Here is a list of questions we often hear from our purpose-driven clients:- How do we align our mission with our business goals?
- We care so much and we want to use business as a force for good, but where do we start?
- How do we avoid greenwashing?
- We want to be authentic in how we talk about our impact - is a certification like B Corp right for us?
- How do we empower our clients/customers to do good by purchasing from us?
- How do we make sure we are making the greatest impact possible with our limited resources?
Sound familiar? It’s overwhelming and hard work trying to do good in the world AND run a sustainable and profitable business. Surprisingly, our answer to all of these questions is the same – you need an Impact Strategy.The perfectly reasonable next question then becomes - What is an Impact Strategy?The word strategy brings to mind long days in front of a whiteboard, lots of post-its, Excel spreadsheets, you know - “businessy” things. And frankly, Impact Strategy doesn’t LOOK very different. Except for one thing - most business strategies have one goal in mind - $$$$. And the goal for an Impact Strategy? VALUE. This is where it gets a little more complicated, because value can mean a very different thing from organization to organization. Value for who? Well, that depends on your unique stakeholders. What matters to the people that matter to your organization? Your workers, your community members, your customers, your suppliers? What do they care about? Is it the environment? Your community? Fair pay and benefits?Justice for all? Whatever the answer to that question - that’s what derives value for your organization, and that’s what guides your Impact Strategy.And guess what? Value equals $$. Except instead of $$$$ for one group (shareholders), it tends to look like $$ for many. The same value is just distributed in a more equitable way. And that’s how we create a stakeholder economy - one that’s for the benefit of all, not just a privileged few.So how do you align your business goals with social and environmental impact? You redefine what business goals means for you - who do you want to create value for? 
