Social impact work isn't a cost your business carries. Done right, it makes the business stronger, and I've never been more sure of it than this year.
I know how that sounds when budgets are tight and the climate is tense. "Good for business" can read like the line people use to justify spending they already wanted. So let me be specific about where it shows up.
It shows up in retention. People who take part in purpose programs leave at dramatically lower rates, and replacing good people is one of the biggest costs there is. It shows up in your brand, where customers increasingly choose and stay loyal to companies whose values they trust. Your next great hire is watching too, forming an opinion long before the first interview. And there's resilience: a workforce connected to something bigger holds together when things get rough.
None of that is charity. It's revenue and loyalty, produced by work that also does real good in the world. It's not a trade-off, you don't have to choose, and the companies that get it are outrunning the ones that don't. (I wrote more about why that trade-off never held up in the myth of the trade-off.)
Impact isn't the smart play despite the uncertainty. It's the smart play because of it. When money is tight and trust is scarce, the things that earn loyalty and hold people together aren't luxuries. They're exactly what you can't afford to cut.
So if you're a leader weighing what stays and what goes, put this work in the "how we win" column. The data has pointed there for years so let's build like we believe it.
Helping companies treat impact as a growth driver rather than a cost center is the work I do now. If that's the call you're facing, reach out — I'd love to help.