September 2021 Social Impact News Roundup: How the Pandemic Is Changing The Future of Business

How the Pandemic Has Changed Us

Catalyst2030 released the findings of The People’s Report, the largest global survey of life before and during the pandemic. Of the 17,000 respondents, 60% reported having personal experiences with climate change, 25% lost someone to COVID-19, and issues like hunger are affecting even the wealthiest countries. To facilitate an open dialogue about global health and where we go from here, THINKMD will also be hosting a series of Virtual Open Mic events, which you can sign up for here. On October the 5th, you can also join a panel discussion hosted by Acumen, Yunus Social Business, and the World Economic Forum COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs on the topic of The Power of Purchasing: Integrating Social Enterprises into Corporate Value Chains (As a sneak peak, it will be highlighting MovingWorlds and many of our S-GRID members). 

Expanding Opportunities in Social Procurement

The Social Enterprise World Forum was last week where the best-practices and trends in social procurement were being shared. Make sure to following #SEWF2021 and check out their site for recaps. In addition, Buy Social USA recently partnered with SAP to search for certified social enterprises to work with for social procurement contracts in the United States. The team is looking for a wide range of virtual and physical goods and services from food and beverage to facilities management and anything that can be delivered virtually to their remote workforce across the country. Check out current buyer searches here, and if you’re not sure if your organization qualifies for social procurement, take the 2-minute quiz here from Society Profits. We featured more stories in one of our most popular blog posts this past month, 7 Social Enterprises Scaling Through Corporate Partnerships.

Incentivizing Better ESG Reporting

Proof of Impact’s latest research focuses on the question: “how can sustainable investors further incentivize their portfolio companies to report robust sustainability data and improve their performance on material ESG and impact metrics?” Proof of Impact’s Chief Impact Officer Evan Vahouny unpacks the results and shares why performance-based investing is the next generation of sustainable investing on Medium.

Understanding and Addressing Gender Inequality

Gender Equality and Women Empowerment is recognised as a critical component of sustainable development, and ensuring that women get fair and equitable pay is critical to the participation and empowerment of women in the economy. We still have a long way to go – recent research from Sattva found that on average, women in India earn 33% less than average monthly wages earned by men. Deloitte’s report, What’s Next for Philanthropy in the 2020s, specifically called out the need to “balance power” as a major issue, and opportunity, in the nonprofit sector. At the grassroots level, Tanzania-based women’s empowerment and anti-harassment organization OVAH shared an update about how its interventions are helping to change the current climate of violence against women and girls. MicroMentor also strives to bridge this gap for young entrepreneurs by providing access to social capital in the form of pro-bono mentorship, and highlights some young female changemakers here.

Social Impact Job Opportunities

• Activate is hiring for a Director of Philanthropic Partnerships (based in San Francisco, CA or Boston, MA)
• Acumen is hiring for multiple positions, including:
  • Senior Associate – Curriculum and Learning Design (based in New York or London)
  • Acumen America Portfolio Associate (based in San Francisco, CA)
  • Acumen Latin America Senior Associate (based in Bogota, Colombia) 
• Catalyst2030 is hiring for multiple positions, including:
  • Director of Operations (remote, with preference for CET working hours)
  • Junior Fundraiser (remote, with preference for CET working hours)
• Emerging World is hiring for a Corporate Volunteering Project Manager (remote)
• Greater Good Studio is hiring for a Director of Operations (temporarily remote, based in Chicago, IL)
• Imperative Purpose is hiring for an Enterprise Account Manager (remote)
• MicroMentor is hiring for a Senior Operations Coordinator (based in Portland, OR)
• Nike is hiring for a Circular Economy Manager (based in Beaverton, OR)
• Open Capital is hiring for a Head of Talent (based in Nairobi, Kenya)
• Proof of Impact is hiring for the following remote positions:
  • Growth Marketing Manager
  • Sales Development Representative
  • Operations Manager
  • Chief Technology Officer
• Resonance is hiring for multiple positions across its Global Operations, Government Services, and Impact Advisory practices. Browse all current openings here.
• Sattva Consulting is hiring for a number of positions across its non-profit, corporate, foundations, and research practice areas. Browse all current openings here.
• Seattle Foundation is hiring for a Community Learning Officer (hybrid out of Seattle, WA)
• Upaya Social Ventures is hiring for multiple positions, including:
  • Marketing & Communications Intern (based in Seattle, WA)
  • Senior Analyst – Finance, Compliance, & Investment (based in Bangalore, India)
  • Associate – Accelerators & Partnerships (based in Bangalore, India)

