What are WeHero Social Impact Strategies?

When we speak to companies about launching a social impact strategy, we typically spend most of our time understanding the goals they’re trying to achieve. Whether a company is trying to grow the business, engage employees, support the community or a mixture of all three, we’ve found that a well-designed CSR strategy can play a big role in reaching these goals.Once we align on the goals with the business, the next question is always, “What is our actual strategy going to look like?” This is where we spend the majority of our time as we take the core components of a social impact strategy and customize it based on the company’s business model, interest, and constraints.

So, what are the core components of our social impact strategies?

1. Ensuring alignment between all key stakeholders

A social impact strategy is only going to be successful if all stakeholders are aligned and passionate about the mission. If a company doesn’t know what employees want, the first step needs to be surveys and focus groups. Once there is alignment between the C-Suite and the entry-level worker on the mission of the CSR strategy, then we can get started!

2. Survey What is Currently Being Done

What, if anything, has the company done in the social impact space? What’s been successful and what needs improvement?

3. Set KPIs and Build Purpose

A key factor in the program’s long-term success will be support from the C-Suite and Board members. Because of the investment needed, it’s important to align on the key performance indicators (KPIs) that allow us to measure and adjust our strategy depending on its performance.

4. Build Aligned Strategy

1. Corporate Giving: Does the company have resources to support organizations financially? If so, how can we ensure this delivers the maximum impact for not only the nonprofit but also the business? How do we empower employees to donate or control some of the corporate giving?
2. Volunteering: How are we going to engage our employee base so that they’re a key part in reaching our social impact KPIs? How do we engage the entire team throughout the year with a mixture of time-based volunteering and skills-based volunteering? How should we measure and track this impact?
3. Customers: How can we bring the company’s customer base along for the journey? How can they play a part in making this social impact strategy successful? How do we want new customers to engage with the strategy?
4. Suppliers: We believe it’s a company’s mission to educate and work with their suppliers to ensure they meet each other's goals. While supply time and price are important factors, we think aligning on social impact and sustainability are equally important discussion topics. How can we engage and support suppliers to magnify the impact of a company’s social impact strategy?

5. Execute and Communicate

After all of the planning, it’s time to put the strategy to work and execute! While execution is essential, it’s also important to have a diverse team focused on the communication of this strategy. It should be communicated internally and to both customers and suppliers. To effectively communicate, a company needs to have strong reporting practices to ensure transparency.

6. Adjust and Revise

Each and every strategy needs to be adjusted as we work to align the social impact strategy with each and every KPI we set at the beginning of the strategy design.

While this may seem like a complicated process, we’ve built the ability to complete these custom strategies in months, not years. In fact, it’s our specialty and why companies choose us. We remove the complexity and get your business to impact quickly and efficiently. Ready to get started? Want advice on a current impact strategy? Not sure where to start and just want to learn more? We're here to help!