BBVA channeled nearly €600 million into social initiatives between 2021 and 2024, meeting its target a full year ahead of schedule

These actions are structured around three major areas of activity: education; reduced inequalities and promoting entrepreneurship; and culture and research. These three key areas are aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and have enabled BBVA to surpass its investment and impact goals ahead of time.

Record investment and focus on education

In 2021, BBVA set its 2025 Objective of investing €550 million in social initiatives and reaching out to 100 million people over the 2021–2025 horizon. Both targets have been met—and exceeded—well in advance, with €594 million ultimately allocated to social programs and nearly 106 million beneficiaries as of December 31, 2004.

In 2024 alone, the BBVA Group allocated €182 million to community initiatives, which reached 85 million people that year.

Among these three main target areas, the bank focuses predominantly on education. Using the 2030 Agenda as a framework, coupled with BBVA’s experience in the realm of education and the Sustainable Development Goals, the 2021–2025 Community Investment Plan mainly targeted activities that would contribute to SDG 4: ensuring inclusive, equitable and quality education, and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all. This goal is directly linked to BBVA’s broader objective of fostering the development of the societies and communities in which it operates.

Along these lines, the bank runs educational programs to address key challenges in education, such as access and quality, bridging the digital divide, teacher training, vocational and university education, and the promotion of open education.

Over the past five years, BBVA has invested upward of €370 million (63 percent of its social investment) in pursuing educational programs and creating valuable educational content. These initiatives have directly benefited around seven million people through scholarship schemes, financial literacy, and teacher training. In addition, more than 50 million people have gained access to  relevant, free, high-quality content through BBVA’s educational platforms, such as its financial literacy websites and the ‘Aprendemos juntos’ (Learning Together) initiative.

Notable educational programs:

• Chavos que Inspiran (Mexico): A program by the BBVA Foundation Mexico that aims to support school continuity and social mobility for socially and financially vulnerable young people. There are over 50,000 scholarships up for grabs, as well as a comprehensive support system including mentoring, academic guidance and extracurricular training. Thanks to Chavos que Inspiran, these scholarship recipients are often the first in their families to complete university studies, helping them break out of the poverty cycle and attain a socioeconomic level that would otherwise have taken four generations to achieve.
•  Educación Conectada (Spain): An initiative created jointly by BBVA and FAD Juventud to support the digital transformation of the education sector in Spain. Each year, it trains more than 20,000 members of the educational community—learners, families and educators—in digital skills.
•  Teachers Academy (Turkey): Founded by Garanti BBVA in 2008 to support teachers and protect children’s right to receive a quality education, the initiative targets the professional and personal development of educators, by training over 35,000 of them annually to instill among their learners the mental, social, emotional and digital skills needed in the 21st century.
•  Conectados por la educación (Colombia): Program to foster STEAM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics), ensuring connectivity, access to a digital library featuring over 600 open-access books and resources, and STEAM-based teacher training, all focused on project-based learning. Since 2022, the initiative has benefited more than 100,000 learners and educators across Colombia each and every year.
•  Leer es estar adelante (Peru): Program to improve reading comprehension skills among primary school students at public schools in five regions of the country. By handing out books, and delivering teacher training and classroom support, the initiative enhances learning for 25,000 students and around 1,000 teachers annually.
•  Programa Finanzas Personales with Junior Achievement (Argentina): Project aimed at developing basic financial skills such as budgeting, saving, and investing, delivered via a virtual campus by teachers, with support from BBVA volunteers. It targets vulnerable youth aged 16–18 in secondary schools across the country, helping them develop their personal finance skills. Since its inception in 2019, it has benefited upward of 40,000 young people nationwide.
• Programa Papagayo (Venezuela): A pioneering and transformative program that is not content with merely ensuring access to basic education, but targets the need to improve the quality of the educational system through teacher training, considering that teachers are ultimately responsible for ensuring the success of the educational process and therefore achieving the effective development of people and society at large. Over 25 years, it has trained over 5,000 teachers and 150,000 students, with nearly one million indirect beneficiaries.

BBVA’s other two main areas of social action in the last four years have been the reduction of inequality; and support for entrepreneurship and the promotion of research and culture.

A key player in this regard is the BBVA Foundation, which invests over €25 million annually and focuses its work on expanding the frontiers of knowledge as one of the most effective ways of tackling key societal challenges, such as the environment, sustainable development, health, cultural preservation, and innovation to create opportunities for all.

Another key player is the BBVA Microfinance Foundation, which supports more than three million vulnerable microentrepreneurs annually in Peru, Colombia, Chile, Panama, and the Dominican Republic through financial products and services such as microcredits, microinsurance, and financial and digital literacy workshops. Between 2021 and 2024, the microfinance institutions in these countries handed out over €5 billion in microcredits.

BBVA also runs other key community engagement initiatives, including volunteering, partnerships with non-profit organizations, and emergency response efforts.

Emergency response: Support in the aftermath of the flash floods in Valencia

Between 2021 and 2024, BBVA played a key role in responding to emergency situations in the regions where it operates. Over this period, BBVA donated nearly €30 million and channeled a further €15 million in donations from customers and employees.

Notable events in this regard include the earthquake in Turkey, the war in Ukraine, the hurricane in Mexico, the volcanic eruption in La Palma (Spain), and, more recently, the torrential rain and flash floods in Spain. This tragic event unfolded on October 29, 2024, causing severe flooding in the Valencian Community, Castile-La Mancha and Andalusia, and BBVA reacted on the spot by activating a special social response plan. This notably included an immediate donation of €4 million to the Spanish Red Cross to support those affected. It also launched a special fundraising campaign, channeling nearly €7.5 million in extra donations from employees, customers, and the public through Bizum.

Corporate volunteering and social partnerships

BBVA’s commitment to the community goes beyond financial contributions, by directly involving its employees and partners. Between 2021 and 2024, nearly 53,000 employees took part in volunteering initiatives, often joined by their family and friends. Through corporate volunteering endeavors, the bank’s employees supported educational, entrepreneurial, environmental and social inclusion projects (such as digital inclusion for the elderly, food banks, and emergency support), thus strengthening BBVA’s internal culture of responsibility and community service.

BBVA also supports various NGO-led projects through its calls for funding for worthy causes. In the last five years, it has funded 141 social organizations and their projects through its BBVA Futuro and Iniciativa Solidaria calls, involving a total investment of €6.7 million.