We are now facing a new stage marked by the start of new projects, growth in all indicators, increased projection and visibility, and economic consolidation.

On July 12, 2022, the iSocial Foundation has completed four years. Four years since the foundation was born in a notary’s office on Avinguda Diagonal in the city of Barcelona, ​​at the initiative of six social NGO. They say that start-ups are 4YFN, four years from now: after four years it is known if they have a future and move on to a next stage of growth and consolidation, or disappear forever.

The iSocial Foundation can already affirm that we are part of the 15% of the start-ups that survive. Having overcome the “valley of death” of the first years, which in our case has been made even more complicated by the outbreak of the Covid19 crisis, we are now facing a new stage marked by the start of new projects, growth in all indicators, increased projection and visibility, and economic consolidation.

Numerous indicators support it. In this time we have doubled the number of member NGO, which has gone from six to thirteen: Ampans Foundation ; ABD Group; Support-Girona Foundation; Joia Foundation; ATRA Group; Família i Benestar Social Foundation; Resilis-Plataforma Educativa Group; Síndrome de Down Catalan Foundation; Sant Pere Claver Group; Idea Foundation; Maresme Foundation; Alzheimer Catalan Platform; and Agintzari Cooperative Group.

The territorial origin of the member NGO, initially all from Catalonia, has begun to expand with the incorporation of NGO from the Basque Country. And at the same time we have gained international presence, with our entry into the European Social Network; two of our projects, Flapp! and Insess-Covid19, nominated for the European Social Services Awards; more and more joint projects with partners from other countries; and a growing visibility in congresses and international working groups.

In this period the number of our social media followers has grown steadily, with 1,418 subscribers to our newsletter and 1,593 social media followers at the present time. Participation in the activities has also not stopped growing: during this 1st semester of 2022 we have had 196 participants in the Innobreaks, and 393 social services professionals have participated in our training programs.

In terms of projects, we have reached this 4th anniversary with 10 active projects: three for research, one for knowledge exchange, four for promoting innovation and two for accompanying innovation, in partnership with seven universities, six administrations, four companies and sixteen social entities. Among these active projects we highlight Flapp!, an application for young ex-guardians; Nidus, a digital platform at the service of homeless people; Welcome, a voice assistant for immigrants and refugees; or All by myself, an aggregator of ICT solutions for the independent life of people with intellectual disabilities.

Finally, a positive economic evolution has accompanied this first stage of the foundation as a start-up. On the one hand, the volume of income has grown steadily, with €95,764 in 2020, €186,292 in 2021 and a forecast of €411,978 for this year 2022. And on the other hand, the assets of the foundation have been strengthening year after year, having gone from a negative net worth of €77,714 in 2019, to a positive net worth that is expected to be €80,277 at the end of 2022.

After these first four years, we are now facing a new stage with new activities and projects in preparation, and with new challenges that we are passionate about: launching a Living Lab in social services; publish our 1st report on innovation trends in the social services sector; expand our training offer; or move to a new office in the city of Barcelona.

All this with the ultimate goal of making the mission that led a group of social NGO to create iSocial four years ago a reality: to contribute to transforming, improving and modernizing the social services sector by promoting innovation in the sector.

.