Unit 5: Set your impact objectives and integrate with company goals

[Alicia_Schmidt]

Now that you have defined your social impact mission and vision, it’s time to clearly articulate the specific outcomes you want your programs to achieve. Ensure that these outcomes are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. While you might start with a general mission statement like "improve community well-being," now it’s time to specify a measurable outcome such as "reduce unemployment rate by 15% in the target community within two years."

Be sure to:

Involve Key Stakeholders: Engage stakeholders in the process of setting impact objectives to ensure buy-in and alignment. Collaboration fosters ownership and increases the likelihood of success.

Set Targets and Benchmarks: Establish quantitative targets and benchmarks to track progress toward your impact objectives. These targets should be realistic yet ambitious, providing a clear yardstick for success.

Align with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Align with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Consider how your impact objectives align with the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs provide a universal framework for addressing global challenges, and aligning your objectives with these goals can enhance your credibility and effectiveness.

Monitor and Evaluate Progress: Implement a robust monitoring and evaluation system to track progress toward your impact objectives. Regularly review performance data, gather feedback from stakeholders, and adjust your strategies as needed to stay on course.

Align with your Company’s business goals and objectives

We love that you’ve committed to making a positive social impact, but we also realize that you work at a business. The strongest impact models are usually directly connected to the core product, services, and goals of a company. 

Aligning corporate impact goals with business goals is crucial for creating a sustainable and socially responsible business model.  Strive to be consistent and mutually reinforcing in how you engage with your business and social impact work.

Here are examples of how Pledge 1% member companies have approached the challenge:

Company goals	Ideas to integrate your impact strategy	Pledge 1% member example
To establish new verticals and increase addressable markets	Think through a product discount strategy that creates a new revenue stream.	Flexport.org’s discounted model brings in an entirely new market of nonprofits moving goods, and allows for large companies to donate excess products at a cheaper rate -- which has in turn brought in new clients and awareness for the commercial business.
To attract new talent and engage and retain employees	Build your strategy and culture around opportunities for employees to meaningfully contribute their time to nonprofits and causes.	Twilio.org’s WePledge 1% model takes the Pledge 1% framework to the employee level, allowing them to leverage 1% of their time or financial resources toward causes they select.
To host a successful stakeholder event or large announcement (i.e. funding)	Find ways to put your impact goals front and center to highlight the value of your product as well as your company’s long-term commitment to doing good.	DocuSign announced its commitment to the environment and to protect and preserve the earth’s resources by unveiling its core social impact initiative, DocuSign for Forests, at the World Economic Forum in 2019.
To prepare for a liquidity event	Formalize your equity pledge and build this publicly into your S-1 and IPO announcements.	Unity leveraged its IPO to accelerate and align its commitment to social impact. In February 2020, the team came up with the strategy and started building their Theory of Change. By June, they were able to articulate a case for an equity contribution before the IPO. With board approval in August, they then tied the equity donation to the IPO in September, unlocking roughly $200 million to sustainably fund their social impact program.

Engage Your Customers and Partners in Your Social Impact Strategy

While there are a number of internal benefits to launching your impact strategy, such as boosting employee retention, defining a positive culture, and helping link day-to-day business with company values, your Pledge 1% commitments are also a fantastic way to engage your external partners and community.

As you think through the causes and organizations you’d like to support, also consider the reasons your customers and partners are drawn to you. Is there a way to use your social impact program to communicate your values and remind customers about the unique services and products you offer?

Photo credit: DocuSign.DocuSign’s impact focus area on the environment and forest preservation doubles down on its product: helping hundreds of millions of people around the world preserve 2.5 million trees and replace over 20 billion sheets of paper with paperless, digital processes.

DocuSign features a “paper-impact calculator” in its e-signature product to estimate individual customers’ wood, water, waste, and carbon savings. The calculator is powered by the Environmental Paper Network, an environmental nonprofit whose mission is to promote more sustainable paper consumption and production.

Customers and partners were central to DocuSign identifying their focus on forests, so it was natural to create opportunities to bring them into the work. DocuSign customers have planted trees during their annual customer conference, volunteered in virtual sessions alongside employees, and raised funds for forest protection organizations. DocuSign has also engaged their developer community to ‘hack for forests’ and create solutions benefitting forest-focused nonprofits.

 

Rally Your Team to Boost Employee Engagement and Reinforce Corporate Culture

The ways you engage your team in your program will depend on the structure and culture of your company. It’s important to identify the most effective model for you to drive work forward and set strategy - whether that’s establishing a board committee, or through a senior executive steering committee. Alternatively, you can create an employee ambassador network or impact committee to empower teams to help you define, recruit, and execute your Pledge 1% activities. You’ll also want to consider building in the structure for employees to gather and rally around the topics they’re most passionate about (i.e. creating a Green Team to focus on your company’s environmental footprint and initiatives to support combating climate change).

Setting Up An Employee Ambassador Network

We suggest you partner with your HR or People team to integrate ambassador network activities into performance review processes, incentive programs, and other employee metrics. Our members recommend exploring what’s possible and defining the structure before launching the ambassador program.

Here is a quick checklist to help you get started:

• Reconnect with the employees you interviewed who were most passionate about the company impact goals and vision and let them know you’d like their involvement.
• Open up an internal communication channel, like a public group in Slack or a similar chat tool. Invite the people you think will be interested, and encourage them to invite others and raise awareness.
• Use your internal communications channels (you may want to get your internal marketing and communications teams involved) to share upcoming opportunities with all employees.
• Consider your full company footprint and ensure a structure that is inclusive and enables representation across teams, geographies, demographics, leadership levels, and remote teams.
• Organize a first meeting or Lunch & Learn and encourage employees from all locations to join in virtually, if not in person.
• Present your social impact strategy, gather feedback and ideas, and ask employees to formally join the committees and become ambassadors.
• Set a team charter for the committee and establish priorities for the group. Consider creating sub-committees based on interest or location.

Last, don't be put off if only a few people show up! Be prepared to start small.

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Next: Intro to volunteer program measurement and evaluation