Is the Innovation Foundation a new model of corporate philanthropy?

The Innovation Foundation is the global corporate foundation of the Adecco Group. But it has both an unusual model — and an unusual history. The foundation was created by the Adecco Group in 2017 as a traditional corporate foundation executing mainly transactional grantmaking with an eclectic mix of programs and initiatives — well-intentioned efforts that lacked a unifying purpose. As Innovation Fund Managing Director Cynthia Hansen recalls, “there was a little bit of a mishmash of things that went into the foundation… a bit of youth, a bit of sport, a bit of athletes, some music, some humanitarian.” Eight years later, it’s still just as connected to the Adecco Group, but it operates as what Hansen calls a “social innovation lab” — a test bed for new models of corporate philanthropy, built not on grantmaking but on design, venture-building, and open-source dissemination. “We’ve used this vehicle of being a corporate foundation as a way to really push the boundaries of what corporate philanthropy can be,” Hansen said in a recent Devex Pro Funding Briefing. That ambition has positioned the foundation as a distinctive actor among its peers: It is no longer an outright donor, but rather invests its funding in research and development to build population-scale responses to the challenges facing the employment sector — in line with the focus of its corporate parent. It typically runs several projects simultaneously, bringing together and hosting the expertise from multiple partners to address an issue. The foundation’s reinvention began in 2020, when a new board chair expressed interest in exploring a more catalytic approach. The following year, the organization underwent what Hansen calls “this massive year of transformation.” Nearly every part of the structure changed: its name, brand, governance, strategy, team, and operating model. It also spun off or exited nearly all legacy programs. This overhaul provided space to formalize a new operating methodology — the social innovation lab — which now structures the foundation’s work. The model is built around three phases: Scan: The team maps macro trends in the world of work, identifies which populations face exclusion, and pinpoints specific solvable problems. “Scan is really crucial because … you can’t boil the ocean,” Hansen said. “It helps us figure out who is being disadvantaged or disenfranchised, who are the people falling out of the world of work — and why.” Build: Once a problem is defined, the foundation uses design thinking to generate solutions, then forms dedicated venture teams — combinations of entrepreneurs, secondees, and internal staff — to build prototypes and minimum viable products. “We looked a lot at venture studios as a model,” Hansen said. “We created our own version of that.” Scale: A solution is only considered successful once it can operate independently. “We’re not in the business of trying to make money from the things we create,” Hansen said. “Everything has to spin out and live on its own in the world.” Open-source Philanthropy One of the most unusual elements of the Innovation Foundation’s model is its commitment to transparency. “Everything we do is open sourced,” Hansen said. “Half of our mandate is to share everything we do … equip other people to take these pieces, use it for their own purposes, use it to accelerate their own social impact.” This stands in contrast to many corporate philanthropy models, where proprietary tools or internal data are guarded assets. Here, they are actively pushed outward. However, the foundation must also navigate a legal boundary: It cannot create tools for direct corporate benefit. “We had to make sure we weren’t doing R&D for the group,” Hansen said of the Adecco relationship. “As long as our innovation is really for society, and it goes out into the world first, then we’re fine.” One of the clearest examples of the innovation lab in motion is its Youth@Risk initiative, which began in Mexico and has since expanded to Brazil and into early codesign work with partners in Kenya. Beginning with its first principle — scan — the foundation examined trends across youth, women, and refugees before determining that young mothers aged 16 to 24 faced the highest barriers. This group, Hansen said, “tended to be overwhelmed with information but not have curated information about the world of work.” They were also consistently told “they had no skills.” From this research came two core solutions. The team developed Mamas Chingonas, a community-oriented career information and inspiration campaign designed to feel like it came “from somebody from your neighborhood, not an official government source, so it’s more accessible,” Hansen said. Built with a tech partner, the tool translates daily experiences into competencies and generates CVs. “Suddenly you can see your skills … and it matches what you do in your daily life against a skills and competency framework,” Hansen said. The tool then connects users back to local services, helping them advance in the search for employment rather than pulling them into a learning loop with no clear outcome. Scaling and spinning off The collaborative nature of the approach paid off in 2024, when the Innovation Foundation handed the entire initiative over to YouthBuild Mexico — a nonprofit promoting youth employment through a large network of NGO, government, and private sector employment partnerships — which now runs it independently. “In 2025, there’s no more of my team in that, and there’s no more of our direct money in it,” Hansen said. Even without external support, YouthBuild has grown the program from 19 to 25 sites — partly, she said, because the product “is not a bolt-on, it’s not something they need to fundraise for, it’s actually a funnel filler” — a way to get new people engaged with YouthBuild’s outreach and recruitment. The project is now piloting in Brazil, and Kenya is serving as a global design partner to test adaptability across cultural and economic contexts. Rethinking partnerships Partner selection is intentional and systematic, yet payment is not part of the equation. “We don’t pay anyone to partner with us,” Hansen emphasized. “What we do pay for is all the costs.” Research partners help codesign the scan questions. Ideation involves 10 to 15 organizations across sectors to avoid what she calls “an echo chamber.” Venture teams include secondees from Adecco, external secondees, and recruited entrepreneurs who receive stipends. One notable example: YouthBuild Mexico seconded a staff member to the venture team for a full year — at its own expense — because of the value of early participation. “It was worth the investment,” Hansen said. Above all, Hansen stresses that the foundation works to avoid the donor-recipient dynamic that dominates international development. “We work incredibly hard to make sure it never slips into a transactional relationship.” Measuring what matters The monitoring framework is deliberately simple, Hansen said. It uses three measures: reach, engage, convert. “Reach is just reach,” Hansen said. “We touched somebody with a campaign or outreach. It doesn’t mean you’ve changed anybody’s life.” Meanwhile, “engage” reflects action — signing up for a workshop or simulation. “Convert” is designed to capture more than just a change in employment status: “Convert isn’t just getting a job,” she explained. “It’s whether I changed status. … Did I go from not applying for jobs to applying for jobs?” Using percentages — not raw numbers — allows comparison across markets of vastly different size and context. Corporate philanthropy at a turning point Hansen believes corporate philanthropy is entering a period of necessary evolution. With shrinking bilateral budgets and growing humanitarian needs, expectations on private philanthropy are rising. But she rejects the idea that philanthropy should fill the gaps left by government or donors. “It shouldn’t be corporate philanthropy stepping in to fill voids,” she said. Instead, its role is “Figuring out what pieces are broken … and then investing in that restructuring and rebuilding process.” and de-risk investment for other actors. Her reflections from the recent World Bank meetings underscore this urgency. “Everyone said this is the time to collaborate more … but there weren’t a lot of examples of real action,” she said. “Leadership can really model that ability to create the space for people to experiment. If we can all work on doing that together in a way that's complementary, then I think that will actually create that more positive future.”