Unit 2: Determine your structure

[Alicia_Schmidt]

Identify your executive sponsor and social impact leader

There are typically at least two types of people responsible for starting impact programs at companies (in many instances this is the same person): the executive sponsor is the CEO/Founder or c-level executive who took the pledge and ensures this remains an integral part of corporate culture; the social impact leader is the person or team assigned to develop the strategy, execute, and achieve results (note: Equity Pledges are an exception in that the CEO typically drives this with the support of the GC and CFO). 

Executive Sponsor

Social Impact Leader

it’s important for you to stay involved and to continue championing your program. We suggest you find some help and identify a social impact leader to manage the day-to-day logistics of your program:. Early-stage If you do not yet have the capacity to hire a full-time social impact leader, consider assigning a portion of a team member’s time (our members recommend at least 25%) to help lead this work. You can also share responsibilities across a few people or teams (i.e. 30% of three people’s time).  Late-stage We suggest you hire or designate a senior leader no later than 6 months prior to your IPO to oversee your impact, vision, strategy, and execution. The ideal candidate will have demonstrated expertise and will be able to think strategically as well as roll up his/her sleeves to drive execution. They should connect well at all levels and be a master at rallying both people and resources across your company.

Clearly define the scope and expectations of your role, and quickly determine the internal support/resources available to you:   Scope How does your role integrate with diversity, equity, and inclusion? Climate/sustainability efforts? Other internal policies? Team/internal support Will you get to hire and build a team of your own?  Are you able to rely on committed resources from other departments (i.e. marketing, HR, accounting, events, etc). We have suggestions for creative ways to leverage your resources in Priority 4 of this playbook. Decision making What are you empowered to do? Clarify under what circumstances you will need executive approvals. Executive sponsor Who is your partner at the executive level? This is likely your CEO or the person who designated you as the social impact leader, however, if it’s not clear who this is at your company, we suggest that you take steps to clearly identify this person.

Once you choose the staffing model that works best for your company, we suggest you work with your HR or People teams to formally build social impact responsibility into employees’ (and executives’) OKRs and/or goals and performance evaluations. This will help ensure they are able to continue focusing their time and energy toward impact as you move forward. 

Photo credit: Box.org

Determine your structure

It is important to establish a reporting structure that will position your social impact leader to achieve cross-functional alignment, drive the strongest impact outcomes, and ensure representation of impact in critical business decisions and resource allocation.

It is common for impact strategy to be situated beneath another relevant department (i.e. HR, Marketing, Product, Office of the CEO). Each department has its own trade-offs. For larger companies with the capacity to have designated social impact teams and/or late-stage/public companies who have committed pre-IPO stock for social impact, this role is typically a C-suite position.

Corrie Conrad VP of Communities and Impact and Executive Director of Box.org

"First things first, if you’re not at the stage to report to an impact leader at a C-suite level, it’s critical to figure out where your social impact function will live within the organization. I’ve seen it sit in a variety of different places, and as with most things each function has pluses and minuses. Though CEO buy-in is critical, reporting directly to the CEO is not always ideal. Relying on the CEO to fully represent and advocate for social impact programs may prove challenging since CEOs may also play a facilitator role among the executive committee. Reporting to human resources has the positive of tying directly to employee experience, a key part of any corporate social impact program, but may be less connected to the customer experience or operations of the company—two key areas you’re also going to want your program to engage. Similarly, reporting to marketing often has the positive of customer-facing campaigns and outreach, but may lack the employee and operations connection you need. It can also run the risk of being perceived as a marketing tactic instead of as an integrated and authentic social impact program the company is trying to build. You can help set the program up for success by thinking about structure and identifying your executive committee champions early on.” [excerpt written for: Perspectives on Purpose: Leading Voices on Building Brands and Businesses for the Twenty-First Century]

Identify the team to drive vision, strategy, and execution 

Regardless of your structure, it’s likely you’ll need support at all levels of your company to successfully launch and build your program. And you will want to closely collaborate with and integrate your programming with other teams focused on ESG programs like diversity, equity and inclusion and sustainability.

Key questions to consider

• Who can provide support to help with your program’s development and execution? Can marketing assist with branding, collateral, social media? Accounting with budgeting and grantmaking? IT with website functionality? 
  
  
• Where can social impact fit into existing business practices? How can social impact fuel campaigns and marketing? Perhaps it becomes a component of new hire onboarding, an ongoing spotlight at all-hands meetings, or an aspect of user conferences or partner events.

• Can you leverage budget from other departments like HR, marketing, or events? Can all-hands meeting funds support an employee volunteer opportunity or new hire referral bonuses translated into stipends the referring employee donates to a nonprofit? 
  
  

Who are your internal ambassadors?  Engage any and all employees interested in your program and/or who already support nonprofits with their personal time. These individuals will be your internal champions and can help build excitement within their teams.

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Next: Define your impact mission, vision and values