It’s Spring – Refresh your strategic thinking and realign your impact

Dear Reader,

I’ve been thinking about spring, well, because it’s spring and who doesn’t love budding trees, sprouting flowers and more daylight? At least those are the signs for us here in Colorado.

But I’ve also been thinking of spring as an opportunity – to plant new things, to get back to the things we dropped over winter, and to put to rest some activities and behaviors whose time has passed. Our team is taking this spring opportunity to refresh our own impact strategy. It’s that one-page strategy that centers us on who we serve, what we hope to accomplish, and how we intend to do that – all with the ultimate focus on social impact.

So why are we refreshing this now? We’ve had some instances lately where we had a hard time determining whether a certain partnership or opportunity was right for us. We struggled because we were not all aligned to a common understanding of what we were trying to achieve. This happens in any organization, maybe because you add new staff, you focus on a strategic initiative that changes over time, you begin to drift from your core strategy, or you start to accept new types of clients or program participants. Reorienting to your strategy (and at times reorienting your strategy as a whole organization) will realign your work and reenergize your team.

When we support clients in developing an impact strategy, one of the main points of feedback we receive is that their team alignment, cohesion and energy increase. This happens because they have a common language about their work and are driving towards the same goal. It’s important to ensure your impact strategy is a living, operational guide that you can use as a filter to pass on opportunities that stray too far from your goal and guide proactive activities to drive toward your vision.

Check out some of our impact strategy resources below. Tell us, what are you refreshing this spring?

READING

How an Impact Strategy can change the way you work – What is an impact strategy and what are the benefits it can bring to your organization.
How to Breathe Life into Your Impact Strategy – If you don’t know where your impact strategy lives or if anyone even knows of its existence, here are some tips to revitalizing it and aligning your team to the larger impact goals.
Companies and startups are going beyond corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies and implementing social impact strategies, and are increasingly seeing these strategies as a key to long-term viability and growth.
Six Theory of Change Pitfalls to Avoid - Simply putting boxes and lines down on paper doesn’t guarantee that your organization will make better decisions.

WATCHING & LISTENING

Data Mindset: Build a Culture of Learning- Embrace Data, Drive Team Engagement, Program Effectiveness and Greater Impact – Workshop at Good Tech Fest led by our Founder & CEO, Cindy Eby & VP of Impact Services, Kenzie Strong

No Cost: When you use the code RESULTSLAB to register
When: May 18 @ 4:00pm MT
What: Part of the GoodTech Fest – a conference bringing together people who are interested in learning & sharing about how technology and data can be used to drive social impact

DIY Toolkit: Theory of Change – Short video clip on the process of creating a Theory of Change (also known as Impact Strategy) and why you should have one.