You're torn between profitability and social impact in your business decisions. How can you strike a balance?

This question itself belies the problem. The question is framed as a false choice "between profitability and social impact" in which profitability is on one end of the scale and social impact is on the other. The proper framing I believe is to think about profitability and social impact as necessary but distinct elements in a sustainable business. In other words, the visual representation is less one of a scale that needs to be balanced than a Venn diagram.

They're not mutually exclusive - making money means you are doing something right. A money mindset is the first step. Think about what you could reinvest profits into, and how that can help your organisation to grow. That can include assets like buying your office building, or reinvesting in your people to develop your own services and offerings. Both of which offer your work some degree of financial stability, and may mean you need to rely less on donor funding.

If you're torn between the two, I believe it's because you're looking at profitability as a short term necessity, and social impact as a liability you have to take care of. When we're mired in the day to day operations of business, we can easily get distracted by "quarterly reports" or some other short term profit metric. The expense of a long term social impact program can immediately seem at odds with that. But social impact is about long-term sustainability. It's an investment TODAY to prevent existential hurdles you'll likely face TOMORROW. You can balance these by starting small with your social impact program and growing it over time.

Easier said than done Social impact can be measured with $$ in most cases Sure you can create objective indices and methods of measurements However having goal’s linked to the social impact values of the organisation would help guide those decisions

In my program, we're working to impact teachers and students directly. Clearly, working with me is going to be a short term investment and cost for any social impact partner. But by the nature of the program, we're helping to boost the brand reputation in the community, and get employees involved. So over time companies will see the ROI on their investments: 1. Employee pride leads to less turnover, and easier hiring. This alone might save more money than you invest in the program. 2. Educating the community bolsters your Social License to Operate 3. And education in general helps build a better workforce and customer base.

Your brand is what people think of you. Period. And the people who matter most are the stakeholders in your business: employees, customers, vendors, employees, and your local community. If your social impact program doesn't engage or benefit these people in real, tangible ways, then you're not really doing anything that matters. Getting employees involved in activities, or even just acting on their suggestions, gives them a sense of pride and ownership that can lead to easier hiring and less turnover. Getting the community behind your efforts makes you a truly valuable corporate citizen. These things don't just 'sound nice', they will actually impact your bottom line over time.

Start by looking outside a project's timeline to the medium term - a 5-year plan is a good way to start. Think about where you'd like to be in terms of financial stability and organisational growth and work backwards. That could show you the type of grants to pitch for, the duration of your projects, or as mentioned above, the type of services or products you should create. Work with your partners on shared services maybe, or start by finding out what your sector/context needs, and whether you can fill that market gap.

A lot of social impact programs measure “input metrics” like dollars spent. While impressive, this kind of metric does little to showcase the effectiveness of your efforts. In our program, we use “output metrics”?like the number of US teachers and students provided for in one year, so we can showcase real human beings benefiting from our efforts.