Social Impact Manager Erika Finlay on Leading Social Change
Welcome. This is a multi-part series where we share insights, inspirations, and lessons from the humans behind the brand — Unbounce. If you’ve ever wanted to know how a campaign was pulled off or the methodology behind personal wellness days, who better to speak about tech company mysteries than Unbouncers themselves.
There’s always something magical about the beginning of spring. For many people, it’s a time to come out of hibernation and get back into the swing of things. The snow is melting, the days are getting longer and warmer, and the birds are singing. It’s a great time to get outside and enjoy nature. You can go for walks, hikes, bike rides, or simply sit in your backyard and read a good book.
As a community-minded technology leader, Erika delivers insights drawn from 15+ years’ experience at both high-growth technology startups and scaling non-profits organizations.
Head of Social Impact for Unbounce, she leads Unbounce’s company’s environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) and sustainability efforts. Serving in both HR and Marketing functions over the past six years, she has helped Unbounce grow from a small local start-up to a global organization with over 250+ employees.
Erika supports the company’s growth by collaborating with customers, nonprofits, government, and community leaders to advance DEI. She is fueled by a passion for ecosystem building, breakfast burritos, and lots and lots of coffee, which helps keep up with two busy young kids.
The social impact function within businesses has traditionally been called Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Historically, the role of CSR was in reaction to social issues/causes, or as a way for a business or entire industry to mitigate the effects that their business had on people or the planet. The social impact function has now evolved from being a reactor/mitigator of social issues/causes into Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA), where companies now commit to using their audience (customers, employees, and partners), social media platforms, and business strategy to support a cause — whether social, political, or environmental.
We sat down with Erika to explore her role and insights on this increasingly important business function and her leading work here at Unbounce.
1. What does it mean to be a Social Impact Manager in 2022?
Leading social impact in 2022 at an organization means leveraging the opportunities and understanding the limitations that your business has to solve social issues. Opportunities include the ability to apply innovative products (especially in our industry of tech), support through funding, and skilled volunteering. On the flip-side, social impact is a function within the business, not the business itself. At Unbounce, our approach is to work together with nonprofits and ventures in the communities we want to impact change in, using their data, programs, and deep expertise in serving their communities.
A great example at Unbounce is our track record of successful partnerships with incredible nonprofits that serve refugees, such as PeaceGeeks, Miles4Migrants, Immigrant Service Society of BC, and Canada Learning Code. They do the important work of connecting newcomers to the community, and we have come alongside them to support what we can offer. For the past three years, Unbouncers have participated in the PeaceGeeks #GiveItUp for Peace campaign that makes connections with newcomers and tech employees. We’ve donated 93,000 Air Miles points to Miles4Migrants and donated over 500 hours of volunteer time to Canada Learning Code, and hosted 100+ of their digital skills workshops in our space from 2016 to 2020.
Most recently our team from the Berlin office responded to seeing millions of Ukrainian citizens fleeing their homeland west via Germany by taking their paid volunteer time off to gather and distribute relief supplies, and the rest of our distributed team of Unbouncers from across the globe have raised $3000 for the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, and Save The Children.
While the Ukrainian conflict is on our doorstep in Berlin, we know that there are 20+ other countries across the world currently caught in conflicts that have not received the same level of support internationally. Therefore, Unbounce has committed to giving 1% of our product and services away to support ALL global nonprofits and charity organizations that are dedicated to advancing peace across the world. As part of #Product4Peace, a social impact initiative we’ve launched, we’re rallying like-minded organizations to join us and offer free tools, a discount, or product donations for peace.
Supporting newcomers and refugees to Canada and Germany is more than proximity. It is an intentional part of Unbounce’s overall social impact strategy of advancing DEI in our tech industry, marketplace, and communities. It starts with our own company because newcomers are core to who we are, with 37% of those participating in our self-identifying DEI factors sharing that they identify as newcomers and 4% as refugees.
2. How would a Social Impact Manager determine which social causes or issues to advocate for?
This is an exciting time for this function, and we’re seeing roles for social impact being created for all scales and types of companies, from large enterprises to small- and medium-sized businesses. These roles are often created to serve an issue or cause already determined by leadership or board of directors at a company — in this case, it’s up to the individual to decide whether or not this is a cause that lights you up.
However, if you are an organization that is creating this role, or individually you are building this type of position from the ground up in an organization — such as how I’ve done at Unbounce — I’d start with a quote from legend Dolly Parton:
“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”
Start with finding the answers to a couple of questions:
- What kinds of products or services does your company have to offer?
- Have customers, community members, or nonprofits reached out to your company and asked for support or donation related to your business?
- What causes and issues does your team think you should care about (survey them)? Do they align with the causes that you believe your organization should advocate for?
