MAZE Archives - MAZE - Decoding Impact

Are you our next Intern?

17.03.2023

Internship Position Apply here until the 2nd of April. MAZE is an impact investment firm created by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2013. We accelerate and invest in solutions that solve social and environmental challenges and we are now looking for an intern to join our team for 6 to 9 months. Who are you? […]

Some indicators from the MAZE impact report

Read our 8-year impact report

16.01.2023

What 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 […]

October is for Mental Health

18.10.2021

MAZE has been accelerating and investing in solutions contributing to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) since our foundation in 2013. To get a macro overview of our work, and starting this month, we will write about how our partner ventures are positively contributing to a specific UN SDG. In October, we kick-off […]

MAZE, the new B Corp on the block

07.10.2021

MAZE was created by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2013 with the mission to improve the lives of people and the planet. We work with the public sector and the private sector, with startups and large corporates and all our activities have a common denominator which is, and will always be, our lookout for a […]

Cristina Almeida is the Head of Platform at MAZE, an impact investing company based in Lisbon

What we mean by platform

19.05.2021

plat·form: female noun, which refers to a horizontal and levelled surface, higher than its surrounding floor. In Lisbon’s colourful trams, the platform is the step that supports the departing and arriving passengers. In the entrepreneurial lingo, it has a technological connotation, referring to a computing system. In abstract, it is also a collective of meaning […]

Katrien Buys is the 2021 MAZE runner

29.03.2021

Katrien is the 2021 MAZE Runner award winner. This ward distinguishes the relentless efforts of an individual or a collective in tackling social or environmental challenges.

António Miguel at an MSM investor dinner.

The impact of the European funds on impact

15.02.2021

The European funds had a positive impact on social innovation in Portugal. The impact in the coming years depends on the decisions that will happen in the very near future. Losing this opportunity now means that we will only be able to have it again six years from now. Continuing the work done means getting closer and closer to finding better solutions to the problems we face.

Credit: Thukral and Tagra Studio.

Social Impact: what’s all the fuss about?

12.11.2020

Since I joined MAZE, I have learned quite a bit on the meaning of impact. The most important thing is that impact, whether social or environmental, is the greatest social economic opportunity of our time. Once you get it, you cannot forget it. Here’s how I see it: What is social impact? Social impact is […]

Four ideas to embed impact within an organisation

Four ideas to embed impact within an organisation

18.09.2020

‘The next decade will be defined by companies that have a social and environmental purpose’, said a partner of Index Ventures, one of the largest venture capital funds in Europe. The CEO of Y Combinator, one of the leading accelerators in the world which has invested in companies such as Airbnb, Dropbox, Reddit, among many others, also […]

MAZE summer reading list

31.07.2020

Book recommendations for this summer by the MAZE team

The opportunity to improve the lives of half the population

18.07.2020

There are 3.9 billion women in the world which corresponds to 49% of the world’s population. However, and despite the fact that women drive about 85% of consumption decisions [1], most products have not been developed considering their specific needs. There are several examples that corroborate this phenomenon. Basic life support training for resuscitation from […]

Cartoon by Henry Jones on Instagram

6 lessons skateboarding has taught me about my first job

10.07.2020

Here are 6 (of many) lessons skateboarding has taught me about the adult world that I am now facing every day

What a ‘green recovery’ might look like

03.07.2020

“Whatever it takes!” has become a motto for saving the global economy as the coronavirus pandemic sweeps the planet and shuts down entire countries.

Picture by Nadir sYzYgY

Want to report your impact? Here is a list to get you started

12.06.2020

Over the past few months, our team has been focused on assessing our impact: internally, as an organisation working within a community and an environment, and externally, through the projects we have been supporting. This blog post details one of the frameworks that has helped us in this endeavour, the Impact Management Project (IMP).

Photo by “My Life Through A Lens” on Unsplash

5 tips for fostering creative thinking, starting tomorrow

03.05.2020

But more recently, I’ve been interested in how to foster that creativity on others. Is there a secret formula for bringing creativity into the problem-solving process within teams? What is the right way to lead your team to more creative outcomes?

Fumaça is the MAZE runner award winner of 2020.

Fumaça is the 2020 MAZE runner

28.02.2020

Each year, MAZE awards a MAZE Runner. The 2020 award went to Fumaça, an independent investigative non-profit journalism project focused on human rights.

André Figueiredo e Bruno Ferreira are THE MAZE Runners of 2019

01.03.2019

Each year, MAZE awards a MAZE Runner. This year, there are two people who stood out for their tireless role that allowed the success of MAZE and supported projects.

One-Value

The launch of One Value

23.06.2018

MAZE partnered with European Investment Bank Institute to prepare and advance training to bankers in order to improve access to funding for socially driven organisations

2018 marks the third anniversary of the public launch of the report entitled “A blueprint for Portugal’s emerging social investment market” setting out a national strategy for investment and social innovation. The following report monitors the progress made thus far regarding the five recommendations set out three years ago.

Portuguese Social Investment Taskforce Progress Report

21.06.2018

On June 20 2018, the Portuguese Social Investment Taskforce gathered to reflect on the progress made thus far regarding the national strategy for invstment and social innovation set out in 2015

Cross-Sector Collaboration for Better Social Outcomes evpa and MAZE

Cross-Sector Collaboration for Better Social Outcomes

09.06.2018

European Venture Philanthropy Association partnered with MAZE to produce a report on the learnings from various examples of cross-sector collaboration for social outcomes

Luís Jerónimo is a MAZE Runner

27.03.2018

Each year, we will award a Maze Runner. Someone who is paving the way towards effective solutions for society’s most pressing challenges.

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