How B Corps are reshaping stakeholder engagement practices to catalyze impact: Lessons from Balloon Latam and Go Vocal

Explore how Balloon Latam and Go Vocal use innovative engagement strategies to drive systemic change.
By B Lab Global
January 31, 2025

In the port city of Coquimbo, Chile, thousands of residents from across the country came together—including indigenous leaders, municipal officials, local activists, and entrepreneurs—to tackle a shared challenge. Their task? To address one of the world’s, and specifically region’s, most pressing challenges: water scarcity. Over hours of dialogue, these unlikely peers exchanged ideas, debated solutions, and built bridges of understanding. For many attendees of the Encuentro Nacional de Vinculación Social (ENVIS), a flagship initiative of Balloon Latam, this was more than a forum to address a crisis. It was a moment to be seen, heard, and be part of a larger, purpose-driven community. 

Half a world away in the UK, citizens are taking on a similar task: shaping the future of the National Health Service (NHS). Through Go Vocal’s digital engagement platform, they are empowered to share their ideas, engage in thoughtful debate, and voice their opinions on policies that will impact their families and communities. This collaborative approach is empowering citizens to become thoughtful contributors, ensuring that the voices of those most affected by healthcare decisions are heard and valued.

These stories embody the spirit of the B Corp movement—where businesses serve as catalysts for systemic change. Balloon Latam and Go Vocal demonstrate how authentic stakeholder engagement can reimagine relationships, amplify marginalized voices, and create more inclusive and sustainable systems. This blog explores their transformative work, showing that when businesses listen and communities are empowered, real change is possible.

Reviving democracy through technology: Go Vocal’s approach

For decades, government engagement initiatives have relied on in-person town halls, community forums, and surveys to engage citizens. These methods often fall short: they can be logistically cumbersome, dominated by a few voices, and limited in scope. As trust in governments declines, driven by growing social division and perceptions of corruption, many citizens feel disconnected from the decision-making processes that shape their lives.

Go Vocal seeks to change this narrative. The Belgium-based B Corp has created a digital engagement platform that transforms public decision-making into a more inclusive, transparent, and participatory process. Citizens can engage on their own terms—submitting ideas, voting on priorities, or participating in debates—without the constraints of physical meetings.

Lora Botev, Go Vocal’s UK Country Manager, explains, "It's about how technology can help you reach more people, different kinds of people, but also how it can facilitate your job as someone who’s looking to engage people and involve them in the decision-making process”.

A longtime trusted partner for local governments, Go Vocal recently took on a large-scale national initiative: powering the UK government’s conversation about the NHS’ 10-year-plan, marking a significant milestone for the company. “Mostly, Go Vocal has worked with local governments—and that’s kind of our wheelhouse,” Lora explains. “So getting to work on a national project, alongside Thinks Insights as a partner, with this many people engaged is new for us and very exciting.”

To date, the NHS project has welcomed over 700,000 visitors and has 100,000 registered users, proving that inclusive engagement at scale is possible. For Go Vocal, this success is deeply tied to its commitment as a B Corp. 

“We’re excited to be part of the B Corp community of changemakers, contributing to a global culture shift to redefine the impact business can have on our communities, and to move away from a reliance on governments and organizations to create that change alone.”Wietse Van Ransbeeck, Go Vocal CEO

Go Vocal’s success points to a powerful truth: meaningful change happens when diverse voices are not just heard but actively involved in decisions that affect their lives. This idea transcends borders, as seen in the work of Balloon Latam. While Go Vocal leverages digital tools to engage citizens in policy discussions, Balloon Latam focuses on building grassroots connections, ensuring that even the most marginalized communities have a platform to lead their own development. 

Empowering rural communities: Balloon Latam’s vision 

Chile’s rural municipalities make up over 80% of the country, yet these areas face significant inequities in resource allocation. When financing does reach these communities, it often arrives with predetermined purposes, decided far from the people it’s meant to serve. This disconnect inspired Balloon Latam’s mission: to empower communities as protagonists of their development.

