Driving impact: A chat with social impact leaders

We recently gathered a group of Social Impact Leaders from corporate and non-profit organizations to discuss how they structure their teams to maximize impact, critical drivers of success, and their predictions for the future. While it’s clear that social impact teams take many different shapes and sizes, we captured some themes from the conversation here:

Where Impact sits within an organization

How an Impact team is organized and where it sits within an organization can take many different forms. Some examples leaders shared included reporting to a Chief Administrative Officer, split between HR and PR/Marketing/Comms, or reporting directly to the CEO, Legal, or Finance. You might consider: What is the biggest asset to be leveraged or the main focus, and therefore where should this function sit? (e.g., If customer engagement is the priority, Impact might report to a CMO. If it’s employee engagement, it might report to the Chief People Officer.)

Designing a team for maximum impact

Distributed or centralized? Maybe it’s both. In a large company, it can be beneficial to have a distributed model (in which teams report into the organizations where they can have the biggest impact) but with access to a center for impact where they can take advantage of shared resources such as marketing, comms, and data science.

Running Impact like a business

Impact work, such as philanthropy, might be perceived as "soft and squishy' by some, but that’s far from the truth. If you want to build a practice for growth and have a real seat at the table, it should be run just like any other business unit.

Finding your trusted network

Community is critical in the impact space, especially as companies navigate implementing social impact efforts for the first time or are strategizing how to respond to current events and tragedies. It can be helpful to understand what other companies are doing real time. Challenging moments can be an opportunity to partner with organizations (that might otherwise be competitors) in service of a greater goal. Find time to connect with partners, mentors, and other stakeholders—learn from their experiences and share yours. Impact is stronger together.

Measuring impact

To drive impact and hold a team accountable, it can help to have a guiding set of principles or values that your whole organization adheres to. This helps everyone ensure that the work they are doing ladders back up to the big picture. When it comes to metrics, it can be tempting to rely on the “splashy, eye-catching” ones that companies often share publicly—these are easy to report, and a good starting place. But ask yourself: Are they the most impactful for us? How might we go one level deeper? Also consider how all of your data and metrics are being tracked; over time, this will be a powerful tool for demonstrating your value.

Sharing your story

How can impact leaders bolster the case for the importance of the work they are doing? When impact work can be shared in an authentic way as part of your brand story, that can be very powerful. Consider ways that employees might become advocates (the internal attitude will translate externally), or whether a partner organization can speak on your behalf. That will always feel more authentic than the company itself saying “we’re doing a good job.”

Understanding your stakeholders

Sometimes it is difficult to truly understand the issues in a system or a service you are providing unless the creators of that system are engaging directly with the people who actually use it. Consider ways that different employees might engage with stakeholders to gain insights into improvements that can be made. It’s a powerful way to build empathy and drive innovation.

Looking at impact through the lens of DEI

While it’s important to invest and support organizations that serve underrepresented communities, it’s also important to make sure some of those organizations are actually led by leaders of underrepresented backgrounds. Help give them the visibility and support they need. Take a look at your portfolio of partners, grantees, and investments and try to uncover biases that have crept in.

What the future holds

Where is the market heading when it comes to impact? Consistent with any area of business right now, Impact leaders are thinking about the impact of AI. How can the nonprofit sector benefit from AI? How can AI help create more equitable access? How should companies hold themselves accountable to making sure AI is used fairly? What guidelines must be put in place for new AI practices?

—

If you have questions about Rich Talent Group's social impact practice, please don't hesitate to reach out: [email protected]