Transforming and impacting through investment in art and food

Impact investing is a tool that supports projects with great power for social and/or environmental transformation, while obtaining economic returns. Beyond patronage, at the Foundation we have made this financial model one of its complementary pillars to its action. To this end, we have developed an impact investment strategy specific to the Spanish ecosystem, without sacrificing the precision of the definition of its social and environmental impact. This strategy is bearing its first fruit: Tiina, the first open call that we promote in this field.

For more than five years, the Foundation has been committed to impact investing as one of the strategies that allows us to align our activity in financial markets with the social mission that we develop in our work as a Grant Maker. The multiple crises that shook our society during 2020 made us all reaffirm how necessary it is to rethink our way of being in the world, looking for ways to function that can build a more livable planet and a more resilient society. Foundations have the possibility, and also the responsibility, to be pioneers in a transformation of the economic sector where we demonstrate that it is possible, as well as necessary, to start from the needs of people and the planet to build an economy centered on life and bequeath a habitable world to the next generations. An economy that has the name of social and solidarity economy and has given countless examples in our country to this day, as our study shows” Social and Solidarity Economy. A favorable ecosystem for social transformation” that we presented in 2020.

Since 2015, we have opted for an investment portfolio consistent with our principles and vision of a greener, more inclusive society that allows for full development. That’s why we decided to sign the DivestInvest initiative, established social responsibility as a minimum condition for our portfolio investments, and set ourselves the goal of 15% impact investing. Investing responsibly is also one of the pillars of the Climate Foundations Pact, which we launched in 2019 together with the Spanish Association of Foundations to unite the third sector in its transformation in the face of the climate and social justice emergency.

Regarding the initiatives and lines of action, a Sourcing Committee was formed, made up of volunteer experts and members of the Foundation’s team, to define the strategy to be followed in Spain. Throughout 2021, this committee was studying the fabric of transformative initiatives in Sustainable Food and Citizen Art, which we could support. This committee has been a rich space for collective reflection on the specificities of the Spanish impact investing ecosystem.

Introducing Tiina: A Pioneering and Promising Impact Investment Program

This commitment continues to take shape through various projects. The most recent is Tiina, the first impact investing start-up fund dedicated to art and food, which we launched in collaboration with the Ship2B Foundation. Its objective is to prepare and finance young projects focused on promoting social transformation towards a more ecological, fair and inclusive society through sustainable food or citizen art.

This first edition of Tiina has €200,000 to finance companies, start-ups and social entities that have an innovative project, with social and/or environmental impact that can generate a real transformation, with potential for profitability or self-sustainability and that operate in Spain. The call offers, in addition to financial support for three years, strategic alliances within the sector, a network of mentors to maximize projects, as well as measurement and management tools to increase social and environmental impact.

The Tiina program is divided into two phases. The first is a bootcamp in which 16 selected projects will participate. Between May and July 2022, they will have the opportunity to specify and improve their value propositions, as well as receive training and mentoring on key topics – impact measurement, business model, investment readiness, impact and communication. After this phase, 8 projects will be selected to move on to the second phase: an intensive acceleration programme that will take place between September and February 2023. They will receive personalised support that will include, according to the needs of each project, support in the design of a strategy that maximises social impact, business and commercial strategy, as well as human resources. This process will culminate with the validation by the Ship2B Foundation of the social impact of each project and the investment readiness to access a soft loan.

The deadline for receiving applications to participate in this first edition of the Tiina program is open until May 1 at 11:59 p.m. You can request all the information about the call on the Ship2B Foundation program website.

Impact investing is a powerful and relevant tool for a greener and more inclusive economy, which can effectively complement patronage. We want to continue learning and promoting other more responsible ways of doing finance, using investment as a way to support projects that contribute to a better future from Citizen Art and Sustainable Food, two transversal axes that touch and move all dimensions of sustainability.

Learn more about Tiina in the recording of the presentation event on March 17, 2022 on our YouTube channel.

The entities selected in the first phase are the following:
Sustainable food

Wonderfood offers weekly subscriptions to packaged dishes (without preservatives or additives) vegan and with organic certification issued by the Committee of Organic Agriculture of Madrid (CAEM). They send delicious and healthy meals, directly to the end consumer.

Encantado de Comerte is an app for Android and iOS that publishes batches of food that shops have not been able to sell throughout the day.

GrinGrin Foods busts the myth that plant-based food is boring. They have products for all moments of consumption with the aim of creating new pleasures in food that come from more sustainable origins.

Guimarana Dream Food is the dream of Chef Cholo García to offer recipes for healthy eating. Vegan pâtés with a high nutritional value, using very high quality ingredients from sustainable crops. Its mission is to promote a healthy lifestyle that is sensitive to our environment, which you can discover in our varied catalogue of foods.

bioTrèmol is a consumer cooperative that was created with the intention of transforming consumption, production and distribution habits around food and other basic household goods.

Menjadors Ecològics seeks to digitise the management of collective kitchens to facilitate day-to-day management: purchasing, validation of the food consignment, production in the kitchen and food safety and hygiene.

Quesería Jaramera produces high-quality artisanal cheeses based on local, organic and natural products.

FoodCoop BCN is a supermarket for conscious, participatory and sustainable consumption.

Socially engaged art

Aptent and its Accessible Theatre project seeks to ensure that people with disabilities and the elderly can enjoy the performing arts on equal terms.

AulaFilm is a digital platform that promotes the use of cinema as an indispensable and transversal educational resource for the training of children and young people in the 21st century.

Teatro LaJoven produces stage works with young artists, technicians and managers as well as educational projects with the aim of exposing the general population, with special emphasis on adolescents and young people, to emotional impacts that bring them benefits in terms of the development of their own critical thinking, emotional growth, improvement of their health, and other socio-educational benefits.

PezEstudio carries out sustainable architecture and urban design projects. They design spaces, processes and services in a participatory way as tools for ecological, social and economic change.

Amarenak is a textile design and sustainable fashion firm, which innovates and reinterprets traditional garments and elements of Basque culture, to keep this unknown part of our heritage alive, creating #historiasquesellevanpuestas. Amarenak is ultimately a bridge between researchers, anthropologists, museums and archives and society in general.

Cuscusian+s is based on co-creation. On the one hand, offered as art games and creative books that help people to connect with their creativity and their inner artistic sensitivity and to develop a critical sense and express themselves freely. And on the other hand, they co-create with Museums and Art Centers, spaces and creative products that allow art to be brought closer to all audiences.

Another Way Association organizes cultural events to inform, educate and sensitize citizens to the climate crisis in order to go through the vital social transformation for our life in harmony on the planet. Its flagship event is Another Way Film Festival, the leading film festival on sustainable progress. On the other hand, they propose training for committed filmmakers in collaboration with study centers and universities, to introduce the tools of sustainable audiovisual production in order to reduce the impact of the Spanish audiovisual industry.

Basurama is a collective dedicated to research, creation and cultural and environmental production founded in 2001 that has focused its area of study and action on the production processes, the generation of waste that they imply and the creative possibilities that these contemporary conjunctures raise. It also aims to establish a platform for characters from the social fabric to come into contact and work together who occupy very different places and yet are not very far apart, also considering itself as a creative node-meeting space.