Read our 8-year impact report
16.01.2023What is MAZE? We are almost 10 years young, and it is still challenging to answer this question in one sentence. Truly, we do not fit into one single box, nor do we want to. St. Augustine noted this challenge, too: What is time then? If nobody asks me, I know; but if I were […]
How Portugal developed social innovation and plans to remain the European leading example
11.11.2022The Agenda for impact 2030 is a national strategy that sets 5 measurable objectives and 14 recommendations to grow the Portuguese social innovation1 and impact investment2 ecosystem. These recommendations have the potential to mobilize €500M to the ecosystem by 2030, tripling the current market size. By promoting innovative solutions to social challenges, Agenda for impact […]
Why I chose to code for an impact startup
25.07.2022As developers, we often find ourselves looking for job opportunities that give us the perks we value the most: compensation, flexibility, learning opportunities and a dynamic team that will rock awesome JavaScript and fancy frameworks. While all that matters, my main driver as a developer has mostly been about joining an impact startup that triggered […]
Why I chose to be a lead developer in an impact startup
21.07.2022After interviewing with several companies in different industries and environments, it became clear to me that: I wanted to contribute to positive change in the world and have real ownership of my work; I wanted a real technical challenge, something that had space for my own suggestions and space for me to grow professionally alongside […]
A Social Impact Bond fully achieves its outcomes: is that success?
04.02.2022This is not a story about how success means different things to different people. It is a story of how a project that fully delivered its intended social outcomes might be at risk of not meeting the most important one. Projeto Família® is implemented by MDV (Movimento Defesa da Vida), a Portuguese non-profit organisation. Their […]
MAZE and Social Impact Bonds: a 7-year journey
25.01.2022For an introduction to the concepts described in this article, please see this post by Afonso. In January of 2015, MAZE helped structure and launch the first Social Impact Bond (SIB) in Portugal. This SIB used the investment capital provided by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to finance five semesters of computer programming classes, in three […]