(based on the materials of Social Impact: Planning for Success course by Philanthropy University)
Doing business is a public affair. Each of your actions on the road to profit and financial success provides a certain type of societal influence. Namely, there are both positive and negative impacts.
In accordance with the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation statistics, about $ 500 billion is spent annually through international financial institutions to regulate social and environmental impacts in the world.
The Philanthropy University instructor, Shashi Buluswar, who is the co-founder and CEO of the Institute for Transformative Technologies and teaches in the Center for Social Sector Leadership at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkley, thinks on two general indicators of impact:
The project audience (number of beneficiaries).
Impact scaling efficiency (cost to attract additional audience).
Shashi Buluswar invited Natalie Bridgeman Fields, the Executive Director of Accountability Counsel, to discuss the impact issues within the Philanthropy University's Social Impact: Planning for Success course.
Accountability Counsel amplifies the voices of communities around the world to protect their human rights and environment.
A number of conclusions, based on the conversation of practitioners:
Modern business does not exist without "impact";
Negative "impacts" (environmental pollution, violations of the rights of the local population) can play a fatal role for the future of your business;
Positive "impacts" (protection of the local population rights, environmental and social initiatives) are able to assist you in following aspects:
to gain recognition in society;
increase the number of beneficiaries (scale up the project);
obtain additional funding from international organizations to achieve social goals.
Would you like to expand or narrow your "impacts"? This depends on you.
Stay confidence in your dreams, balanced in your actions and sustainable in life!