Social impact may be
confused with concepts such as Philanthropy or Corporate Social Responsibility;
however, it's not identical. Social impact in business isn't about our
responsibilities and "giving back,"
It's about
taking action to bring about positive change. What impact are we making in our
daily lives? What's our motivation and goal?
This does not mean
that we have to write checks or build a home, or achieve a sustainable mark
(though they are all wonderful targets).
It's about using
our strengths to impact stakeholders like our clients, our communities, and our
employees.
The tough part is
making it worthwhile and last (i.e., self-sufficient). How do you put your
valuable time and skills into something more than a single project? We've faced
this issue as a company as well. However, real change requires effort. Four
issues must be overcome if you wish your impact to be felt, really felt.
Social impact
challenges for companies
Leveraging the core
skills
What is your company's
distinctive strength? What are your team's most powerful capabilities? We want
to discover and apply on the ground. Captain Planet wouldn't go around trying
to write an app, and similarly, a software company may not be the best suited
to combat climate change.
If we can leverage our
strengths to help improve the world, our work is more genuine, passionate, and,
most likely, more efficient.
Working through the
workflow
We've had the
privilege of participating in some fantastic events that had a great turnout of
employees, which had a significant impact on the companies we've worked
for.
They were gratifying
experiences. However, the impact is only for a short time because they're not
in the normal routine of everyday life. What if we could figure out an approach
to integrate the social impact initiatives into our everyday routine? This is
the only way to maintain momentum within the organization, make an impact over
time and ensure that the spirit that drives our social initiatives becomes an
integral part of the company's D.N.A.
The development of a
sustainable model
Like people,
businesses have a limited amount of energy and resources available. If an
initiative is an expense for a company's employees or its finances, the project
will eventually fail and fall apart.
The trick is to
determine how to reuse those resources by creating an exchange of information
between the people you're helping and the business.
A good example is to
create a market that is both involved and supportive of the particular cause or
community.
Find the synergy
When tackling the
issue of scarce resources, we must think about how something beneficial to the
community must also be beneficial to the business.
This is not because we
wish to earn money from our efforts. However, we're trying to maintain
momentum, increase participation across the entire organization, and, of
course, it is important to grow our finances to achieve more.
This is similar
to how one's progress could benefit the entire company, and the company's
expansion opens up more opportunities for that person to advance. We want to
replicate this model when we work on impact. Growth is a possibility and must
be mutually beneficial.
Our ever-evolving
approach to impact society
Social impact isn't
about scratching the surface of a problem. It's about leaving a mark that
lasts. In the end, it's acceptable to gain as an enterprise because it's the
reason it's viable.
The most successful
examples are from companies that have developed themselves "social impact
ecosystems." I witnessed this while visiting a hotel that was a boutique
in Morocco in the last month. Virgin's Richard Branson ran it.
Branson's
strategy for sustaining change was to create an environment that allowed social
impact to grow with the company itself.
The hotel provides
employment and life-long skills training (the staff is mostly local) and offers
no-cost English classes, and also brings an actual flow of cash into the nearby
Berber community.
By partnering
with the Eve Branson Foundation, it is also a partner in initiatives such as
Pack for a Purpose that encourage guests to provide school supplies to children
in the area. They've also organized successful workshops that have trained
women entrepreneurs and established sustainable businesses within the
community, including an art workshop for carpets and a crafting house.
The hotel also
functions as a marketplace for the wares of local business owners and
entrepreneurs.
Criteria for
generating changes
There aren't many
companies with the resources required to start an initiative of this magnitude.
However, we can draw inspiration from Branson's model.
It starts by working
with local communities by identifying their needs and then working on which of
your skills could be used to benefit the community (in Branson's instance,
social impact is built on hospitality as well as Branson's Virgin brand) and
then putting together plans to sustain an appropriate level of momentum.
So, when it comes to
Headspring's social-impact initiatives, we've identified some key guidelines:
- Creates positive change in the
communities we work in
- This is the basis of the person
we are
- Integrates into daily routines
(i.e., does not draw internal resources)
- Self-sustaining provides mutual
benefit to all people we serve and the business.
However, this doesn't
mean that single partnership or one-off projects should be resisted. We, for
instance, participated in a very exciting, day-long event known as GiveCamp, in
which developers collaborate with non-profit organizations to tackle urgent
I.T. problems (see our Director Deran Schilling's piece on how partnerships
with non-profit organizations can be a huge impact).
We've also been
involved in projects that included filling backpacks, building bikes, or
building houses to help causes that our employees are enthusiastic about.
However, these
initiatives require a significant amount of effort from outside and are not
within our realm in terms of skills and capabilities. They're not something
that we can control or replicate.
Therefore, how
can we tie impacts directly to business?
What is Headspring
doing to make an impact?
We've been trying to
discover our path and have made important progress about programs that meet
various levels of these requirements.
Volunteer Activities
We've participated in
and hosted annual Give Camp events where developers devote an entire weekend to
assist non-profits in tackling I.T. problems. In 2012 We held this event in our
Austin headquarters and provided software to nine local non-profit organizations:
Arlington Urban Ministries, A.S.P.I.R.E. (Awarding Students and Promoting
Increased Rigor in Education), Austin Partners in Education, Bluebonnet R.C.D.,
Colorado River Foundation, Dallas Rape Crisis Center, Texas Hill Country
R.C.D., Texas Kidney Foundation, and TexVet.
We've hosted and taken
part in various events at our Austin and Houston locations in the years since.
Most recently aiding a local wellness group known as The dwelling to build a
website that functions as a platform for building communities.
