What is the value creation and progress of social actions of organisations like CECA? Where do their initiatives have an impact? What does the Catalan architect have to do with it? Listen to Javier Molina's new podcast

800 million euros, the one equivalent to which Spain and Morocco have agreed of investment of Spanish companies in the North african country, which AstraZeneca is going to allocate in a centre of R&D in Catalonia in five years and that it will create one thousand employments or which only last year allocated the community project of CECA to welfare stock for vulnerable groups, education, research, culture, sport, environment and leisure.

This initiative to generate value and progress benefited more than 32 million people in over 72,000 activities in 2022. "We must not forget the contribution of social work in qualitative terms", explains Alberto Aza, spokesman for CECA, in the latest Ideas con Valor, in reference to the fact that, "due to its own characteristics, it can often meet needs which, in general, cannot be met by public policies or, if they are, they are met in a very basic way. In contrast, social work programmes are much more flexible and personalised".

One example of this private investment, which often goes unnoticed by the mass public, concerns the architect Gaudí and one of his three buildings constructed outside Catalonia. This is the revitalisation of Casa Botines, located in León, which was bought by the former Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad (Savings Bank) of the province to install its offices, until in 2017 the Fundación Obra Social de Castilla y León (Fundos) decided to turn it into the museum of reference in Spain on Gaudí in view of the centenary of his death in 2026.

"It is the enhancement of a heritage asset of the first order, but which had no relevance in the cultural sphere, nor certainly in other areas [...] and we have turned it into a cultural asset whose effects or benefits are felt in other areas such as tourism, economics and science, because a cultural project also promotes research into the work and figure of Antonio Gaudí", says José María Viejo del Pozo, CEO of Fundos.

What are CECA's social work actions? What does the Gaudí 2026 project consist of? What activities are included? What are the other two buildings of the architect built outside Spain?

This section flows in two forums. On Thursday, 31 May, we held the VII edition of the Ideas con Valor forum, in which twenty experts and managers shared investment proposals to help in financial decision-making. The 6th edition of the Blockchain & Cryptoassets forum will be held in November, where experts and entrepreneurs will also share value propositions for companies in the so-called decentralised economy. We will keep you posted.