This is how the Achmea Foundation works
Objective of the Achmea Foundation: Sustainable impact on the socio-economic situation of the most vulnerable people in the Netherlands and in developing countries.
We will achieve this objective by focusing on four strategic goals of the foundation. These four strategic goals have been translated into four impactful programmes.
Achmea Foundation Impact Fund
The Achmea Foundation invests by means of donations, loans and/or the provision of knowledge and expertise in projects that build on the local population’s own strength and empowerment. Here we want to reach a niche market by investing in innovative projects (venture capital) in the fields of agriculture, healthcare and finance. Themes that also play an important role within Achmea as an organisation. When doing this, we focus on the Sub-Saharan countries of Africa.
Expert Volunteer Assignments
The Achmea Foundation also invests in initiatives by making knowledge and expertise available to social organisations. By sharing knowledge, we want to make a sustainable contribution to impactful initiatives. This enables organisations to achieve a greater or faster impact and creates opportunities for personal development of employees.
These assignments can take place on all continents, but also at our partner organisations in the Netherlands. Due to COVID-19, we were again unfortunately unable to carry out any physical assignments in 2021. The Expert Volunteer Assignments took place remotely. Fortunately, we have been able to help many organisations and contribute to the development of Achmea employees.
ImpactPlus Incubator
ImpactPlus is an initiative of the Achmea Foundation for social entrepreneurs. With an intensive growth programme, we help innovative scale-ups to professionalise their business and increase their social impact.
Achmea Voor Elkaar
Achmea Voor Elkaar is the online platform where Achmea employees can start or support social initiatives to make the Netherlands a little healthier, safer or more future-proof.
Call for Proposals 2021 was conducted in an Agile manner
Due to the special situation created by COVID-19, the decision was made in 2021 to organise the Call for Proposals for initiatives in Africa differently. Organisations were proactively approached to explore whether they had any innovative projects that matched the Achmea Foundation’s strategy. These are organisations with which the Achmea Foundation has had good experiences, but also new organisations. Following discussions with these organisations, the selection committee selected organisations/projects that could submit a proposal 2021. During these discussions with the organisations, the director and programme manager of the Achmea Foundation and one of the committee members were always present.
This new agile approach was evaluated by the Selection Committee and was considered positive.
In previous years, Achmea Foundation sometimes received 100 applications. This required a great deal of work from both the organisations submitting the applications and the Achmea Foundation. By approaching a number of organisations ourselves, this process has become much more efficient and effective. By talking to organisations that are permitted to submit a proposal in advance, a much better picture of the organisation and the project concerned is created. Under the leadership of the programme manager, staff from various departments were asked to read the proposals. This created a pluralistic view of the applications.
Stakeholder management was also added to the analysis. This provides a clearer picture of the impact of a project on the entire chain. The renewed process leads to greater depth and better quality of proposals. We will continue to apply this agile working method in 2022.