Another local
initiative is Headspring's Got Heart, an employee-led auction online whose
profits are donated to a charity of your choice. NogaTech creates all the
auction items, ranging from hand-painted items to paintings to training for
skills.
In the spring of last
year, we raised more than $2,000 for the non-profit organization GirlStart.
This year, we raised more than that for EasterSeals in memory of one of our
colleagues involved in GirlStart.
We've worked as a
group in soup kitchens and other community outreach programs.
Grow and Give
A program that I am
most proud of is our Grow and Give employee referral program. Headspring will
donate $2,000 to the charity of the employee's choice, which is then matched by
an additional bonus for the individual. Since the program's inception, we've
donated nearly $50,000 to non-profits that range from well-known charities such
as Doctors Without Borders, Paralyzed Veterans of America as well as the
Alzheimer's Association, and more--to revolutionary groups that use
technologies to fund the universal health care (Watsi) as well as advocate for
rights under the First Amendment for comic book writers and readers (Comic
Books Legal Defense Fund) and provide music to children in preschool along with
their family members (Heartsong).
The program connects
personal motivation to social good and transforms the company's success into a
win-win for employees and those who live outside our doors. Perhaps the most
rewarding part of this program is the stories behind employees'
contributions--whether they're rooted in personal experiences with loved ones
or a person's pure passion for a cause.
These stories have
allowed us to connect more deeply and connect and our communities.
Mentorship approach
We're also applying
our core values to impact our work every day. We're passionate about our
employees and are committed to continual development and learning.
This is the
basis of our active mentoring approach, as demonstrated in the Career Start
program.
Through actively
recruiting young talent and establishing clear paths for personal and
professional growth for various future technologists.
New hires undergo an
intense six-week training course designed by our Chief Engineer Patrick Lioi
(check out the Built-in Austin article on his approach to training).
They are trained to be
leaders, and collaborators and their skills are reflected within their teams,
with clients they deal with, and worldwide.
We're looking forward
to taking our mentorship model further by opening opportunities for different
groups within that larger network.
Applications and Open
Source
To make the most of
the things we excel at, Our developers are determined to be a part of the tech
world by sharing their expertise and experiences on the job. Contrary to most
consulting companies, which maintain the "secret sauce" private, we
are committed to using our most effective practices and knowledge in
open-source projects.
This approach was
first implemented a few years ago, when our Chief architect Jimmy Bogard
developed the object mapping library, Automapper. Jimmy realized that if our
team didn't have an excellent object-to-object mapping tool, we would spend a
lot of our time developing boilerplate codes.
We weren't sure
we were creating something that could impact the market, but Jimmy was
insistent on making it open source. He was right. It's since become among the
top popular open-source libraries available--with more than 26 million
downloads and is a member that is part of the .NET Foundation.
Then, a few years
later, we attempted similar things with MediatR, a second library that came
from a client project that has brought in nearly 200 million downloads.
Our principal
consultant, Patrick Lioi, also developed an open-source testing framework known
as Fixie that runs on. N.E.T. Patrick initially started the project as a
personal project; however, it became apparent that the product was useful after
a few months. We assisted Patrick in concentrating on this and turning it into
a full service, and it's now the basis of some of our engagements with clients.
Our focus in all
of our contributions to open source is on developing libraries and tools that
will help our customers and us to deliver high-quality services at a large
scale of their business, and to implement those tested methods and offer them
to the entire community of developers, whether they are working for Headspring
as our customers, or elsewhere.
It might seem like a
lot of work. However, these open-source projects are an appropriate component
of our impact on society plan as they reflect our values and contribute to the
key stakeholder groups.
The flexibility that
we've developed into our work habits and our shared enthusiasm for learning and
development push us to think beyond our current tasks and produce projects that
make a difference to the communities we're a part of.
Thinking leadership
Beyond software
experts, We're a business of thought-leaders, which we utilize to help improve
businesses and the culture. We help clients improve their recruitment,
training, and engagement to build solid and lasting work culture.
It's something
I'm personally passionate about and one that Headspring is founded on. Culture
is the foundation of our identity and what we do. We're helping change
companies, shift minds, and develop the future workforce. Enhancing culture is
fully self-sufficient due to its connection to the chain of profit-making
services.
One of the most
important aspects of this concept is the idea of starting with people, which we
believe will benefit businesses and the world in general. Engaged people make
active clients, which creates engaged teams. Clients' satisfaction pays
dividends to the company, and its growth can be mutually beneficial.
Not only clients that
benefit from our thought-leadership. Headspring's staff members are actively
involved with user groups, participate in conferences, and write excellent
content on technology-related topics (see our website).
All this is to
share our knowledge (and continue to learn) with the larger community.
This is indeed
beneficial for the company in that it helps us increase our presence and our
P.O.V., which is great because this is what makes all the extra effort and time
feasible for our employees.
Then why should we be
striving to have a positive social impact?
How you can make a
difference doesn't have to be as massive as tackling the global hunger issue.
It's all about making your world better, not only for now but also
shortly.
It's a matter of deep
reflection for your company to determine what you are? What do you believe in?
What are your extraordinary abilities and natural talents? What can you do with
these to bring about positive, sustainable change? Some companies have social
responsibility as a part of their business models; however, they will have to
answer these for the majority of companies. The process of determining what you
want to do is valuable.
The pursuit of impact
will lead you to the core of what defines you, define your mission, as well as
unite your employees and create an organization that is ready to face the
world...or at the very least, to make your contribution to it.
For more information on topics related to this, visit our website at NogaTech IT Solutions LLC, or contact us at + (808) 829 6213.
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