With the recent increased focus on social impact, companies everywhere have been looking for ways to make a positive difference in the world and their communities.
In the past, businesses could get by if they had a great product or service. But today’s consumers want more—they want to spend their money on brands with a purpose.
In this article, we’ll explore the basics of social purpose, why social impact initiatives are on the rise, and why your business needs it to succeed.
Do Customers Care About Social Impact?
Companies rarely pour time and money into things that don’t benefit them, so let’s get the big one out of the way first—do customers care about socially-conscious businesses?
According to a 2022 article from Harvard Business School, the answer is a resounding yes!
In fact, 77% of consumers are motivated to purchase from companies committed to making the world a better place.
Social Impact, Social Purpose, and Social Responsibility: What’s the Difference?
Let’s start by examining the differences between social impact, social purpose, and corporate social responsibility. These three topics might sound similar, but it’s important to differentiate between them if you’d like the most benefits.
Social Purpose: Why Does the Company Exist?
Social purpose plays a significant role in consumer decisions, and businesses must act accordingly. But what is it?
Social purpose is rooted deep within the company. It’s not a vision, mission statement, legal responsibility, or even a goal. It’s tied directly to the core of the company and is essential to the business model and company culture.
In other words, it’s the “why” behind what a company does. It is:
- Woven into a company’s core mission and identity
- A guiding force behind big decisions
- Often expressed as a commitment to help solve specific social issues
- A long-term mission
- Intrinsically tied to a business
- Just as important as profit
Businesses and brands with a social purpose work and advocate for causes they believe in. Social purposes are more than just mission statements; they’re a core piece of your corporate culture and way of life.
It’s the act of being closely aligned with, and striving towards, social, political, or environmental causes like:
- Diversity
- Environmental conservation
- Justice reform
- Education
Social Impact: What Outcomes Does the Company Create?
Companies can measure their social purpose in terms of social impact. In other words, social impact topics refer to the measurable effects a company’s activities have on communities, people, and the world.
Social impact is:
- Often a result of dedicated programs and core business operations
- Usually measured via specific metrics and performance indicators
- A tangible result of a company’s actions
- Either positive or negative, intended or unintended
Social Responsibility: How Does the Company Behave Responsibly?
There’s a difference between social impact and brand missions, also known as corporate social responsibility (CSR).
CSR describes a company’s initiatives to assess and take responsibility for its impacts on social and environmental well-being. It has a more short-term, profit-driven, and goal-oriented focus than social purpose. It is:
- Often oriented toward volunteering, philanthropy, and environmental causes
- Traditionally viewed as separate from the core of a business’s operations
- Focused on being a “good corporate citizen”
- Often structured as a specific set of programs or a focused department
You can incorporate social responsibility and corporate responsibility through charitable team building events, serving as a great opportunity to rally your team around a good cause.
Do You Need to Focus on Social Purpose, Impact, and Responsibility?
When it comes to social impact, social responsibility, and social purpose, corporations can easily get lost in the sauce.
Maybe your company has committed to acts of social responsibility for years. Perhaps you’ve transitioned to hybrid or remote operations, reducing your carbon footprint.
Isn’t that enough? In today’s world, most brands with purpose will take it a step further to really reap the benefits.
- Social purpose: Strategic clarity, employee engagement, customer loyalty, long-term planning, and stakeholder trust
- Social impact: Measurable results, accountability, continuous improvement, partnership opportunities, and stakeholder communication
- Social responsibility: Community relations, reputation enhancement, regulatory goodwill, leadership development, and tax benefits
Bottom line: focusing on all three pillars brings the greatest benefits.
In this article, we’re focusing on social purpose and impact.
It’s not just about benefiting your stakeholders or checking off a philanthropic to-do list. Instead, we’re talking about what you stand for and how you plan to improve the world around you.
Why You Need to Focus on Social Purpose and Social Impact
Companies can gain numerous benefits by focusing on both social purpose and social impact beyond the obvious moral and ethical reasons.
After all, brands with a purpose always seem to come out on top.
Let’s take a closer look at the full spectrum of benefits that a well-defined social purpose and emphasis on social impact can have for everyone involved—and for the greater good, too, of course!
Reputation and Trust
Continually standing by your word and having a positive social impact helps build trust with your customers and consumers.
For example, companies like Patagonia have earned the trust and support of their customers by being staunch environmental advocates for many years.
This sort of trust encourages customers to support your business directly, as well as the causes the business supports.
In turn, this helps your company develop a reputation. Even if people don’t buy Patagonia clothes, they probably know about Patagonia’s activism.
Having a reputation as a company that’s a net-positive helps with brand recognition, trust, sales, and more.
