A Journey of Celebrating Life
Ten years ago, I began a personal and professional transition. This happened when I encountered Professor Muhammad Yunus through the Grameen Creative Lab. The parallel with the Hero’s Journey is clear when we look at both Decah’s and Yunus’s trajectories.
This was a true Call to Adventure. Contact with impact businesses and the Professor’s ideas sparked reflections that influenced GOMA, and later Decah. His concepts inspire the search for new sustainable development models.
Since then, we’ve met him several times in Rio during key evolutionary moments. These encounters broadened horizons and reinforced vocations. We visited Dona Marta. We welcomed him at GOMA. We facilitated an Aquarium session with him for over 2,000 people at the former Ação Cidadania warehouse. This remains our historical record. To know more about it
One can imagine the challenges of entrepreneurship in impact and socio-environmental innovation over a decade. The daily trials we’ve overcome to keep moving forward need little elaboration.
The pandemic accelerated our value proposition’s digitalisation. It expanded our repertoire for executing large projects. Since then, we’ve received recurring invitations to act intersectorally. We’ve addressed emerging challenges in a scenario marked by economic, ecological, and social crises. This has strengthened our versatility and expanded our capacity to adapt to new markets and diverse impact agendas.
Overcoming challenges and building strategic alliances refined our curatorial capacity. We developed strategic approaches and frameworks with flexibility and adaptability. We began combining methodologies and tools in a contextualised manner. We consider the challenge, client profile, and organisational culture involved.
Glocalising Impact Theses
We’ve specialised in “glocalising” Impact Theses for significant institutions in recent years. These include Sistema B Brasil, Greenpeace, UNESCO, and Itáu. We’ve worked on International Sustainable Development Funding Programmes such as Euroclima alongside GIZ for Chile’s Ministry of Transport. We’ve handled global positioning and marketing campaigns, including Budweiser’s for the World Cup.
Such opportunities have expanded our repertoire. We’ve gained deep learning about governance and donation culture. We’ve understood the territorialisation of Theories of Change. Most importantly, we’ve mastered intersectoral articulations for generating, measuring, and communicating impact.
Our Journey-based operating model gained validation. This strengthened the development of proprietary solutions. We articulated these almost like a “Lego System”. They combine deep diagnosis, socio-environmental innovation, and positioning strategies focused on impact.
Synchronicities invite us to celebrate life. Nothing compares to the honour Decah received at the beginning of its second decade. We contributed to updating the Impact Theses of Yunus Negócios Sociais Brasil.
This integrated journey transcends mere consultancy for us. It was a true Return with the Elixir. We put our repertoire at the service of partners we deeply admire. We strengthened bonds and exchanged business learning. We designed a robust strategy for engaging multiple national and global stakeholders. We applied our most sophisticated curation of frameworks for Impact Strategy Diagnosis and Co-creation: the JOIAS — Journeys of Socio-environmental Improvement and Innovation.
I taught Yoga for over 10 years before doing what I do today. Today I consider that we delivered our greatest Pūjā of our trajectories.
In Honour of Túlio’s Invitation and Legacy
Current challenges made this journey particularly poignant. Túlio’s passing added profound synchronicity. We were deeply moved to facilitate the last workshop in this configuration with him present. We had exchanges about learning and perceptions just hours before his departure. His confidence in the capacity to reinvent Yunus Social Business remained strong.
Túlio’s luminous presence marked this journey. His contribution to Yunus Brasil embodied the very Ethics of Care. This is essential to institutional regeneration processes. Decah intended to sustain this throughout the entire process. We consciously incorporated the values he embodied. We ensured his innovative and generous spirit continues inspiring the institution.
He believed this gentle revolution is possible. We feel with pride and emotion that Yunus Brasil honoured his memory in materialising this work. For us, it’s an honour to help an institution to which we’re grateful for so much inspiration on our journey.
A question resonated profoundly within us: What aspects, values, and care of Túlio would we like to honour in this strategic planning process?
Testimonials About Túlio from Ecosystem Exchanges
“He embodies the spirit of collaboration and connection. He brings together people who wish to transform. He creates an environment where they leave with new ideas, formats, and relationships. His energy of persistence and refusal to give up was contagious.”
“Túlio spoke fluently the language of the market, yet he could inspire the spirit of change in all who knew him. His legacy invites us to transform the pain of his absence into renewed energy. We must learn to live with this loss without being imprisoned by it. Rather, we must reverse it into strength to move forward.”
Yunus BR Context Within the Global Yunus Ecosystem
Brazil has always occupied a leadership position within the Yunus ecosystem. It was amongst the first units to achieve financial self-sufficiency. It consolidated an entrepreneurial culture. It continues being, alongside India, the only ones worldwide to operate with their own fund. This allowed expanding impact funding forms through the FIDC and other innovative financial solutions.
Furthermore, the country co-created one of the largest global Venture Building cases: AMA, in partnership with Ambev.
Brazil stands out emphatically when compared to the relevance Yunus offices have in their respective countries. Here, Yunus Negócios Sociais is significantly more articulated and relevant than its counterparts in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. It generates more systemic value.
