Corporate Philanthropy

A Co-Creation Approach to
Social and Business Impact
Today’s Approach is not the Approach
of Tomorrow
by Arnaud Mourot and Sarah Jefferson

T
Today’s global challenges, such he current CSR approach is commonly used
to mitigate risks such as environmental
as climate change, overburdened
damage and to engage employees in low-
health systems, long-term barrier, “feel good” activities that do not
unemployment, and lack of basic necessarily connect to the company’s core business.
Companies often adopt a model where they provide
access to food and water, to name
grant funding to social sector entities, which then
a few, are so large and so complex implement the agreed upon activities and report back
that they require a different to the company on impact achieved. Under this funder/
Arnaud Mourot is CEO
service provider relationship, a company’s social
problem-solving approach. A of Ashoka and manages
responsibility to society is essentially “outsourced” to Belgium and Switzerland.
single business, government or the social sector, which has the longstanding expertise He has enabled the
social sector entity is simply not and community access to perform social good. This launch of the Venture and
Fellowship programs
model has prevailed over the past decades; however,
equipped to tackle today’s complex (already 21 Fellows), and
it is ill-suited for the growing complexity and large- of a Social Business Plan
world challenges alone; rather scale nature of world challenges. Instead, partnerships competition in the three
finding the solutions requires that leverage the unique competencies, know-how countries.
and networks of sectors and industries – beyond only
diversity of perspective, approach
financial contribution – will increasingly prevail. These
and capability. It requires a new collaborations are a win-win for all parties involved, as
type of collaboration that looks they not only achieve social (including environmental)
impact; they also simultaneously create new business
very different from the traditional
and customer solutions in a rapidly evolving world.
business, government or corporate
social responsibility (CSR) What is Co-Creation?
The time is ripe for co-creation across sectors. Social
approach.
entrepreneurs and social sector organizations are Sarah Jefferson has
looking for greater impact and scale. Businesses are worked for Ashoka
since 2007 and has been
looking for new markets, ways to remain competitive
managing the Making
and relevant in the future, and purpose for their More Health initiative
employees. Public institutions are looking for cost since its inception in 2011.
efficient approaches. These diverse actors can pool
their strengths and expertise for a social and economic
impact that they could never achieve alone.
Co-creation is a collaborative process where players
from across different sectors – such as companies,
social sector organizations, financial institutions or
government bodies – come together to co-design
and co-implement new or improved products and
services that address essential needs of underserved
populations. While the process is a co-creation – peers
working across sectors hand-in hand to design and

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 A Co-Creation Approach to Social and Business Impact. Today’s Approach is not the Approach of Tomorrow

implement solutions based on a shared vision – the 125th anniversary – and wanting to do more than
result is to address society’s challenges at scale while the typical employee event – Boehringer Ingelheim
achieving economic gains. Co-creation represents a sought out a new type of partnership, aiming to
fundamental shift in interaction between the business, have much larger and more sustainable impact on
social and public sectors to create shared value. the health sector. Guillaume Deprey of Perfethic, a
France-based consultant who conducts matchmaking
Co-creation is much more than investing between the business and social sectors introduced BI
money; it is about investing the knowledge capital and Ashoka. “I immediately saw the shared DNA and
of your organization into a partnership values between Boehringer Ingelheim and Ashoka”,
noted Deprey. “It was clear to me that there was a huge
potential to do something together, much bigger than
In addition to changing the rules of the game to what they were currently doing in terms of ‘business
create both social and economic value, a true co- as usual.’”
creation across sectors will also result in important
transformations within the entities involved. Partners Co-creation models break down
begin to capitalize on one another’s complementary historical silos and begin to dismantle over
assets and experiences, and as values begin to cross- a century of static delineations between the
pollinate, internal leadership styles and organizational mission, values and cultures of the
structures evolve. Co-creation therefore becomes corporate versus social sectors
a powerful force for internal culture change for all
entities within the partnership.
An emerging example of co-creation is the Investing in society has been part of Boehringer
partnership between Boehringer Ingelheim and Ingelheim’s DNA since its formation over 125 years ago.
Ashoka. To the collaborative alliance, Boehringer The company has a longstanding tradition of social
Ingelheim brings its longstanding international commitment instilled by its founder Albert Boehringer.
business acumen in health, specifically Moreover, Ashoka’s work fit well with Boehringer
pharmaceuticals, while Ashoka contributes its deep Ingelheim’s core values of leadership and innovation,
expertise in social entrepreneurship and how social which the company sums up in a single vision: Value
systems change. Launched in 2011, Making More through Innovation. Likewise, social innovation has
Health is a global initiative, currently operating in over run through Ashoka’s veins since it was founded
30 countries, whose ambitious vision is to improve back in 1981 when it coined the profession of “social
health systems worldwide, particular those health entrepreneur” and sought to support the leaders behind
systems which are plagued by barriers such as no the most innovative solutions to pressing societal
access to care and misaligned incentives. Boehringer issues. Today, Ashoka supports over 3,000 social
Ingelheim and Ashoka engage at the intersection of entrepreneurs (called Ashoka Fellows) with systems-
social entrepreneurship, employee talent development changing innovations across nearly every field of work,
and business strategy in order to identify, support and providing them with strategic and financial support so
scale new solutions to global health challenges. that they can take these innovations to scale.
Despite cultural and language differences between
The Origins of Making More Health the two entities, Boehringer Ingelheim recognized that
Boehringer Ingelheim and Ashoka met in 2010 strategic partnerships with civil society can bring about
through a matchmaking process. Celebrating its solutions to social challenges, including new business

