The idea of the partnership originated from the initial intention of Boehringer Ingelheim to start a social initiative in the healthcare field as a celebration of its 125th anniversary in 2010. For this occasion, the company wanted to team up with a global NGO to launch an initiative in the field of health that would aim to create a positive impact in society, and also go beyond the classical CSR support of NGOs and their projects in this field.
Ashoka offered a global structure and opportunities for the direct engagement of employees, but mainly its strong entrepreneurial spirit and long-term expertise and experience with social entrepreneurship globally. The two organizations have been very complimentary in their approaches from the beginning, which set a strong foundation for the collaboration.
In hindsight, the partnership phases can be neatly mapped out, although their development was an ambitious entrepreneurial process:
Phase 1 (2011-2014) focused on identifying the social innovators and supporting them with strategic and financial resources.
Phase 2 (2014-2017) focused on the development of changemaking skills such as intrapreneurship and leadership among Boehringer Ingelheim employees.
Phase 3 (2017-2020) focused on creating stronger local ecosystems and cross-sectoral collaboration between Boehringer Ingelheim, social entrepreneurs, and their local communities by launching collaborative pilots to improve health access.
Phase 4 (2021-2024) will continue expanding the partnership and including additional stakeholders with the purpose of advancing the systemic approach within the healthcare system. Boehringer Ingelheim and Ashoka think more and more about the potential big vision role of the partnership in the field, in showing how long-term commitment can ultimately lead to providing healthcare more effectively
Vision of the partnership
Making More Health aims to create a world where everyone has more health: individuals, animals, and their communities, by fostering and supporting an ecosystem of social entrepreneurial solutions for complex health challenges
Since the very beginning, Making More Health was developed in a genuine co-creation effort, where the two partners are equally involved in defining the evolution of the collaboration. This has meant going beyond the traditional funder–service provider relationship that is usually established between the profit and non-profit sector.
The partnership also aims to answer questions of how to build economic models for companies in the field of healthcare that are also socially sustainable. The intent is not to keep this knowledge within MMH. Rather, the idea is to have MMH promote and share the experience, the ideas, and the results, in order to amplify social innovation in the health field and fundamentally transform practices in the sector.
Structure and Strategy
Global framework, local strategies
As a partnership implemented on a worldwide scale, Making More Health is meant to adapt to very different socio-economic contexts. It includes a common global framework and plenty of room for new inputs and testing new projects locally. This has allowed the partnership to develop consistently with its purpose, while successfully adapting to different regions and conditions.
The partnership is structured around 3 main pillars, providing the basis for all the MMH global programs:
Social Innovation:
The partnership selects cutting-edge social entrepreneurs tackling problems related to health field. They receive support to grow the impact of their solutions and provide Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim with important insights on innovation and trends in the sector.
Changemaker Culture:
MMH comprises a set of initiatives to engage the company's employees to take action in changemaking. They have the chance to develop leadership skills and can show their intrapreneurial spirit by testing new projects.
Cross-sectoral collaboration:
An MMH Accelerator helps to scale the work of social entrepreneurs increasing access to human and animal health.
Impact
The initiatives formed under the MMH umbrella have produced concrete results for multiple stakeholders, such as the Ashoka Fellows who are part of the MMH network, the Boehringer Ingelheim engaged employees and both Boehringer Ingelheim and Ashoka as organizations.
But MMH has also boosted the capabilities of local organizations working in the healthcare sector that have joined the partnership’s initiatives. These organizations benefit from enhanced credibility derived from working with MMH and learn from the direct experience of working with a global company.
If you want to learn more about these local organizations and projects, please go here!
1. The Ashoka Fellows who are part of the MMH network
The social entrepreneurs selected by the partnership find a new identity as Making More Health Fellows. They gain new confidence from the external validation of the value of their work and they become part of a global network of innovators in health. Additionally, while Ashoka Fellows are usually already recognized at the local level, MMH opens the door for enhanced credibility internationally, contributing to their scaling process to other countries.
The Ashoka Fellows who are part of the MMH network can also benefit from the expertise and network of Boehringer Ingelheim employees in their work, thus improving their solutions and expanding their impact.
Today, MMH counts a community of more than 100 Ashoka Fellows and many other organizations contributing to improving health are part of the partnership’s network. This is creating the foundation for a broader movement in health, also attracting additional players.
2. Empowering Boehringer Ingelheim employees towards becoming changemakers
MMH is embracing the Everyone a Changemaker vision by building programs and creating opportunities for individuals to discover and master changemaking skills. BI employees are encouraged to open their eyes, hearts and minds and take action, rally teammates around them and engage, through their work, in socially impactful ways. As they get involved in local activities, they embark on a disruptive experience, finding themselves in a new context where they are confronted by the challenges of communities on the ground. In these experiences, by working with social entrepreneurs who are part of the MMH network or other local organizations, employees developed strong leadership and empathy skills.
Employees can also develop new local projects everywhere in the world. After taking part in MMH programs, they have a blank page to develop their own initiatives and are encouraged to do so. The MMH framework has therefore been a great opportunity to showcase the meaning of intrapreneurship inside the company. Through MMH, employees can prove to themselves and to others that they can innovate internally.
If you want to learn more about the MMH`s employee journey, please visit the MMH Magazine Nº1 and Nº2
3. A mutual learning journey: impact both inside Boehringer Ingelheim and inside Ashoka
Overall, what has changed in Boehringer Ingelheim is the understanding of what building alliances means: going beyond philanthropy and corporate social responsibility and building access to health in an integrated way. Business and the social purpose need to be seen in a holistic perspective. MMH has brought new ways of thinking and working inside Boehringer Ingelheim influenced by the direct connection with social entrepreneurs and their target groups.
Additionally, the exchange between Ashoka Fellows who are part of the MMH network and employees has been a great source of innovation for the company. In the traditional structure of a pharmaceutical company, innovation usually comes from the top. Through MMH, instead, innovation can come from the bottom: from the social entrepreneurs and from what the employees learn in the field.
The partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim has also benefitted Ashoka in many ways, contributing to opening new offices in countries where Ashoka was previously absent and supporting new social entrepreneurs in the field of health. On the other hand, the collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim has helped Ashoka better understand how to engage companies in advancing its “Everyone a changemaker” mission.
We are in a situation in which we have been preparing to scale for a while and of course, MMH is a good ¨badge¨. MMH is relevant for the process of scaling to other countries
Ashoka Fellow
MMH Network
Some people have come away from the Leadership Week in India and in Kenya saying that it was the best developmental experience they've ever had. To me, it has to do with the kind of immersion they have, in the fantastic work that the partnership does
Facilitator
I think that step by step, this partnership shakes the organization
MMH External Consultant
We started at developing an idea of how it could look like: Boehringer Ingelheim funding the social entrepreneurs' selection process but also bringing the inspiration back to Boehringer Ingelheim
Global MMH Leader
The private sector can be part of the solution. We need to involve them. And I think this is our job as social entrepreneurs (...) We need to spread our mission outside of the social ecosystem
Ashoka
