Community Spirit as way to Generate Social Impact

Back in 2018 MJN was named the winning project in the health category of the first edition of the Fundación MAPFRE Awards for Social Innovation, boosted by IE. Since then, they have formed part of the Red Innova global community of social innovators, who have come through each edition of the awards.

Watching the Evolution of MJN

As the founder of Red Innova, I had the pleasure of getting to know the MJN team from day 1. In 2018 we did some design research about the people behind the projects of the awards, so that we could focus on the core activities that would be most impactful for them. Salva was generous enough to have a virtual coffee with me and explain more about MJN, its origins and its vision for the future. It seems like just yesterday that we had this first chat, but three years have already gone by and MJN has achieved so much. From technological advancements and certification successes, to the winning of countless awards and the launch of the product to the market, MJN has certainly been busy bringing impactful change to society.

One of the key activities we do in Red Innova is called “Monthly Milestones”. In this activity, our members tell us about their achievements each month, which we then incorporate into a report that is shared with the closed community. The Monthly Milestones provides us with a great opportunity to celebrate the achievements of our members and share these updates with other entrepreneurs, mentors and experts in MAPFRE, Fundación MAPFRE and IE. As one of the earliest and most committed members of Red Innova, MJN has documented over 55 milestones with us, which is among the highest in the community.

In April 2021 we celebrated the Monthly Milestones Anniversary, in which we gathered all the milestones that MJN and other members had sent over the years, and turned them into personalised reports. Capturing the achievements of MJN in this way and creating a timeline of the major successes of the organisation really illustrates how much a bunch of smart,dedicated people can achieve in just a few years. From Red Innova, it has been humbling to be able to accompany them in some way along their journey!

Community Spirit

Our community is designed to facilitate the scaling of social impact on two levels. Firstly, there’s the focus on projects and providing training through IE University, networking with other members and the networks of MAPFRE and IE, building collaborations and facilitating knowledge exchange. We also raise awareness of our members and their projects through activities like thought leadership. Over the years, MJN has contributed greatly to sharing their learnings with Red Innova and the wider society through writing articles about the SDGs, connecting with other members in our community events and sharing stories of their achievements, which in turn helps others learn.

This type of openness to sharing and collaboration is exactly what we need in order to scale social impact globally. Oftentimes startups may be apprehensive about sharing their news, stories or ideas with others, but if we have learned anything from the past 3 years of Red Innova and having members like MJN, it’s that we can go a lot further and change the world when we work together. Considering all of the progress the team has made in such a short amount of time, I personally can’t wait to see all of the great things that they will continue to achieve in the future!

About Red Innova

Red Innova is the global community of social innovators connected to the Fundación MAPFRE Awards for Social Innovation, boosted by IE. The community was established in 2018 and continues to scale. Each edition, we invite the semifinalist projects to be part of the exclusive community, which includes social entrepreneurs, directors from Fundación MAPFRE, MAPFRE and IE University, as well as our team of mentors, jury members and innovation experts. Our members come from all across the world, predominantly Latin America and Europe.