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 A Co-Creation Approach to Social and Business Impact. Today’s Approach is not the Approach of Tomorrow

models to respond to the needs of the four billion

people in the world without access to health care.
Boehringer Ingelheim recognized a network of social
entrepreneurs as a powerful source of innovation
and insight into the future of health. Furthermore,
these leaders could build an inspirational force for
motivating the company’s employees, and potential
recruits, giving an additional meaning to a new way
of living out Boehringer Ingelheim’s longstanding
corporate vision.
Boehringer Ingelheim’s decision to partner
with a non-traditional player like Ashoka was
further motivated by the challenges faced by the
pharmaceutical industry in general: issues of
intellectual property, pricing strategy and market • Co-creation has a long runway: Co-
access call for out-of-the-box solutions as well as new creation is not a quick win with instantaneous
ways of working in global structures and external measurable impact; by design co-creation is
partners and institutions across the globe. Boehringer a lengthy process in that it is about finding a
Ingelheim saw the growing “base of the pyramid” common playing ground where partners can
population as an important customer to reach and contribute their skills and expertise to increase
recognized that new approaches to health care had be the impact of the whole. As such, it takes
to taken to fulfil these patients’ needs. time to understand how the entities involved
will work together as peers and find the right
Thus the initiative Making More Health was born.
balance between comfort and risk as partners.
In 2010 the two organizations formed a pilot program
For Making More Health, it took over one year
that consisted of supporting a small number of social
to trickle down the partnership to Boehringer
entrepreneurs in four countries, elected as Ashoka
Ingelheim and Ashoka’s local country offices
Fellows and who would be affiliated with Boehringer
and to raise the necessary uptake of awareness
Ingelheim as Making More Health Fellows. In 2011,
and engagement among employees.
an official, three-year, US$13 million partnership
was begun, whose activities spanned launching and • All sides need to be willing to invest
engaging a cohort of 50 new social entrepreneurs in knowledge capital: Co-creation is
working in health; supporting 300 teams of young much more than investing money; it is about
people to start their own “more health” community investing the knowledge capital of your
ventures; sponsoring two global open source organization into a partnership – from your
collaborative competitions in “more health;” creating human resources to your resources related to
opportunities for high potential executives to work “in operational capabilities. Boehringer Ingelheim
residence” with social entrepreneurs; and conducting has contributed diverse knowledge capital
field-based trends analysis at the intersection of social to Making More Health, demonstrated
innovation and health. by the diversity of employees who are
contributing time to this initiative. The team
A True Co-Creation is a Give and Take is transversal, with members from Corporate
These past three years of co-creation between Social Responsibility and Communications/
Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim have come with PR departments, but also from Strategy
ample challenges and learnings. A major one is that & Development, Innovation, Information
co-creation comes with ambiguity; you need to give Systems and Human Resources departments.
yourself permission to work in a discovery mode and The team is also diverse in its vertical
through an iterative process of learning. Back in 2011, representation of employees, from training
at the early stages of the partnership, Boehringer and human resource managers in local country
Ingelheim and Ashoka had the shared goal of building offices, to managing directors and country
an initiative that brought value to both business and managers sitting on the initiative’s cross-
society, and at a large scale; but we did not know functional Steering Committee. This makes for
exactly what or how to go about achieving this. Three a rich set of organizational experience and skills
years later, through this discovery journey, we have a contributing to making Making More Health a
much clearer idea. In addition to being comfortable sustainable initiative organization-wide.
with ambiguity, we have identified several other • Success involves bringing it home:
building blocks that make a successful co-creation: Co-creation is not only about contributing

