BBVA donates €300,000 to social and environmental projects at its Annual General Meeting

In December 2023, BBVA launched an open call, which drew more than 109 candidate projects from a wide range of non-profits.

These are the winners in each of the four categories that BBVA established for social non-profits to submit their entries. Each of the non-profits has received an initial amount of €50,000, plus a pro rata share of the remaining €100,000, which was distributed on the basis of shareholder votes. The outcome of the vote was: health and dependency 50.9 percent, education 22.8 percent, inequality 15.7 percent and environment 10.6 percent:

1. Asociación Talismán will receive €100,883 in the Health and Dependency category, for its project "Regenerating the soil: generating capacity", which provides training for adults with developmental disabilities living in rural areas. They are taught regenerative farming techniques to restore, maintain and improve soil fertility in an environmentally friendly way. This training supports the acquisition, maintenance and improvement of personal and socio-occupational skills.
2. Fundación Emet will receive €72,834 in the Education category for the "ÖDOS Program: Education, the lifeline for migrant women and children", which offers shelter and support to adult or pregnant women with children in their care who arrive without papers in Spain. The shelter is in Montilla, in the province of Cordoba, and has taken in 625 people since 2018.
3. Asociación Puente de Esperanza Madrid will receive €65,705 in the Inequality category for its project "Madrid needs you: training for social inclusion," which focuses on occupational qualifications and support for social inclusion aimed at a vulnerable migrant population, mainly women and people in undocumented migrant situations. The program comprises several courses geared to the hospitality, health and home care sectors, supplemented by non-work placements and personalized support for labor market integration.
4. Asociación Madre Coraje will receive €60,576 in the Environment category for its project "Waste management with sustainable transport." The money will go to the purchase of their first electric van. Vinci Energy will install solar panels on the roof of the foundation's headquarters, which will produce 32,200 kWh/year, thus generating electricity for the headquarters and supplying the future fleet of electric vans.

In this year's event, the four winning organizations were selected in two phases: first, Fundación Lealtad - an independent evaluator of non-profit organizations and technical secretariat for this call for proposals - made a shortlist after verifying compliance with the eligibility requirements set out in the rules of the call and evaluating the organizations and projects on the basis of the criteria also set out in the rules.

A multidisciplinary jury made up of representatives from BBVA and leading social organizations (Fad Juventud, Fundación Codespa, Fundación Lealtad, Fundación ONCE and CESAL) then selected the winning candidate entities, looking to the relevance, innovation, viability and impact of each project.

A four-year project

BBVA launched this initiative in 2021 on the occasion of the Annual General Meeting. It seeks to address the key social and environmental challenges in order to contribute to the sustainable and inclusive growth of our society. In the first annual program, aimed at alleviating the effects of COVID 19 on the most vulnerable, the bank made a charitable donation of €300,000, coinciding for the first time with the holding of its AGM. The first selected non-profits were Doctors of the World, Fundación A La Par, Fundación Educo and Fundación Exit.

In 2022, the selected non-profits were ATADES, Aldeas Infantiles SOS, Asociación Amica and ECODES. In 2023, shareholders picked Fundación Grande Amigos en Acción, Fundación Plan International, CESAL and Fundación Ecomar.