Throughout the entire Journey, Yunus Brasil’s role as systemic articulator emerged most powerfully. It has a singular capacity to form strategic partnerships and impact coalitions. Therefore, at the end of this process, we reaffirm: Yunus Negócios Sociais Brasil must assume leadership and protagonism in the Global Yunus ecosystem. One principal reason is the courage to place the Ethics of Care at the centre of sowing this new phase.
Build It and They Will Come
Túlio held an unwavering conviction. If we called upon the country’s Impact Ecosystem, it would respond. The leadership of Yunus Negócios Sociais Brasil courageously embraced this belief. From this confidence, we designed a journey in three phases with different levels of participation and engagement. This broad and qualified mobilisation is precisely one of Decah’s principal skills.
We interviewed 22 people altogether. Three workshops brought together 45 participants. This totalled 43 hours of co-creation — online and face-to-face. We completed 47 strategic frameworks during this time.
Amongst the institutions consulted in phases 1, 2, and 3, we should highlight: Ambev, Artemisia, Comgás, Din4mo, RD Saúde, Enimpacto, Escola do Mecânico, Estante Mágica, Giardino Buffet, Instituto Helda Gerdau, Latimpacto, Pluxee, Portabilis, Sitawi Finanças do Bem, Trê Investimentos com Caus, and Vox Capital.
A Journey in Three Acts
1. Participatory Diagnosis
We involved partners and staff from Yunus Brasil, Yunus Social Business Global Funds, and Yunus Corporate Innovation Europe (now Yunus Social Innovation). We also included members of the Alumni network.
Our objective was to deepen understanding of the organisation’s historical trajectory. We examined its institutional phases, current challenges, and leadership opportunities. We identified points for improvement in processes and organisational culture. We focused on more fluid integration between the two business units: Corporate and Investments.
We interviewed partners Glazi, Chico, and Mila. We spoke with co-founder Rogério Oliveira and Lisa from Yunus Social Business Europe. We included recently integrated leadership circle members Bárbara and Juliana. We also interviewed team members and associated consultants: Douglas, Bruna, Camila Fava, Aline, Laura, Lai, Liliane, and Beatriz.
The Participatory Diagnosis Workshop catalysed fundamental insights for strategic planning. It generated a systemic mapping that revealed organisational strengths and vulnerabilities. It also showed interconnections between business units, stakeholders, and territories of operation. The multidimensional approach enabled identification of latent synergies. We found opportunities for impact articulation that transcend traditional departmental boundaries.
2. Strategic Planning Sprint
We invited specialist partners, corporate clients, and invested social businesses for a collaborative journey. Our objectives were to refine perception of value proposition from the ecosystem’s perspective. We systematised learning from completed cases. We directed knowledge management towards improving internal processes. We iterated portfolio solutions with focus on new opportunities with clients and strategic investors.
We structured the Sprint in thematic blocks. External guests participated, their expertise complementing previous interviews. This promoted a rich and qualified convergence of views.
The plural and inclusive approach enriched discussions. It strengthened next steps and propelled greater integration between areas, their routines, and ways of working.
Perspectives for philanthropy operations
- Context and challenges of the impact market
- Strategic approach and unique value proposition
- Integrated sales model
- Specific opportunities by business unit
- Improvement of institutional knowledge management
- Onboarding journeys for specialists and supported organisations
- Institutional communication strategy
- Onboarding journeys for specialists and supported organisations
3. Brand Positioning Workshops — Articulation with Impact Ecosystem Partners
After the cycle of market reflection and portfolio refinement, we turned our focus elsewhere. We sought to understand best practices for partnerships and coalitions. We diagnosed macro-themes and priority agendas for advocacy. We worked on ecosystem articulations and more precise definition of operational fronts connected to Professor Yunus’s “3 Zeros” concept.
With this maturation, we advanced to the final delivery stage: positioning and institutional communication.
Our challenge was to overcome organisational fragmentation. We integrated impact theses and consolidated shared strategic pillars. We designed a unified engagement strategy capable of clearly expressing Yunus Negócios Sociais Brasil’s singular vocation. Rather than mere documents, this stage needed to generate a shared vision of the future. We required an inspiring narrative that would guide the organisation’s evolution and reveal the most current version of its Social Fiction.
Compass as Journey Synthesis
The Strategic Compasses we co-create at Decah are personalised frameworks. They synthesise Impact Theses and catalogue strategic fronts. They assist in organising institutional positioning attributes and project narratives. They articulate priority strategic parts and dimension the scope and impact of initiatives. They function as a guide for constructing new brand positioning and defining directions for seeking partners.
It translates our articulation vocation into operational guidelines. It enables efficient resource allocation and facilitates decision-making. It ensures coherent communication with stakeholders.
It establishes shared operational parameters. It serves as a power artefact for organisational capacity building. It materialises our ambition: systemic transformations.
Strategic Compass Structure for Yunus Brasil
1. Integrated Impact Thesis
Declaration of the Transformation Thesis of Yunus Negócios Sociais Brasil:
Central Message Yunus Negócios Sociais provokes a new economic paradigm. All people and the planet are at the centre of transformations.
