5 ways to improve your organisation's impact
/In your company, there are a growing number of professionals who want to make a difference. As well as this, whoever your customers are, they have an increased awareness of ethical practises, meaning that CSR (or impact) is becoming increasingly important. But how can you improve your business’s impact?
Chloe, from Green Light Ventures shares her top 5 tips.
1. Share your skills
I’ve worked in the charity sector for many years. So many charities and projects love to have businesses support their ventures. Think about your last team day where you ‘gave something back’… this may have involved painting a wall, or raising some funds, but did it involve the skills you would usually use in your day-to-day role? One charity I worked with told me that “there were only so many walls that needed painting” in their office, and that, actually, getting sound advice from professionals would make more of a difference to them. So, I helped them organise a day where, data analysts from Lloyds Bank came to help them address some data questions they had with their fundraising data. The group spent a day pouring over questions and problems and two things happened:
The charity received sound advice, learnt new skills and went away feeling more confident about how to analyse their data.
The data analysts were able to apply their skills to a fresh challenge, and went away feeling like they make a difference.
I’d highly recommend you speaking to your existing charity partners, and seeing if there any new ways you could help them by using your skills.
2. Build long term relationships
More impact can be made when your relationships are long term. At Green Light Ventures, we help link businesses with impactful projects in Tanzania. One of the main things that locals here ask us, is to make sure that the projects we work on are sustainable. The best way for us to ensure this is to build long term relationships between you, the business, and the projects we link you with.
Most meaningful projects can’t happen in a day, or even a fortnight, and long-term projects help you work towards completion and sustainability.
Like any relationship, ‘impact relationships’ come up against challenges. However, by working through them and being honest about how you can adapt and evolve the partnership and projects, will help make more impact.
3. Give more when you can
I’ll tell you a secret about the charity sector. Most charities will help you arrange an away day for two reasons:
· The first one is obvious: they’ll get something in return from the day (e.g. skills, money raised)
· The second one will be a bit more subtle: They’ll also be looking to see how you (as a business or individual) can help support them longer term.
And this is a fantastic thing! Why? Because your financial support (as a business or as individuals) means that the charity can continue to run. Your money will go towards paying skilled professionals to support the cause they work in. I’ll also tell you another secret: many people will give money to a charity, but with a clause involved (e.g. please give this money directly to this project). Charities have to (and will) honour this. But it can be restrictive for them. Because what if what they actually need isn’t money for the project, but a new set of computers which will help them be more efficient? So, I challenge you to give, and to give freely to the cause, trusting the charity to know where the money will be best spent.
4. Motivate your team
There are an increasing number of people wanting to make a difference in their workplace, therefore you probably don’t need to motivate them to actually want to take part in a CSR event. However, make sure that the event (whatever it is) is as motivating as possible.
· Try and involve some other team building activities (at Green Light Ventures, all our trips involve team building activities alongside the volunteering). My request (from working in the charity sector) is to not ask the charity directly to do this for you. In my experience, charities have enough to do, and their first skill isn’t necessarily to create team building activities. Why not employ a company who can help you do this alongside your charitable activities? Or find someone in your team who can arrange them for you.
· As suggested in my first tip, try and build impact relationships where your team can share their skills. Your team will be able to think outside the box, and return to their role feeling refreshed and inspired.
· Make sure your projects are actually making a difference. Your team will know whether their efforts have made an impact or not. In a long-term partnership, this becomes easier, because you can ask the project staff to be honest and see if you have made a difference. If not, you can work with them to see how this can change next time.
5. Impact lots of areas
There are so many causes to choose from, and it’s tempting to pick just one. But try and see how many initiatives you could make impact in. One way of doing this is to audit your team’s skills. Law firm Burges Salmon are a great example for this.
They identified that there were a number of skills in their team:
· Legal expertise was an obvious one;
· But they also realised that many of their team were skilled in reading and writing
· And many of the staff also had skills in job applications and interviews.
They went to their partners and asked how they could help. They offer pro-bono legal support to charities, but also, through their school partnerships, offer ‘Reading Buddies’ for primary school children, and help school leavers prepare for work.
Are there other charities or projects where your business can start making more impact?
If you want to start making more impact as a business, comment, or pop us a message, and we’ll be in touch.