- Which causes and issues matter to your industry and customer and appear in your marketplaces?
- What type of budget is needed to achieve the impact you are looking for?
- Who are your champions within the organization, and what do they think the organization should advocate for?
Once you have these data points, you can develop a strategy and recommendations. Keep in mind to continuously check in with stakeholders to gather feedback.
I want to give a special shout-out to the Founders of Unbounce, Rick Perrault, Carter Gilchrist, Carl Schmidt, and Oli Gardner for caring about social impact from Day One and always investing in it. Also, to Leslie Collin, who championed the work, and Annika Reinhardt from the Talent Collective, who helped me communicate the importance of social impact at Unbounce in the early days. I’d also like to thank my social impact co-conspirators through BC Tech Social Impact, Brands for Better, and the Frontier Collective for all the work we’ve done together — we’ve built a pretty special cohort of companies that care. I’m looking forward to continuing that work and collaborating with new like-minded companies this year.
3. Why is Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA) important at Unbounce and in business today?
CSA is important because employees want to work for leaders and organizations that use their power to make a difference. At Unbounce, CSA is both internal and external because our work is centered around advancing DEI in our company, industry, marketplace, and communities. The product we create can be used to advocate for a myriad of causes and issues: Whether you are a World Wildlife Foundation using our landing pages for climate change awareness, or you are the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs using our popups and sticky bars to grow your email lists.
4. What are some current and past examples of Corporate Social Advocacy (CSA) you have led at Unbounce?
I’ve led our work advocating for marginalized groups in technology, marketing, and the SMB community. This include:
- Leading efforts to celebrate and support the 2SLGBTQIA+ community through PRIDE sponsorship and internal campaigns asking our employees what PRIDE means to them. We worked with TransFocus and, as part of our social impact booth at our CTAConf in 2019, we offered pronoun stickers to our attendees to create a more inclusive conference.
- Advancing representation and technical skills in tech for women, newcomers, and BIPOC communities through partnerships with nonprofits such as ShineBootcamp, PeaceGeeks, Canada Learning Code, and Forum for Women Entrepreneurs.
- Leading over 10,000 hours of volunteer time to nonprofit organizations through skilled volunteering, hosting career fairs, offering up our events space, and offering specialized support as part of free access to our product through our Pledge 1% program. Over this time, we’ve also given $150,000 to our charity partners and rallied by co-leading TechPong, a charity ping pong fundraiser that raised $250,000 for Vancouver-based charities.
5. In the fall of 2020, Unbounce rallied industry peers to take action on closing the pay gap. When it comes to prioritizing pay parity, do you think it is a “nice to have” or a “must-have” for teams, businesses, and communities?
Prioritizing pay parity is about future-proofing your business. It is a proven way to engage employees, build trust with those incredible humans that work in your organization, and show them that they and their work are taken seriously. Prioritizing equal pay is about recognizing the impact pay biases have on them (for women, it’s missing out on 1 million dollars on average over her 40-year career).
The cause of equal pay matters deeply to me because I grew up in Northern and Central Alberta (basically the Texas of Canada), and I saw firsthand the societal impact of unequal pay. As a teenager, I understood that both adjusted and unadjusted pay gaps meant that those who identify as women had less security, less freedom, and fewer choices when paid less. Unfortunately, this gender-based pay bias is not unique to Alberta. It’s something women all over the world face.
We know this matters to companies across North America because we’ve had 80 of them taking the Pay Up for Progress Pledge, and we’re calling for more to join us.
The Pay Up for Progress pledge empowers employees, leaders, and executives to take action and make an official commitment to prioritize equal pay like any other business objective. It’s not only the right thing to do. It makes good business sense.
6. What’s the hardest part of a Social Impact Manager job today? And what nugget would you share with future Social Impact Managers?
You can lead serious social change without taking yourself and the work too seriously.
Fun is a big deal for me. It lights me up. As Leonard Cohen wrote in his song Anthem, “Ring the bells you still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, it’s how the light gets in.” Before working in tech, I worked at Vancouver’s science museum, running programs and curating exhibitions — my favorite way to communicate it through edutainment.
Hot dog costumes, silly heart-shaped or tree light glasses marking holidays over Zoom (yes, even in meetings with execs), and Slack channel pun-offs are key to helping me keep joy, perspective, and how I bring the light.
7. Finish this sentence. If I weren’t a Social Impact Manager, I would be…
An Outdoor Education teacher.
Shout-out to a handful of teachers who supported me and taught me to focus on my strengths and passions early in my education journey. Having struggled first-hand with learning differences throughout my education journey (up to and through an MA), my middle-school outdoor education was formative in who I am today, introducing me to the wonders of having an adventurous life.
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