Social Impact Goal Setting: Applying Best Practices to Achieve Successful Outcomes
“Who cares.” That may be the boldest response I’ve heard to a corporate leader’s inquiry about a competitor’s public-facing social impact goals. The gist of the response was that a competitor’s goals should not heavily influence their own companies’ goal-setting practices. I’ll concede that it’s natural to look and see what competitors and peers are doing. It’s even a good idea to just be aware. But while benchmarking against the competition is common – and done to assess effectiveness compared to others – it may actually hinder one’s ability to effectively set ambitious goals.
Benchmarking against your peers may reinforce practices that are in some ways self-sabotaging. How so? Doing so may prioritize metrics that are the most familiar to you, even if they’re actually the least important to measure. This could be over-weighting quantitative metrics like dollars invested, volunteers engaged, or hours served while devaluing qualitative outcomes that are actually the most meaningful but tend to be harder to measure.
Benchmarking may also limit innovation by reinforcing a culture of conformity. When this happens, one may focus too much on matching or exceeding peers or competitors instead of pursuing innovative approaches that may lead to greater impact. When innovation is stifled, it disincentivizes risk-taking and breeds hesitation to pursue unconventional strategies out of fear that doing so may result in falling short of targets or industry standards.
And benchmarking often assumes companies and organizations operate in virtually identical contexts or face similar challenges. But we all know that achieving social impact outcomes often requires tailored approaches that address very complex and varied situations.
So I suggest that we all take a different approach.
Align enterprise goals with a larger framework or initiative
First, avoid setting goals in a silo and focus instead on taking a holistic approach that considers all the factors.
Start by aligning your strategy with something larger than your enterprise. If your company or brand is local, consider aligning with a city or county-wide initiative. If your brand’s presence is regional, think about aligning to state-wide goals, or if international, find a governmental body or globally focused initiative you can align with.
For example, global companies will sometimes align with the United Nations Sustainable Development goals (SDGs). The SDGs, while broad, have very specific targets and indicators that can be used as effective guideposts when setting your own brand’s targets. Alternatively, you may seek a cross-sector or industry-specific initiative. These types of initiatives may not be tied to a geographic location, but instead be more focused on a larger coalition’s efforts or on your specific type of operations.
Aligning with a larger framework or initiative is an important first step because it incentivizes collaborative efforts that often yield higher chances of achieving better outcomes. It also helps enhance motivation, cross-functional engagement, and creates a greater sense of purpose and belonging for employees who can more easily see how their work fits into the larger context.
Set goals that are supportive of your internal and external stakeholders.
With a framework or initiative in mind, identify strategic partners that you can effectively support. Then work with these partners to align on goals that advance their long-term objectives and allow you to engage in transparent conversations about what they want to achieve and how you can plug in to help them get there. As you are co-creating these goals, be sure you have a process in place to avoid double counting each partner's contributions or achievements. Think about applying an “attribution model” to prevent duplication in reporting.
Then add other measurements of success and failure. Because social impact activities have a positive effect on other things like brand reputation and employee sentiment, consider including these measurements even if just as internal goals. Engage your employees and leadership as volunteers. By engaging your internal stakeholders, you can determine their priorities and develop a strategy that also addresses their needs. This may result in adding goals that are tied to brand reputation and employee wellness.
Just be sure that you identify and align your goals collaboratively, whether you plan on these goals being internal or public-facing. Once you have an idea of your partners’ objectives, think about how your social impact program can be positioned to be supportive.
Finally, craft SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound) goals and develop a theory of change, outlining how your activities and resources will lead to the desired outcomes. This will help your team identify the most effective actions and tactics necessary to achieve the goals.
Go beyond inputs and outputs.
Quantitative metrics are fine, but they only tell a part of the story. Measure inputs (dollars donated) and outputs (hours served and people reached) because they help you understand efficiency in the process, but don’t stop there. (And by golly don’t allow those to be your end goal.)
Think about it like this: If you are only measuring the number of hours your employees are engaged in as volunteers, that’s simply a measurement of the time someone spent doing something. If only measuring the dollar amount donated or invested in a nonprofit, that’s simply measuring the monetary resources spent. What both fail to communicate is the actual impact of that investment - the positive social or environmental change that comes as a result of those inputs and outputs.
Work with your partners to measure the immediate and long-term change that may be qualitative in nature. These are harder to measure and will require a data-collection plan, but having qualitative goals is key to measuring change over time.
Identify and align on a rallying cry.
Once you’ve determined all the priorities, identified metrics (indicators and targets), how you’ll measure progress, and the overarching objectives you want to achieve, be sure to tether them to a rallying cry or call-to-action (CTA).
A rallying cry is an essential part of goal setting because it acts as a powerful statement or slogan that encapsulates the goals. It infuses company purpose, mission, and values and inspires and motivates people to act towards the goals that were set.
Without a clear and compelling rallying cry, you could lose momentum and fail to achieve your goals altogether. So, be sure it’s connected with a concise, memorable, and impactful statement that aligns with those goals. The rallying cry should be simple enough to communicate easily, yet powerful enough to inspire action. This is what would be used and integrated into all communication and marketing efforts related to the social impact goal, helping to build awareness and engage stakeholders in the cause.
Conclusion
Setting goals tailored to your own organization - and doing so correctly right from the beginning - will result in the greatest measurable positive change for your social impact programs. While looking to others can help you compare yourself to your peers, you’re better served building out your own programs in a way that you can measure your success against yourself. That way you will focus on making the biggest impact today, and an even bigger impact tomorrow.
Need help? Reach out to Uplift today and let’s discuss the possibilities.
The Uplift Agency
Uplift builds strategies, programs, and communication campaigns that advance ESG in workplaces, supply chains and communities.
We know how to navigate the road ahead because we’ve already been down it – 90 percent of our team has led environmental or social programs in corporations or nonprofits. Because ESG is all we do, our services are more comprehensive and integrated than most firms.
