers New forms of investment funds Foundations
Foundations social enterprise Crowdfunding Development
Corporations Foundations platforms organizations
with social Corporations Ethical banking Family offices
commitment with significant Venture
social impact Retail investors
philanthropy
objectives Institutional
investors
Non-financial Financial services
Incubators and companies
accelerators
Education and
research
Consulting

Financial instruments
Market
infrastructure Impact measurement
Regulatory framework

†
Maduro, M., Pasi, G., Misuraca, G. 2018. “Social impact investment in the EU. Financing strategies and
outcome oriented approaches for social policy innovation: narratives, experiences, and recommendations” The
Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s 25 science and knowledge service.

13
Exhibit 6: Recommendations for Strengthening Impact Investment in Spain (2019)

The process through which Spain joined the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment in 2019 culminated in
a final report with five recommendations:

1. Strengthen social enterprises through incubators and accelerators.

Responsibility of: Public sector, financial sector, and third sector
(1.1) Create an alliance of social incubators and accelerators to share best practices, standardize processes,
and address social enterprises’ different needs. (1.2) Create or adapt a subsidy program to help cover the
cost of the non-financial support provided by social incubators and accelerators. (1.3-1.5) Create financing
vehicles to provide financing to early-stage (idea / pilot stage) social enterprises; social enterprises in seed
and start-up stages; and established social enterprises undertaking innovation and transformation projects.

2. Attract public and private funds to catalyze impact investment.

(2.1-2.2) Secure national, supra-national, and European public resources to catalyze new impact investment
funds and reinforce existing funds. (2.3) Create a vehicle that can invest with different risk-return-impact
strategies, for example providing technical assistance and blended finance. (2.4) Create and distribute
specialized impact funds. (2.5) Define social and environmental impact success metrics when providing
financing. (2.6) Participate in the development of the European Union’s Sustainable Finance Action Plan, to
reinforce the importance of impact investment among institutional investors. (2.7) Promote a national
regulatory and tax framework for venture capital funds that qualify as European social entrepreneurship
funds that aligns with the European regulations. (2.8) Promote public and private investment instruments
that make it possible to adopt innovative investment structures to strengthen social impact.

3. Harness foundations’ capital and knowledge to drive impact investing.

(3.1) Clarify the regulatory framework to allow foundations to make impact investments using their
endowments and operating budgets. (3.2) Educate foundations about the possibility of using impact
investment to advance their missions. (3.3) Create a pilot investment vehicle through which several
foundations can allocate part of their endowments to impact investment. (3.4) Use foundation resources to
create new patient capital and mixed investment funds that invest through a combination of capital, debt,
and grants. (3.5-3.6) Promote venture philanthropy by foundations to support early-stage social enterprises
and social organizations undertaking transformation and financial sustainability projects. (3.7) Use
resources from foundations’ operating budgets to build impact investment market infrastructure (research
studies, databases, dissemination, etc.)

4. Promote Pay for Success contracting (PFS) to drive social innovation.

(4.1) Give visibility to PFS in use in Spain, together with international examples, to educate relevant actors.
(4.2) Educate the public administration in the benefits of PFS. (4.3) Experiment with public policies that
promote PFS and evidence-based interventions, in order to introduce these mechanisms in the new Public
Procurement Law. (4.4) Establish national government financing, combinable with philanthropic resources,
to fund feasibility and design studies for PFS. (4.5) Promote the creation of government-led PFS funds, in
order to co-finance and expedite the implementation of PFS for innovative projects that address complex
social needs. (4.6) Conduct a pilot PFS initiative in which an alliance of foundations play the role of “payor
for results.” (4.7) Create impact investment funds specialized in investing in PFS.

5. Build market knowledge and infrastructure for an impact economy.

(5.1) Conduct market research studies, for example to understand social enterprises’ financing needs or
social and financial performance. (5.2) Communicate national and international impact investment success
stories. (5.3) Educate relevant social, public, and private sector actors about the potential of impact
investment. (5.4) Promote impact measurement and management using commonly accepted methodologies
and tools. (5.5) Create a database of evidence on the success of interventions, including PFS, to share
knowledge between public administrations and with other stakeholders. (5.6) Create a unit-cost database
that makes it possible to measure and compare the impact of specific interventions. (5.7) Educate new
generations to think about companies as key actors in solving social and environmental challenges.

Source: Hehenberger, L., Casasnovas, G., Urriolagoita, L., Blanco, L., Ruiz de Munain, J.L. (June, 2019).
“Hacia una economía de impacto: Recomendaciones para impulsar la inversión de impacto en España.”
Asociación Foro Impacto. pp. 13-19.

14
Exhibit 7: Organizational Chart (2020)

Manuel Lencero Ángel Bonet

CEO President

Thaís Bueno
Operations Director

Finance and Admin.

