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I’m a Believer, Now What? A Practical Guide to Starting a Social Impact Program
- 1. Olivia Khalili | Director, Yahoo for Good June 7, 2016 | Sustainable Brands @OKL I’m a Believer, Now What? A Practical Guide to Starting a Social Impact Program
- 2. ‘For me, profit is what happens when you do everything else right.’ -Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard
- 3. 3 HOW do I create social impact within a company? $
- 4. part one Where are we going?
- 5. 1. Listening tour with internal & external stakeholders 2. Landscape scan 3. Community needs assessment (start here)
- 6. 1. Frame your theory of change & the broad role your company will have 1. Internal buy-in 2. Community input (package and present)
- 7. 1. Identify all alignment points for social good (map it to the company) Product donation Employee capital Supply chain Stakeholder activation $ Policy Product development Facilities Marketing HR IMPACT
- 8. 2. Consider where your program is housed within the company (map it to the company)
- 9. 3. Integrate with business outcomes/revenue (map it to the company) $
- 10. - Alignment points for social impact - Program placement within company - Positive business drivers Determine your program pillars (a strategy forming…)
- 11. part two Building on the foundation
- 12. 1. New hire orientation 2. Social impact council / Champion network 3. Employee engagement survey 4. Executive partnership (activation network)
- 13. part three A program in motion
- 14. - Is your approach yielding the desired outcomes? - What will ensure the program’s viability? - What data can you capture? (measure)
- 15. - Internal programs & awareness first - Tell stories (peel the onion)
- 16. - Connect with external peers - Leverage your internal champions/council (build your support)
- 17. The most dangerous phrase in our language is— ‘We’ve always done it this way’ -grace hopper
Editor's Notes
- Why am I up here talking to you? Firstly, because I love this. Defining and building a social impact program “from the ground up” is both challenging and thrilling. My background: 8 years ago I founded a site, Cause Capitalism, to present the business case for integrating social impact. Have worked with small startups; Amex, Ben & Jerry’s; and now leading social impact at Yahoo for the past 20 months. Have approached the act of building social impact programs from various angles. I first came to this conference 8 years ago with the intent to absorb as much as possible. I now feel grateful to both absorb from others and to share the experiences I’ve had. This is not a session about statistics or data or studies. I debated whether to share proof points, because 4-8 years ago, that’s what my work was mainly about: making the case for socially driven business. But this next hour is what occupies me now: [TRANSITION SLIDE]
- How do I create effective social impact within a company? I define ‘social impact’ as strategy and initiatives that drive business and community value. My measure of success today is that you leave with a framework and ideas to build a social impact strategy at your company.
- Your first work is to identify what the world needs that your company can uniquely or more effectively provide You begin to do this by– [TRANSITION SLIDE]
- LISTENING TOUR with internal and external stakeholders (new employees, long-time employees, senior leaders, critical departments, key external stakeholder groups (consumers or suppliers). Take inspiration from what people are organically doing Build on this momentum: Amplify and enhance present initiatives Think about: Is there a core business philosophy or principle that can be applied to your social impact strategy? The concept of “Transformational” Is core to AirBnB’s business; the corporate citizenship program adopted this to “Provide transformational opportunities to people from local communities”. This social impact focus was a natural extension of the core brand. LANDSCAPE SCAN to identify where your company can make a unique difference/have the largest impact. What are the true community needs? Who else is involved in this space? Speak with conveners/collaborators by sector, ex: STEAM organizations in the Bay Area), research other companies’ programs, call up your local community foundation. COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT: Have conversations with local organizations who can inform you what’s really going on in the community and where the needs and gaps are (to avoid starting duplicative program or reinventing the wheel).
- Now you have data points to frame a theory of change and loose strategy. Put together a basic deck and bring it to your internal stakeholders: Do they get it? Is it clear and actionable? Once you get their buy-in, go to the community stakeholders to solicit their input; this will likely be an iterative process [Did I mention this will not be a perfectly linear process??]. Involving these content experts will not only inform your program but help to strengthen your reputation as a credible contributor in the community.
- Once you start to hone in on a sector of impact for your company (financial inclusion, waste reduction, workforce development), Look at ALL alignment points across the company (beyond philanthropic dollars and volunteer time) to determine how to activate them for social good.
- This will likely determine your immediate areas of alignment and ROI (but does not need to remain static or dictate boundaries). If you’re housed in comms, you’ll map to these specific objectives. You will likely have another set of initial outcomes if you’re in HR.
- What are direct or indirect business outcomes that your work can influence? New customer acquisition, purchases, brand value or stickiness, employee satisfaction and retention, product innovation LinkedIN: Product integration (board service, volunteering, refugee support in some European markets) Interface: Industrial carpet manufacturer: material reduction in costs(hundreds of millions of dollars) due to streamlined processing and less waste Unilver: The company’s purpose-driven brands grew 30% faster than their other product brands and contributed to 50% of Unilever’s total profits.