We articulate networks and mobilise structural resources. We co-create and invest in solutions capable of enabling the coexistence of inclusive and virtuous socio-economic models.
We seek this transformation through strengthening socio-environmental impact businesses. We work towards reducing poverty and diminishing inequalities in vulnerable territories and populations.
2. Operating Pillars
Robust and authentic axes structure Yunus Brasil’s operations, aligned with its impact thesis:
- Corporate Socio-environmental Innovation
- Business Development
- Socio-environmental Impact Finance
- Ecosystem Articulation
3. Products and Solutions
A set of initiatives and projects materialise the impact thesis through strategic pillars. They operate as vectors of concrete transformation.
4. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Priority SDGs guide Yunus Brasil’s strategy. They connect its operations to the UN’s 2030 Agenda and offer measurable parameters for impact assessment.
5. Three Zeros
Professor Muhammad Yunus’s transformation thesis inspired this: “Zero Poverty, Zero Unemployment, and Zero Net Carbon Emissions”. Yunus Brasil, with Decah’s support, was pioneering in integrating these directors into a real institutional strategy. This connects vision, practice, and impact measurement in an unprecedented way within the global Yunus ecosystem.
Seeds Planted
The journey of updating Yunus Brasil’s Impact Theses propelled a profound evolution in its organisational identity. We consolidated this in four structural transformations:
1. Repositioning as Strategic Articulator of Impact Ecosystems
Yunus Brasil reaffirms its role as connector of multiple stakeholders. It offers products such as Coalitions and Impact Purchase Financing. This repositioning is anchored in a clear narrative aligned with its institutional vocation.
2. Focus on Systemic Transformation
Several initiatives demonstrate the maturity and breadth of Yunus Brasil’s operations in generating systemic impact. These include the Guarantee Fund, which mobilises impact capital. The Centre for Innovations in Inclusive Finance reconnects the institution to its roots. Products like the ECOA Coalition aim at transforming corporate policies through social purchasing strategies.
3. From Knowledge Fragmentation to Strategic Learning Management
We consolidated the need to systematise the “Yunus way”. This led to strengthening integrated knowledge management processes. This is an essential pillar for institutional evolution and organisational learning permanence.
4. Strategic Synergy Between Areas
Integration between Corporate and Investments units was previously a structural challenge. We incorporated this into the portfolio review. The collaborative dynamic of the process itself propelled this integration. Now, this synergy materialises in complete client journeys that combine solutions from different areas in a coordinated fashion.
These transformations left a tangible and strategic institutional legacy. We expressed this in deliverables that will continue guiding Yunus Brasil in upcoming cycles:
- An institutional Strategic Compass, functioning as navigation guide, management tool, and capacity-building platform
- An integrated portfolio of 12 solutions, validated with the ecosystem and ready to scale impact
- The reaffirmation of the Ethics of Care as a structural value for leadership, processes, and relationships
Impacts Radiated to the Ecosystem
This was more than an institutional strengthening journey. The process also generated concrete reverberations for the impact ecosystem in Brazil and Latin America.
Strategic exchanges with partners created a fertile field of collective intelligence. These partners included Ambev, Sitawi, Artemisia, and Vox, amongst others. This opened pathways for:
- New generation of impact financial products, inspired by the design of new social finance solutions
- Updated social impact purchasing strategies, which directly influenced corporate practices
- Strengthened common language amongst investors, businesses, and ecosystem articulators, through systematisation of the integrated thesis
- Unprecedented approximation between Corporate and Investment areas, now perceived as complementary forces by partners and clients
This field of influence extends beyond Yunus Brasil. It helps inspire organisations that also face challenges of integration, repositioning, or institutional re-rooting.
Acknowledgements
We celebrate, throughout this journey, the life and work of Professor Muhammad Yunus. At 85 years, he continues to inspire thousands of change agents and institutions around the world.
We also revere the invitation and legacy of Túlio. His vision will undoubtedly be honoured and protected by the Yunus Negócios Sociais Brasil team in their institutional regeneration process.
We are grateful to the network of professionals and partners at Decah. They helped us evolve, connect, and co-create some of the most transformative projects of the last decade. They now propel us to begin this new stage with full potency, courage, and commitment to impact.
But above all, we thank each member of the Yunus Brasil team who travelled this journey with open hearts. They trusted the processes. They delivered themselves integrally to the renewal of institutional purpose, to strengthening bonds of complicity, and to sowing new forms of generating, investing in, and measuring impact. This collective delivery was the fertile soil where this transformation could flourish.
We conclude by sharing an excerpt from Professor Yunus’s speech at Social Business Day 2025. He pronounced this from the height of a lifetime dedicated to inspiring profound transformations in the world:
“If you don’t begin, nothing will happen.
If you don’t imagine, nothing will happen.
Imagination is something without limits.
It gives us capacity to do things the way we want.
Imagination costs nothing.
So here we imagine.
And we return to begin in the smallest way possible that we can. You are not afraid to do it.
You are not afraid to generate the seeds so that you can plant them and let them grow…”
Always forward
