So, what exactly is Impactful?

As a team we’ve spent many hours, days even, teasing out, refining, clarifying what we’re hoping to build with Impactful. It’s ever evolving, as it should be, but in the spirit of openness and accessibility, which are at the core of what we do, we wanted to articulate our thinking so far.

What is the end goal? How would the world be different if we were successful?

For us, the vision is a future where businesses actively make the world better through everything they do. What are the conditions needed for such a world to become a reality? There needs to be a fundamental reframing of the role and position of business in society. Eric Beinhocker, in his excellent lecture at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, articulates it as moving from believing that the purpose of a firm is to maximise shareholder value to the purpose of a firm is to make products and services that solve human problems.

If this is the end goal, what is Impactful’s contribution to it and focus of our work?

We see our mission as working with businesses to unlock their ability to contribute to lasting social change and environmental sustainability. For us there’s two parts to this.

Firstly, the world of social impact needs to be made more accessible and actionable. The barriers to change and action need to be lowered or completely removed. We hear this from the businesses we speak to frequently, that there are often (perceived) resource, knowledge or confidence barriers which stop business leaders from leading change. It’s our job to design our work and services to enable and accelerate that change.

Secondly, when we’re working directly with a business, we help them to maximise their impact, through every part of their business, whilst also instilling a culture of innovation, so they can continue to actively solve human problems after we’ve gone. At the heart of this, is a holistic approach, systematically working through everything that the business does to find opportunities for impact.

We’ve also spent a healthy chunk of time defining our values. These keep us focused and accountable and we refer back to them often so they guide everything we do.

Choose what’s right over whats easy

This manifests in so many ways. To the clients we choose to partner with, the work we deliver, the strategies we advise and how we show up with each other everyday. It also sits at the heart of responsible business. This is our commitment to transparency, authenticity and quality.

Embrace Openness

Again, this reminds us of the many ways we need to show up. We believe in open information, democratising the tools and knowledge of impact so that everyone can use them. We share our knowledge freely and are also open to working with others and collaborating as the change we can create is multiplied and accelerated when in community.

Assume there’s always space to grow

Whilst we’re building our expertise so we can share and support others, we recognise that there will always be new ideas, approaches, thinking that we’ll need to absorb, not least because this space is relatively new and evolving rapidly. We invest in learning as we want to bring the latest and most effective approaches to the businesses we support.

Turn ideas into action

The last 20 years in this space could be seen as proving the business case for businesses doing good. It’s become more widely accepted that becoming a responsible business is both good for the bottom line and essential for the future health and survival of our world. So, as Kate Sandle, Director of Programmes and Engagement at B Corps UK, puts it, looking forward to 2020 and beyond, ‘The conversation is no longer ‘why’, it is ‘how’. Our focus at Impactful is to lay out the how.

There are many ways to have impact

Whilst we firmly believe that every business can and should be having a positive impact through what they do, there isn’t a one size fits all model for how to do it. There are infinite ways to begin and areas to explore and it’s really a matter of understanding where you are now, what your priorities are and what your resource constraints might be. We bring every option to the table and work with you to design a bespoke plan of action based on your business.

Enjoy the journey

We love what we do and we want you to love working with us too. This work is fundamentally about designing a way of working and building businesses that are sustainable in every sense of the word. A huge part of that is creating an informal, relaxed and creative space that people are drawn to and want to participate in, as we believe that is how you create sustained change. We take our wisdom from great activists such as adrienne maree brown, ‘the personal is political, and that pleasure evokes change — perhaps more than shame. More precisely, where shame makes us freeze and try to get really small and invisible, pleasure invites us to move, to open, to grow’ or Saul Alinsky’s rule for radicals, simply; ‘A good tactic is one your people enjoy’.

These are our roots, our foundations that inform all the work we do and hope to do. I’d love to know if they resonate, if anything significant is missing or if you have some ideas for how to work towards our vision. You can find us at impactful.world or drop us a note at hello@impactful.world. We’d love to hear from you!