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 A Co-Creation Approach to Social and Business Impact. Today’s Approach is not the Approach of Tomorrow

Jordi Marti Founder of Dry Blood Spot Screening,

Spain is teaching us about making early diagnosis
of infectious and non-communicable diseases
affordable for disadvantaged communities and
poorly funded health systems. His dried blood
sample technology, offered through large-scale
testing campaigns, allows for health institutions and
governments to track critical risk factors for certain
chronic diseases across entire population groups,
while also enabling large volumes of data analysis to
reach health policymakers.

Piyush Tewari is the Founder of Save Life

Foundation, India which provides insight into
designing an efficient emergency response system
in countries needing a comprehensive “chain of
survival”. Piyush is creating an enabling legal
your skills and strengths; it involves cross- environment and is breaking down citizens’
pollination of each entity’s skills and prejudices and apathy to enable them to proactively
strengths. And this in turn begins to challenge come forward to improve India’s emergency
customary internal processes and structures. response system in collaboration with police,
ambulances and hospitals.
A good example of this is the way Boehringer
Ingelheim has managed to institutionalize Heidi Wang is the Founder of NOEN, Norway.
Ashoka’s Executive in Residence program Her work highlights the importance of shifting from
into its standard Global Talent Development an institutionalized long-term care system to an
Program, making it a key offering to individualized approach that places the patient at the
center of care. She works with dementia sufferers,
executives passing through this process.
their families, and communities to develop a tailored
• Expect and embrace barriers: As for any at-home treatment program, offered through a
innovative and complex process, failure occurs subscription service, which includes physical and
mental exercise, classes for family caregivers, and
and is the path to learning and identifying
legal advice.
solutions.
Having all these building blocks in place requires a
deep level of trust. ‘Trust’ is a word that often arises
in interviews and conversations with Boehringer
Ingelheim and Ashoka employees. Working together We have identified 50 new health social
through co-creation, we have naturally developed an entrepreneurs (i.e. Ashoka Fellows) around the world
ability to see from each other’s perspectives and to find driving new solutions across the areas of primary health
compromise when perspectives differ. care, chronic care, nutrition, sanitation, mental health,
Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim are now disability, and many other areas. Together they are
preparing for a second phase of the partnership. The touching more than six million direct beneficiaries. We
second phase (2014 thru 2016) will take the learnings have also engaged over 3,000 Boehringer Ingelheim
and insights into social innovation in health identified employees (nearly 10% of the company’s overall
during phase one and apply them to testing innovative workforce) in Making More Health activities, including
approaches to health care delivery in a specific health employees working “in residence” at the organizations
area and region. These field initiatives will integrate of social entrepreneurs for anywhere from two weeks
the work of various social entrepreneurs working to six months. Through a business model vetting
with holistic solutions across the continuum of health process, Boehringer Ingelheim and Ashoka have also
care where social entrepreneurs could give support identified two projects led by social entrepreneurs (one
in areas such as education, prevention, diagnosis and aimed at diabetes management and the other focused
management in order to reach new populations, and on enlarging the pool of clinical trial research), which
ultimately increase access to care for underserved will now receive pro-bono support from employees on
populations (see some examples of insights gleamed specific strategic needs.
from Making More Health Fellows below.) Eventually, However, the impact extends much further to many
our vision is to attract additional partners to work intangible benefits for Boehringer Ingelheim and
with us in co-creation mode, broadening the number Ashoka, and for society at large. For each of pillar
of stakeholders who share our commitment to social of activities under Making More Health, we have
innovation and cross-sector collaboration. identified multiple layers of impact:

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 A Co-Creation Approach to Social and Business Impact. Today’s Approach is not the Approach of Tomorrow