Featured Experteering Projects

Need to build up your skills and experience more to earn your dream social impact job? Check out these experteering opportunities with our S-GRID network:

• Support Youth Leaders in Liberia with your Mentoring Skills: Rehab Africa is a purpose-driven enterprise that empowers, inspires, and transforms lives through equal access to education. The team is seeking support developing a training program to mentor and assist Liberian changemakers on career development and acceleration of programs.
• Support Women Motorcyclists with your Marketing Skills: FreeW encourages women to go out of their comfort zone to explore their freewill, discover their inner powers and build sisterhood bonds across borders through motorcycling experiences. The team is seeking support to develop a digital marketing strategy to grow its online community of women motorcycle riders and aspiring riders.
• Support Innovative Plastic Recycling with your Connections to Sustainability Leaders: Arqlite is a recycling technology company serving massive industries, developing highly efficient materials made 100% from discarded materials. The team is looking to connect with sustainability leaders at medium to large corporations in hydroponics as it will help Arqlite further align with their ESG goals. 

Upcoming Events & New Programs

• Ongoing: Apply to the MovingWorlds Institute Professional Fellowship to gain the confidence, network, and hands-on experience to advance your for-impact career.
• October 1: Storius is hosting “Through the Eyes of Travellers,” a workshop to promote a deeper understanding of diverse cultures and the importance of storytelling. Register here.
• October 5: Yunus Social Business, Acumen, and the World Economic Forum COVID Response Alliance for Social Entrepreneurs are a practitioner-focused event on social sourcing that will debut insights and data from two first-of-their-kind reports written by Acumen and Yunus Social Business, examining both the corporation’s strategy on social procurement, and the social enterprise’s pathway to becoming corporate-ready. Register for free here.
• October 15: IREX and ANDE are seeking organizational partners to develop and implement entrepreneurial networking activities and programming for young leaders across Latin America, the Caribbean, and Canada for IREX’s YLAI fellowship program. Read the full request for proposals here, and apply by October 15th.
• October 18-20: SOCAP Global, one of the largest and most diverse communities advancing impact investing, social entrepreneurship, and stakeholder capitalism in the world, is hosting its annual conference! Get your ticket here.
• October 26-28: TrustLaw and Thomson Reuters Foundation are hosting a virtual training on Social Enterprise, ESG, and Impact Investing in the United States. Get your ticket here, and if you’re a non-profit, NGO, or social enterprise, you can use code TLSENGO40 for a 40% discount.

Congratulations to….

• S-GRID community members Kilang ReRoot, Lat Mhu Club, Youth Empowerment Academy, Surplus Indonesia, Panyanivej Organic Farm, Bambuhay, Dao Ethical Gifts, Vianco, and Bamboo Builders for being selected to be part of the 20 finalists to participate in the “ASEAN Social Enterprise Development Programme” organized by ASEAN Foundation!
• Storius for being selected as one of 50 finalists to compete in the Social Shifters Global Innovation Challenge 2021!
• KaCyber Technologies for its partnership with Private Sector Foundation Uganda!
• ARED Group for closing its seed round of $1M from EPMT venture that will be used for technology optimization and scaling our business across the African continent.
• IndiVillage Foundation for its partnership with the government of Karnataka to help vaccinate the entire district through its VacciVan initiative!

A Final Bit of Inspiration

“Purpose-driven organizations bound by values are stronger than profit-driven organizations bound by rules.”
Alexander Den Heijer