Employee Involvement
Social purpose is a great way to keep employees more motivated, passionate, and involved with the company.
Building a team around a common cause, such as giving back to local schools, promoting diversity and inclusion, or empathy training, can help keep your team focused and united around your goals.
It can also help you attract top talent because more people will want to work for a company that aligns with their worldview.
Community Impact
Another benefit of social purpose that many businesses overlook is community impact. Businesses play a vital role in our communities, often assuming a leadership position.
When focusing on goals such as healthcare access or environmental conservation, businesses can have a direct, positive impact on the lives of people in the communities they serve.
Whether that be through volunteering, donations, internal initiatives, or fundraisers, businesses should always make an effort to better their communities.
In addition to being a morally good thing to do, it can also drive sales from customers who want to support companies that give back to their community.
Financial Benefits
By this point, a social purpose can yield significant financial benefits. While many may view it as something that lowers profits in favor of social causes, that is not necessarily the case.
Having a clear social purpose that your company has consistently stood by can attract more customers and boost your bottom line.
Remember, modern consumers place an emphasis on a company’s social beliefs, goals, and policies, driving more sales towards companies that care about the world.
Younger consumers, in particular, are more likely to purchase from brands and companies that support causes they’re passionate about. However, the financial benefits can go beyond sales.
Beyond Sales
The financial benefits don’t stop there. A social purpose can drive companies to innovate within their industry, leading to even higher profits.
For example, beer manufacturer SABMiller focuses on sustainable water usage. Although there is the obvious environmental goal of ensuring clean water for generations to come, it also benefits their manufacturing process.
By reducing their own water usage, they’re advancing their sustainability goals and lowering their production costs at the same time.
How To Incorporate Social Purpose and Impact into Your Company
When looking to embrace social purpose and social impact, companies may quickly discover that they don’t currently put much focus on social issues. That’s okay!
It’s still possible for you to take initiative and make it an integral part of your company.
1. Analyze Your Company
Your social purpose should be something directly tied to the nature of your business.
For example, if you’re a car manufacturer, your social purpose might be related to renewable energy sources. If you’re a clothing company, it might be tied to sustainable materials.
Likewise, your social impact goals should be linked to your social purpose.
Take time to consider your company to determine which social cause(s) would fit your brand.
Consider using the following questions to gauge what they feel would best define your social purpose:
- What does our company stand for?
- How can our mission help our local community and beyond?
- Which social causes are you all passionate about on the local, national, or global level?
- How do you feel our company could give back to society in a meaningful way?
2. Act On Your Social Purpose
Once you’ve identified your purpose and the impact you want to have, it’s time to act. You need to make your social purpose a fundamental part of your company and begin working toward your impact goals.
This might mean changing suppliers, making policy changes, donating a percentage of profits, working with grassroots activists, etc.
The key is that you’re backing up the statements and promises you make. Be consistent with your actions and support, and don’t give up on your social purpose and impact goals.
3. Ensure Your Social Purpose Is Fully Integrated
Another essential aspect of incorporating social purpose is to make sure it’s implemented at all levels of the company, from the bottom to the top.
It’s easy for executives to make statements and donate money, but it’s harder to get your entire organization on board and galvanized around the cause.
Team building activities, such as a charity bike build, can be a great way to instill your social purpose in your employees.
Remote Social Purpose Initiatives
Does your team live in multiple locations? No problem! You’re already cutting your company’s carbon footprint through your remote work.
If you want to take it a step further by incorporating environmental efforts into your social purpose, consider Impact Online as an ideal platform for your remote team to make a difference.
4. Set Clear Short-Term and Long-Term Goals
Once you identify the causes and initiatives that will best help your company fulfill its social purpose and impact goals, it’s time to make short-term and long-term plans.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits of setting goals and making plans as you work together for the greater good. By setting goals for social impact, companies can:
- Be a source of motivation that can also influence your team’s work performance
- Serve as a reminder that your team is working together to achieve a particular outcome, even if they can’t yet see the impact of their efforts
- Keep everyone focused on the purpose of these initiatives and the potential impact you all could make
- Reinforce the sentiment that there is nothing your team can’t achieve when you work together
Incorporate Professional Development Into Your Social Purpose Goals
Your employees only work a set number of hours each day. The rest of the time, they’re active or participating members of their local community.
Their involvement in the company’s social purpose endeavors will, no doubt, influence many of their soft skills, such as empathy, team communication, leadership abilities, problem-solving, professionalism, and more.
Consider initiatives that benefit the community while serving as professional development opportunities for your employees.
For example, the Do Good Bus or Tools for Schools events will allow them to collaborate as a team and practice professionalism and effective communication as they work with worthy causes in their community.