Boehringer Ingelheim employee Kim Gacso, and perspectives (driving innovation for us) and meet
Executive Director of Global Leadership Development Ashoka Fellows (the true definition of leaders in my
and who was instrumental in integrating the Executives book) who are making massive systemic change with
in Residence program into Boehringer Ingelheim’s very limited resources and budget.” Through working
current global development modules, sums up the across these multiple layers of impact, and through
impact well: “I am so proud of Boehringer Ingelheim continuous, iterative co-creation, we will ensure strong,
for playing ‘outside of the box’ with Making More sustainable social and business outcomes.
Health. This is an initiative that many people did not
understand at first; particularly how it would add value A Call to Action to Co-Create
to our pharmaceutical business. Normalizing co-creations between the social and
business sectors will significantly expand the solution-
Success is thus dependent on employees of set to complex global challenges, thus unleashing
co-creating entities being equipped with a very potential innovations that are inconceivable at the
different skill-set than traditionally valued. These moment. The co-creation process itself allows for
skills are empathy, teamwork, leadership and additional benefits; mainly an emphasis on the
changemaking organizational management, internal culture shift
and employee engagement necessary for 21st century
entities to realize and sustain large-scale social and
We have opened ourselves up to a whole new world; business impact. Co-creation is about personal
Making More Health offers us the opportunity to gain a engagements; it’s about the individuals that make
deeper understanding of new markets (markets that we up the company, and not the company itself. Success
are not as familiar with), gain access to creative ideas is thus dependent on employees of co-creating

Strategic Pillar Impact for Society Impact for Boehringer Ingelheim

An open innovation approach enables Using an open innovation R&D approach

us to identify and support leading – one that supports a critical mass
social innovations that are changing of social entrepreneurs in health and
health systems and touching millions of conducts trend analysis into their models
Open beneficiaries around the world. These – has allowed Boehringer Ingelheim to
Innovation entrepreneurs, in turn, inspire more develop a lens into the future, creating
changemakers to take up and act upon better understanding of the common
solutions, creating a multiplier effect. insights and approaches among social
innovation in health.

Skills-based volunteering and strategic Skills-based volunteering and strategic

support by employees to social pro-bono support to social entrepreneurs
entrepreneurs promotes a culture of also creates a pipeline for Boehringer
Skills corporates giving their time and expertise Ingelheim to identify and develop talent,
AND People to help social entrepreneurs develop their and to increase employee pride across
business models and scale their work, the company.
thus achieving even more social impact
for society.

Making More Health is developing the Boehringer Ingelheim’s internal strategy

nascent area of co-creation by building up and innovation teams are at the early
Bridges best practices, principles of success, and stages of exploring new business models
to Business know-how to inspire other corporations along the entire continuum of health care,
and organizations to follow suit and placing patients at the center of this care.
engage in co-creation.

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 A Co-Creation Approach to Social and Business Impact. Today’s Approach is not the Approach of Tomorrow

entities being equipped with a very different skill-set

than traditionally valued. These skills are empathy,
teamwork, leadership and changemaking (the ability
to lead solutions and take self-initiative.) These are the
fundamental skills necessary for co-creation.
As we envision new possibilities for co-creation
between the business and social sectors, we are
restructuring the world system as we know. Co-creation
models break down historical silos and begin to
dismantle over a century of static delineations between
the mission, values and cultures of the corporate versus
social sectors. We find ourselves confronted with a
gray zone of structures, purpose and roles. Change
comes with many challenges. Since the landscape for
co-creation is very early-stage, corporations can see
working in this way as risky and time-consuming,
versus the perceived lower risk of retaining their
traditional service provider partners.

Business and social sector leaders, especially

the intra/entrepreneurs within these structures,
have the opportunity to accelerate and concretize
the current movement aimed at changing the way
social and business sectors operate, perceive one
another, and work together to overcome complex
systematic social and business challenges

On the other hand, social sector organizations can

be wary of working closely with corporations, which
are often perceived as bureaucratic and adverse to
change. In order to navigate this ambiguity and inspire
corporations and social sector entities to explore new
frontiers, pioneers testing co-creation must step up
to contribute to a practical working knowledge of best
practice approaches and specific how-to’s. Business and
social sector leaders, especially the intra/entrepreneurs
within these structures, have the opportunity to
accelerate and concretize the current movement aimed
at changing the way social and business sectors operate,
perceive one another, and work together to overcome
complex systematic social and business challenges.

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