In designing mutually beneficial partnerships, Reach for Change strives to identify and leverage each partner’s specific super powers — their unique assets in terms of expertise, platforms, brand or technology. One key asset is the expertise and commitment of our corporate partners’ co-workers.
Numerous reports, including Understanding Social Impact that Ipsos developed for us in 2018, show that employees highly value opportunities to engage in social issues as part of their job. Through tailored staff engagement programs, we help our partners offer meaningful opportunities to their co-workers, while accelerating the impact of our programs.
In 2018, Reach for Change has had a specific strategic focus on helping our social entrepreneurs strengthen their financial sustainability. To match this need, we have piloted tailored co-worker engagement programs with our corporate partners Kinnevik, Nordic Entertainment Group (NENT) and QVARTZ Consulting.
Relevance is key. When asking co-workers to engage outside of their normal tasks, it is critical that their efforts are relevant and make a tangible difference. The key is to identify relevant and clearly articulated needs that match the individual co-worker’s competencies and passion. It is amazing to see how co-workers’ core skills can have a big impact on improving children’s lives.
Be clear on expectations. A key success factor in designing successful co-worker engagement programs is clear expectations of time allocation and deliverables. We encourage partners to clearly articulate when and how much co-workers can engage during work hours and ideally to integrate this work with regular reporting and personal development plans.
Remember it’s about people. Our strongest success stories are all about strong personal relationships. The key is careful matching between co-workers and Change Leaders and prioritizing time for interpersonal connection, reflection and celebration of their extraordinary efforts.
NENT: Reach for Change offered an Advisor Program for NENT Controllers to work hands-on with a selected social entrepreneur to capacity build through financial controlling, including budgeting and developing financial routines. Controllers are matched with a social entrepreneur based on the social entrepreneur’s needs and the Controllers’ interest and passion. The Controllers meet with their social entrepreneur for a minimum of three times over the year-long Advisor Program to have hands-on sessions for three hours.
Together with Kinnevik, Reach for Change developed a global Advisor Program, where Kinnevik advisors provide advice, tools and capacity-building support to selected social entrepreneurs. The advisor expertise includes skills within finance, HR, investing and leadership. Reach for Change provides the advisor/social entrepreneur teams with a framework for their collaboration to facilitate a successful partnership.
QVARTZ consultants have provided team hands-on support to social entrepreneurs within areas including value proposition, business modeling and packaging — three components that are key to developing financial sustainability. Through group kick offs, digital workbooks and ongoing evaluations, Reach for Change has provided the advisor/social entrepreneur teams with tools and resources to ensure successful collaboration. Mid-year surveys with the participants (social entrepreneurs and advisors) showed that all 100% felt that being a part of the program had been valuable to them as individuals and/or professionals.
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