3 Years In: the greater's 2023 Impact Strategy Update
To our clients, partners, and industry colleagues:
Today, on the 3rd anniversary of the greater, we find ourselves reflecting on our founding belief: that there is a different way to do business; that organizations could both be great and do good.
For those who don’t know: in addition to the day-to-day work we do as a strategy consulting firm working with socially conscious organizations on business, brand, and social impact strategies, we are also a social enterprise that invests 50% of net-profit into community organizations (read more on our strategy here: https://thegreater.ca/impact/)
End of year is always an exciting opportunity for us as we get to announce our annual financial investment and share how these funds are being invested. Three years in, we felt this year’s Impact note was a chance to zoom out and highlight the evolution of our strategy, lessons learned along the way, and where we see our opportunity moving forward.
Our Journey to Today:
In our first year of operations, we leveraged input from clients, employees and experts within the city of Toronto to identify 20+ organizations to support. We were proud of our “beta version”, but also saw opportunity for improvement. First, we wanted to add intentionality to our investment strategy in a way that would help us identify future partners – less of a disparate list and more of a collective list of organizations, bound together by a common thesis. Second, we wanted to focus our impact by working with fewer organizations so we could increase the support per organization and explore pro bono opportunities that went beyond the financial contribution. In 2022, we applied those lessons: we doubled our financial commitment, introduced the principles of Trust-based philanthropy to our approach (multi-year, unrestricted investments rather than one-off, program-specific donations), implemented clearer criteria for who we would support (organizations challenging the status quo in their cause area by advocating for longer-term systems change) and organized around 3 Pillars: Community, Industry, and Environment. ?
2023 Commitment:
In 2023, as our team expanded, we had the opportunity to once again, tinker with our approach. With new team members, comes new perspectives and lived experiences to inform potential investment benefactors that might not have been on our radar.? This year, as a complement to our existing strategy and multi-year partners, each of our team members had access to dedicated budget to direct in support of an organization that laddered up to our strategy. We discussed and debated as a team, and the result was clear: a better, more collaborative model for how we deploy funds. ?This will be codified into our model moving forward: a hybrid structure where our team members have a chance to direct funds to complement funds invested at the organizational level.
As we reach the end of our third year, we are very proud to announce that our total investment has now reached $250,000, as we invest another $100,000 from 2023 operations.
Expanding our Impact through new commitments:
Our social investment helps support efforts from incredible organizations including:?FoodShare Toronto,? Black Talent Initiative,?POCAM - People of Colour in Advertising & Marketing, MLSE Foundation, LGBT YouthLine, The Metropolitan Church of Toronto (MCC Toronto), Toronto Public Library Foundation, and Black Creek Community Farm .
These organizations vary in their what but have common attributes in their why and how. Each of them – within their cause area – from community places, to food justice, to sport access, to equitable workplaces – are doing deliberate work to go beyond making a short-term incremental impact – and are instead trying to influence broader systems through advocacy, sector collaborations, and innovative programming. Like the greater, they are trying to challenge the status quo within their space.
Challenging the Status Quo: Ensuring our Impact is both External and Internal
3 years in, and with an expanded group of team members, we not only had the opportunity to evolve our Impact Strategy – but to hold a mirror up to the greater and continuously challenge ourselves to do things differently. ?This year, in consultation with our team, we have formalized our EDI commitments; getting clear on where and how we as leaders, individuals, and consultants can do better and work towards a culture that celebrates diverse identities, lived experiences, and ways of thinking amongst our team,?clients and partners.
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Today, as we point to our 2023 external commitments via our Impact Strategy, we also publish an updated EDI Commitment and Dashboard that tracks our collaborative commitments. These commitments range widely, from being a signatory of POCAM’s Call for Equity, to salary transparency on all posted roles, to embedding EDI into learning and development budgets.?
We share this publicly so that our statement of intent can be viewed alongside actionable commitments, and that other agencies or consultancies?-?specifically start-up and growing firms - could see our approach.?
We are just getting started:
There is much more to learn, discover, and contribute. Our strategy is a work-in-progress, evolving with each lesson learned and every challenge faced. We commit to remain open, adaptable, and receptive to the evolving needs of our team, clients, and communities.
We also want to take a moment to thank our amazing clients whose partnership make our commitment possible. Since 2020, we have worked with 35+ clients – from blue-chip brands to emerging non-profits - on purpose-driven strategies that time and time again, reaffirm what we know to be true: organizations could both be great and do good.
Finally, we want to thank our team for bringing energy, enthusiasm, passion, and insight to the greater each and every day,
Thank you for being part of the greater's story.
Matthew Klar & Matthew Logue-Lee
Co-founders, the greater
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