- This all determines program pillars/focus areas. These should be consistent as you develop your program initiatives and partnerships. Talk about YFG’s program areas
- Ready to get up to speed. Lack of resources. This is a given. Accept it now and use it to drive ruthless focus (leveraging volunteering to support your community grantees/partners), partnership, resourcefulness Prototype. Experiment within your pillars or focus areas. At Yahoo, we gave ourselves a year to do this. We had a defined strategy for impact (access to opportunities in STEAM learning for underrepresented youth) and framework for how we would evaluate whether to greenlight a program or partnership, but within that, we took an experimental approach and tracked the outcomes.
- “If the people are with you, you can’t fail. If they’re not, you can’t win.” –A. Lincoln Now that you have your strategy, you need an activation and support network, from the newest to those with executive/leadership authority NEW HIRE ORIENTATION: Statistically, people are most optimistic about their employer and their potential at a company on the first day. Get in front of this engaged audience. Make sure social impact is communicated as part of the core culture AT orientation. Couple your presentation with a volunteer activity (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly). Tip: automate this as much as possible so you/your team is not leading it weekly. Go to a local food bank or community shelter. Teach an Hour of Code tutorial. SOCIAL IMPACT COUNCIL: Option to support ongoing key stakeholder engagement. Our YFG Council is comprised of reps from across the company. We just relaunched it to target more senior leaders. Meet monthly with a mandate for them to provide feedback on programs and help to action key initiatives with their team. CHAMPION NETWORK: Build a Champion network to support volunteerism, minor local philanthropy and other key initiatives you may have like Tech for Good hacks. Serve as feet on the ground for national/global teams; translate programs to be culturally relevant. Many ways to construct this. One model: Application process for employees to manage volunteerism and minor philanthropy within geographic regions. Provide professional development and recognition opps (calls every 8 weeks on best practices in volunteerism and philanthropy). Champions are recognized and selected as key leaders within the company and receive perks like access and travel to special company events. EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT SURVEY: Integrate a question in your company’s annual employee engagement survey to begin to correlate employee engagement in your programs (volunteering, giving, product innovation) with satisfaction/company pride, etc. EXECUTIVE PARTNERSHIP: I don’t have a silver bullet for this one. The more you can get your executives around socially minded peer leaders and begin to demonstrate wins in your company, the faster they will become true advocates. Get them talking about social impact and what it means to the company to both employees and publicly (draft their talking points); ask leadership to make a specific volunteer or giving commitment. Leverage competition (“Peer company X has a terrific strategy with X impact”).
- Progress isn’t about what you’ve done. It’s about the impact you’ve had.
- Progress isn’t about what you’ve done. It’s about the impact you’ve had. Levi’s got really clear about this by defining desired outcomes and specific metrics to track progress. Ex: Levi’s re-launched sustainability mission. Had considerably reduced energy use and waste in its supply chain but realized through a life-cycle analysis that consumer behavior--washing/drying—had the highest environmental cost (60% of total environmental cost). Instead of saying, “Phew, we’ve done our part! Levi’s launched Care to Air, a consumer facing campaign encouraging customers to air dry their denim. Launched a contest that awarded $10k to the most sustainable, innovative system for air-drying clothes. Capture impact and ensure the viability of and resources for your program key metrics related to where your program is housed within the company) At the onset, look at what data you can capture: This may be employee engagement surveys, data from joint marketing campaigns on brand reputation or consumer acquisition, employee satisfaction, community impact.
- Start internally to continue to engage and activate employees and close stakeholders Consumer activation comes later Concerted storytelling around your work and the champions involved. Have it come from their voice, when possible. Think of it almost like marketing a product: Who is our audience? What are our key messages? What outcomes do we want? What are the most relevant and sticky channels to reach them?
- You may be surrounded by the strong stakeholder network you created, and still experience isolation in your work. Particularly if you are a team of one, you likely hold a unique role within the company, a role that is being charted as you go. You will be a translator, a bushwhacker, carving pathways through the business and company that have not previously existed. So build your own scaffolding. My most valuable professional asset is something that requires no funds, or travel. I’m part of a small group of local CSR leaders that meets regularly. This has been invaluable.
- We are here today because we are unreasonable in our expectations; compelled by a future vision; or simply disgusted with the status quo. Importantly, I want to give you permission to forge on, to start where you are and be seemingly unreasonable in the outcomes you want to achieve. And, importantly, to detach from a vision of perfection. Don’t be held up by the less than perfect or cowed by the delta between the stories we hear here at Sustainable Brands and your work. Remember, you are in the process. And there is gallantry in this.