Brands with a Social Purpose
Here are some examples of brands with a social purpose. These brands all have clear, purpose-driven social commitments that are directly linked to their identity as a business.
Take note of how these brands have integrated their social purpose with everything they do.
Ben & Jerry’s
One of the most iconic brands with a social purpose is the beloved Ben & Jerry’s. They make great ice cream, and they were founded with the intent of furthering a variety of social causes.
A brief look at their website reveals a long list of issues that the company is directly involved in. They support:
- Voting rights
- Campaign finance reform
- Racial justice
- Climate reform
- LGBTQIA+ rights
But how does all that actually come into play in terms of operations?
Ben & Jerry’s actions as a company can be traced directly to their social beliefs. For example, the company is a proud advocate for diversity and racial justice reform. But instead of just vocalizing their beliefs, they follow through with action.
On top of supporting minority employees on all levels of their business, they have a values-based approach to sourcing products.
They have committed to increasing the number of black-owned and black-led suppliers they use every year.
They also support independent farmers, focusing on the welfare of farmers, their local community, the welfare of animals, and the environmental impact of agriculture.
Ben & Jerry’s beliefs inform and influence every part of what they do as a company, making them a great example of what social purpose really looks like.
Patagonia
Another well-known example of a brand with a social purpose is Patagonia. It made headlines in 2022 when the owner transferred the company to a trust and nonprofit that will use its profits to combat climate change and preserve undeveloped land.
There are few companies with a social purpose clearer than Patagonia.
Patagonia’s social purpose can be seen in every aspect of its business. In terms of materials, they only use organic cotton, only use responsibly sourced down, and 89% of their fabrics are made with their preferred, environmentally friendly materials.
They “tax” themselves an extra 1% for the preservation and restoration of the environment, as well as encouraging other businesses to do the same.
You could spend hours going over all of the ways Patagonia’s business practices stay true to their social beliefs, but the thing to note here is how closely related their social purpose is to who they are as a business.
Patagonia sells outdoor gear for hikers, rock climbers, backpackers, and more—people who spend a lot of time in nature and are likely to be passionate about conserving it.
Environmentalism goes hand in hand with the outdoor products Patagonia sells and its customers, making their corporate social purpose a perfect fit.
TeamBonding
At TeamBonding, we seek to give back with each client interaction, seamlessly integrating social purpose and impact goals into our business model. This mission started with a single question:
What if bettering your team bettered the world?
We’ve demonstrated time and time again how organizational development and social good can work in tandem. Our approach is embedded into our everyday business operations.
As a dedicated B1G1—Buy One Give One—partner, we make charitable contributions to a trusted nonprofit every time you:
- Subscribe to our newsletter
- Download an eBook
- Submit an event inquiry
In an episode of our Team Building Saves the World Podcast, we spoke with Masami Sato, founder and CEO of B1G1. As you might expect, she had some powerful insights to share on the topic:
“Small businesses have great power. We talk about the ‘Power of Small’ because small things—microgiving—can create a bigger impact than we realize,” said Masami.
Giving is embedded in every aspect of our business. Our current giving efforts are focused on:
- Hunger relief
- Health equity
- Education access
- Water security
- Housing assistance
- Sustainability
“I believe every business starts with a sense of purpose. The owners care deeply about something—education, wellbeing, food, the future. B1G1 helps make that purpose tangible through everyday giving,” added Masami.
We also offer dozens of charitable team building programs designed to spur creativity, excitement, and fun while your team contributes meaningfully to various causes. Here are some of our favorites:
- Clean Water Connection
- The Prosthetic Hand Project
- Team Teddy Rescue Bear
- Just Roll With It—Charitable Skateboard Build
- Mission ImPAWssible: Dog Wheelchair Build
With so many programs focusing on social purpose and social impact, companies can turn to us to make it easier to make a difference.
Ready To Get Started With Social Purpose and Social Impact?
Companies in today’s competitive environment can’t afford to ignore social purpose and social impact. They’re essential to succeeding in the modern world.
Customers want to support businesses that make a social impact, and having a strong social purpose offers numerous benefits for your business.
From customer trust and improved reputation to motivated employees and increased sales, it’s a great way to better your business.
Aside from the direct business benefits, having a social purpose is also just good for the world! We’re all here together, and we should all be working towards a better future.
It’s a way that you can join the effort alongside your business, helping make a difference in the world.
If you’re unsure of where to start, don’t worry. Our charitable and CSR events are a great way to get started on working towards a social purpose while team building at the same time.
Get in touch with us to schedule team bonding events that can help you identify, work towards, and take action on your social purpose as a business.
