Innovation

Be Helpie was launched in September 2017 by four Spanish entrepreneurs who wanted to make young people more aware of the social needs of our society. As of now, the app is only available in Spain, but they have plans to expand the business to Italy, Mexico, and Denmark.

Be Helpie has several objectives. First, "Be Helpie aims to help NGOs and social foundations raise funds (which they did). Second, they strive to make donation a part of young people's daily lives, to create a habit. Be Helpie's hope is that, as the younger generation ages, this habit will help them take others into account when making their decisions," Miguel said during the interview.

Finally, what Be Helpie is doing for the UN SDGs is helping several NGOs to raise money for their activities. These activities include, among others: promoting education, improving access to water, and avoiding social discrimination.

Inspiration

The leader was working with some colleagues in other kinds of projects, but "all of them shared two things: we were giving people things they want and at the same time we wanted to help people." They decided to leave all their previous projects and unite to get ahead with Be Helpie, which combined those two ideas.

Be Helpie's founders did some research and saw that the average NGO donor was a 44-year-old man and getting older. Furthermore, they noticed that, in terms of donations, "there was little engagement between NGOs and the younger segment of the population. Often, NGO messages are negative and the channels are not effective. Here is when Be Helpie comes in. Our goal is to send a positive message through their app and social network, reaching millennials better and sending a more positive message," said Miguel in the interview.

Overall impact

Launched in September 2017, Be Helpie has been downloaded 20,000 times through Google Play and iTunes and has 6,000 active users (those who use the app daily). They have had 8 million impacts on 4.5 million people in Spain. They want to launch an idea called the "golden minute," in which all the people gathered for some social event can donate to enter a drawing to gain some experience (for example, meeting the singer in the case of a concert), and all the money raised goes to a specific foundation. Their objective is to raise around €10,000 with every single "golden minute." They want to become a standard of solidarity among young people and to be able to give around €60 million each year to several NGOs and foundations.

Business benefit

The company constitutes the innovation. It currently employs eight people, and the company plans to go international and expand to Mexico, Italy, and Denmark. Considering that they have been in business for only 7 months, these numbers are surprising, and they will be "greater in the next months." Be Helpie constitutes a completely new idea in terms of collaboration between for-profit enterprises and foundations and NGOs, since it produces a completely original win-win output.

Furthermore, the employees in the company know that even though they work for a for-profit organization, they are both contributing to foundations to help people and helping new generations to be aware of the importance of taking others into account.

Social and environmental benefit

They have partnerships with several foundations, which help society in different ways: Fundación Fabre (children with HIV), ADACEN (brain damage), Medicus Mundi (intercultural health), Nuevo Futuro (foster homes), Fundación Real Madrid (sports and education in Haiti), Proyecto Hombre, and Fundación Historias. Be Helpie raises funds for all these foundations.

Interview

Miguel Pueyo, CEO