Manager

Raquel Lourenço Leire Vega

Programs Coordinator Communications Director

Programs Assistant Silvia Palacios

Communications
Comm. Coordinator
Intern
& Circle Manager

Source: UnLimited Spain

15
Exhibit 8: Sectoral Programs (2016-2020)
Emprende inHealth
Focus: health
Partner Lilly España, which sought to
support impact entrepreneurs
in health and to develop its
internal entrepreneurial spirit
Years 2016-2020
Impact On Lilly
> 420 mentions in media that
reached 30 million people
Skills development (on scale of
1-10): professional enrichment
(9.2), self-confidence (8.6),
inspiration (8.4), flexibility and
adaptability (8.1), proactivity
(8.4), motivation at work (8.2)
On the startups
> 1,100 hours of high-quality
support in concrete, priority
areas of the business
Recommendation rate: 9.8
+ 4,320,653 euros in additional
financing received
Contacts with mentors and
Lilly directors to develop skills
93% survival rate
On society
44 jobs generated
> 50,000 patients and citizens’
quality of life improved
Source: UnLimited Spain
Gamechangers & Cities
Focus: sustainable cities
Ferrovial Servicios, which
sought ideas/projects that add
value to the company’s
services
Univ. Camilo José Cela,
which sought opportunities for
its students to gain experience
with impact businesses and to
develop their resumes
2018-2019
On Ferrovial
61 mentions in media that
reached 881,675 people
Skills development overall
rated 8.6 on a scale from 1-10
3 pilot projects implemented
1 mentor joined and invested in
a startup
On Univ. Camilo José Cela
3 class years, 30 students, 9
professors, 1026 hours
interacting with the subject
10 reports documenting the
startups’ alignment with the
Spanish Urban Agenda
Feasibility study for logistics
distribution with RENFE (the
national rail company)
On the startups
201 hours of high-quality
support in concrete, priority
areas of the business
Recommendation rate: 9.7
+ 772,700 euros of additional
financing received
Contacts with mentors and
Ferrovial directors
90% survival rate
On society
64 jobs generated
300 kg of food recovered
Nearly 2 million beneficiaries
> 5 tn CO2 emissions
prevented
Gamechangers & Food
Focus: agri-food
Solero (a Unilever brand),
which sought sustainable ideas
and projects that added value
to the brand and that helped
them with sustainability
challenges
2019
On Solero
30 mentions in media that
reached 3,081,676 people
Skills development (on scale of
1-10): professional enrichment
(8.1), self-confidence (8.1),
inspiration (8.1), flexibility and
adaptability (7.9), proactivity
(7.3), motivation at work (7)
On the startups
186 hours of high-quality
support in concrete, priority
areas of the business
Recommendation rate: 9.2
+ 335.000 euros of additional
financing received
Contacts with mentors and
Unilever directors
83% survival rate
On society
15 jobs generated
> 10 tn of food recovered
Nearly 3 million meals donated
> 200 tn of CO2 emissions
prevented
16
References

1
Ashoka. (August 3, 2020). “Bill Drayton Visionary Social Impact Leader.” Ashoka.org.
https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/story/bill-drayton-visionary-social-impact-leader-social-entrepreneur
2
Generalitat de Catalunya. (January, 2012). “Bones Pràctiques Internacionals de Suport a l’Empreneduria
Social.” Generalitat de Catalunya. pp.16-17.
https://www.esade.edu/itemsweb/wi/research/iis/publicacions/BONES_PRACTIQUES_SOCENT.pdf
3
A Spanish B Lab country partner was designated in 2015. Source: Bcorpspain.es. “Sobre B Lab Spain.”
Accessed at https://www.bcorpspain.es/b-lab-es on January 8, 2022.
4
Generalitat de Catalunya. (January, 2012). Op. cit. p. 10.
5
Ibid. p. 10.
6
The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs (UnLtd). “Trustees’ Report and Consolidated Financial Statements
Year Ended 31 March 2013.” p. 9.
7
The Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs (UnLtd). “Trustees’ Report and Consolidated Financial Statements
Year Ended 31 March 2013.” p. 24.
8
“Emprende” is a verb form of the Spanish word for “entrepreneurship.”
9
For more information about the GSG, see https://gsgii.org/about-us/#aboutgsg.
10
Hehenberger, L., Casasnovas, G., Urriolagoita, L., Blanco, L., Ruiz de Munain, J.L. (June, 2019). “Hacia una
economía de impacto: Recomendaciones para impulsar la inversión de impacto en España.” Asociación Foro
Impacto. p. 26; Hehenberger, L. (September 15, 2020). “Estudio sobre la Oferta de Capital de Inversión de
Impacto en España” [PowerPoint slides]. Esade Entrepreneurship Institute, Esade Business School; and
Hehenberger, L. Casasnovas, G., Jenkins, S. (June, 2021). “La inversión de impacto en España: Oferta de
capital, segmentación y características. p.14.
11
B Corp Spain. “Memoria Annual B Corp Spain 2017.” Pp. 13-14. Accessed at
https://drive.google.com/file/d/11l1DnLaJq090o5h_Zhrlkgv0IHP62OwA/view on January 8, 2022; and B Corp
Spain. “Memoria Annual 2020.” Pp. 14-15. Accessed at
https://issuu.com/bcorpspain/docs/memoria_anual_b_lab_spain_2020 on January 8, 2022.
12
For more information about this program, which was launched in October 2020, see: Diario El Referente.
(March 4, 2021). “La Fundación Daniel y Nina Carasso y UnLtd Spain ponen en marcha un programa de apoyo
a proyectos que abordan retors sociales.” ElReferente.es. https://elreferente.es/actualidad/la-fundacion-daniel-y-
nina-carasso-y-unltd-spain-ponen-en-marcha-un-programa-de-apoyo-a-proyectos-que-abordan-retos-sociales/.
13
As a foundation, UnLimited Spain did not distribute annual surpluses to shareholders but rather reinvested
them in subsequent years’ operations.

17
Review copy for the Case Research Journal. Not for reproduction or distribution.
Dated January 8, 2022.