We couldn’t help getting swept away by the awesome organisations that asked for our help. So with our Double the Goodness grant maxed til September, we’ve paused allocations.

But that doesn’t mean our positive impact stops! Hell no! Not by a long shot. We’ve got 2 other impact initiatives steaming forward. And you’re a vital part!

Time for an impact update

We too have been learning and evolving. How could we not when friends like Timothy O’Brien drop by to share insights into impact?

Tim spoke at our latest impact initiative, our Humming Sessions. Its purpose is to bring in awesome thought leaders to teach us something that gets our teams humming. Your team and our team!

When our team’s are humming, they can really unleash their genius. Genius at work is one of our values!

Our 3 Impact Initiatives

I’ve got ahead of myself! Let’s go meta for a minute (but not the metaverse). Our purpose is to:

Help all brands be good for the world.

All the branding work we do with clients is to meet this intent. We create positive impact through the work we do in transforming brands for good. We need to measure these impact streams:

• The transformation in our client’s team members due to the work
• The impact our clients create as a result of becoming more impact driven

Outside of client work we have 3 impact initiatives that drive towards this purpose too. As a quick intro here they are:

Double the Goodness Grant. To help cash strapped impact organisations create greater impact with better branding.

Humming Sessions. To help our community’s teams get humming and unleashing their genius at work.

GoodNorth. To help accelerate the growth of the good business movement by connecting good people.

In a moment we will go deeper on these so you can see exactly what you are contributing to by being part of our tribe. And how you can get deeper involved.

Our Impact Struggle

Since 2015 we’ve been struggling with the same problems that many do with impact. Especially as a newbie. First it was working out the best way we can create impact given what we do.

Impact relevance is vital. I will explain why in a moment. While we started by sponsoring orphans, a good thing to do, our impact model has evolved over the years.

We now have impact initiatives we love, and make sense for what we do. But we also have a bigger challenge. How do we measure the impact we are helping to create?

The easy way is to put a dollar value on what we’re doing. And we have because it is easy. But it doesn’t help with the storytelling that is essential for it to resonate for you.

What does $62,471.33 of Double the Goodness Grant mean?

While that amount could buy a Tesla model 3, which would be cool, on its own the amount isn’t relatable. But the good things the grant has done are!

Here’s some of the good things that this grant has fueled:

• 4 organisations now have brands that are world class and enable them to compete.
• 3 organisations now have websites that are converting traffic to supporters and funders.
• 4 organisations now have marketing strategies that are driving new revenue/funding
• 32+ people now feel more aligned and energised at work.
• 600+ people have now been able to find and engage with these organisations and get the help they need.

These good things are more tangible. But they are subjective, some are hard to measure, and there are too many. Which would you rave about co-creating?

Our task is to create a simple, overarching, tangible metric that we can track. One that we can share updates with you, as it increases, so you can feel good too. Here’s an idea in my head to illustrate the point. Imagine if it could be something super simple like:

Thanks to you we’re at 632 Lives Unleashed. Up 34 this month!

A life is easy to relate to. We all have one! Unleashed is what we are aiming for, but the word is a bit abstract and I am not sold on it, but you get the point. Open for ideas here if you have one.

If we had a simpler impact initiative that made sense for what we do at Sponge it could be easier. For instance if we were in Edutech and care about gender equality. It could be much simpler to quantify and share:

Thanks to you we’re at 632 Scholarships for Underprivileged Girls. Up 34 this month!

See what I mean? Underprivileged Girls with scholarships are something easy to get behind and share. It’s relevant to Edutech and gender equality. It’s not a meaningless number anymore.

You see the challenge, what is a meaningful metric that spans our impact initiatives? Is it lives unleashed or a variant of this? And how do you measure that?

Whatever we choose has primary indicators to measure it by. And even more importantly, it has to connect to our purpose and values.

This is a work in progress for us which you will hear more about. For now, here is a report on what we do know about our initiatives.

Double the Goodness Grant

This is a Sponge grant funded by profits generated from our regular client projects. It is for cash strapped impact organisations who are struggling with their brand. They are typically NFPs, Social Enterprises, or early stage Profit for Purpose businesses.

Our intent is to tip the playing field in their favour with our pro branding & marketing help. When they look good and market right, they can reach more of the right people, and scale their impact.

Since we started the grant we have committed $62,471.33 to such projects. Our aim is to give $20,000 per year to worthy projects. And this year so far we have given $9,388.01 (and another $5,000 committed). In September we add $5K to the grant and will reopen applications.

We currently have 2 grant recipient projects underway:

Detour House Inc. An NFP providing crisis accommodation and care to women and girls in the heart of Sydney.

A big project! We’re helping with naming, branding, strategy and website. Got confirmation on names this morning, woohoo! Our intent is to help them build their funding network so they can help more women and girls flourish.

You’re welcome to support Detour House Inc further with donations directly.

Ocean Mind. An NFP that provides surf therapy for young people with mental health issues, social isolation and disabilities.

We’re helping with brand and marketing strategy and marketing support. Our intent is to expand their corp partnerships and awareness so they can expand their reach and help more kids.

You’re welcome to support Ocean Mind further with donations directly.

This month we have welcomed our latest grant project:

Scriibed. An early-stage, female founded social impact business. Its purpose is to give vulnerable women safe, secure and flexible employment.

We’re helping with brand strategy and brand identity. Our intent is to help them leverage their social impact to establish a govt and corp client base.

More on this one and how you can get involved in the coming months.

Humming Sessions

They are monthly lunch-and-learn sessions hosted for your team and our team so we all hum better!

We host it on Zoom on the last Thursday of each month (excluding holidays). Our intent is to bring in an amazing guest speaker to teach an important topic and inspire us. Introducing ideas that stimulate conversations that continue over the days and weeks that follow. Ultimately to have a positive and lasting impact on our businesses and the lives of our team members.

It’s free for our Sponge tribe! Guests are welcome to attend by purchasing a ticket at the advertised price.

We donate all funds from ticket sales to our current Double the Goodness NFP grantees. To date we have raised $527.50

We are at an early stage with this initiative with only 2 sessions done so far. With 25 attendees, the numbers are small but growing each time. And our goal is to have 1000s of awesome people attending these each month. That is some serious humming!

This month is B Corp month and we have a special session on navigating the B Corp Certification process.

You’re welcome to attend. Use IAMAWESOME at the checkout for a free ticket!

GoodNorth

Goodnorth is a good business community united by the belief that business can be a force for good. The tribe is a mix of B Corps, Social Enterprises, NFPs, or purposeful people.

The impact intent of Goodnorth is multiple.

• Accelerate the growth of good business >> education
• Help create profound connections between the tribe. >> networking events
• And foster real collaboration to solve the problems we care about. >> facilitated workshops

Our commitment for GoodNorth is 5% of our time to growing the movement. We do that by hosting monthly events, online or in-person (when able!). These events are to invite new people into the world of impact, and inspire all to be good for the world.

All purpose curious and purpose driven people are warmly welcomed at our events. There is one each month this year. Visit the GoodNorth website and join the mailing list to be kept informed as the events are announced. Or checkout our Sponge events calendar here.

Last month’s online Purpose Speed Networking event had 44 attendees, with a mix of regulars and newbies. In April we will host another of these.

Next week’s in person Brisbane event has 61 registrations so far with capacity for 100. We are excited to have the most B Corps gathered in one place at one time in this city.

Thank you for being part of our tribe. Your energy, choosing to support us, and your involvement is what makes all this good work possible.

Where to from here?

We continue to work on these impact initiatives as well as our metric. We will let you know as and when we have something else to share.

Warmly, LF