Founded in 2011, the Chilean B Corp has spent over a decade creating social-impact programs that prioritize co-creation and sustainability. Guided by their three P’s slogan—participación y pertinencia para la permanencia (participation and relevance for permanence)—Balloon Latam  believes that lasting solutions are only possible when communities are active participants from the start.

“If you involve communities as active participants from the beginning, the solutions will be more relevant and, therefore, more lasting,” adds Constanza Rosen, Director of Communications at Balloon Latam.  

One of their star initiatives, Saca tu Permiso Rural (Get Your Rural Permit), exemplifies this philosophy in action. The initiative allows citizens to redirect funds from traffic permit payments to rural municipalities, directly supporting critical infrastructure and community-led projects. In 2024 alone, the program reached 3 million people and raised over 1.231 billion Chilean pesos (1.2M USD), demonstrating how local empowerment can increase awareness of individual actions and help shift resources to rural communities.

Central to Balloon Latam’s strategy is strengthening the social capital of Chile’s rural communities so that, individually and collectively, they can better address the environmental and social challenges they face. This commitment was on full display at ENVIS 2025, a three-day event led by Balloon Latam and held in Coquimbo, one of the world’s most drought-stricken regions. This year, ENVIS brought together over 1400 participants to discuss sustainable solutions for water scarcity. 

“What makes ENVIS special is the diversity of voices at the table,” says Daniela Hernández, Partner & Director of Transformation at Balloon Latam. “It’s not just about solving today’s problems. It’s about equipping communities with the tools they need to build a better future.” The event’s outcomes include actionable recommendations documented in a report that will be shared with key stakeholders across Chile. This report offers a participatory analysis of the country’s most pressing challenges and provides concrete recommendations aimed at influencing public policy. By capturing these collective insights, ENVIS is evolving into a lasting mechanism for civic engagement and systemic change, ensuring that the conversations sparked at the event continue to shape decision-making throughout the year.

As a certified B Corporation, Balloon Latam centers accountability, equity, and community at the heart of everything they do. Their certification serves as a framework for maintaining transparency and measuring impact, ensuring that their work reflects the needs of the communities they support. 

“Being a company is not a differentiator. It’s a commitment, a reflection of the essence of how we believe we can be better for the world through the market and by being a company. We want to be the number one innovation company in the world in terms of impact, and the path to that goal is ‘being B’. The beautiful thing is that, even before knowing what B Corps were, our company’s dream was already reflected in what this movement stands for.” Sebastián Salinas, Founder & Executive President, Balloon Latam

The power of stakeholder engagement: Listening for lasting impact 

At its core, stakeholder engagement is about listening to and involving those impacted by an organization’s actions. This approach is central to the B Corp movement, which envisions a global economy that benefits all people, communities, and the planet. As the global challenges we face grow more complex, businesses must rethink how they serve the communities they impact, leveraging stakeholder engagement as a catalyst for meaningful change. 

GoVocal and Balloon Latam remind us that the path to lasting impact starts with listening—and that the voices we amplify today can shape the world we share tomorrow. Achieving this, however, requires more than intention; it demands accountability. That’s why B Corps commit to governance structures that embed stakeholder considerations—customers, workers, suppliers, communities, and the environments, as well as their shareholders—into decision-making, ensuring that purpose and profit are not at odds but work in tandem to drive change.

This shift doesn’t happen in isolation. For over a decade, B Lab has worked globally to advance policies that empower companies to lead with impact, from championing benefit corporation legislation—now adopted in 51 jurisdictions—to mobilizing business leaders in Argentina, Australia, the EU, Spain, Switzerland, the U.S., and the UK to advocate for stronger stakeholder governance. Where legislation isn’t needed, we help companies integrate these principles into their corporate structures, reinforcing a movement where business is accountable not just to shareholders, but to the communities and environments they affect.

Who should your organization be listening to? And how can you ensure that their perspectives not only inform your actions but also redefine how you operate? The answers to these questions could be the first steps towards building a more equitable and sustainable future—one shaped by the many, not the few.


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