Inside Our Values: Believe in Impact
At Idealist Consulting we are firm believers in impact. We see the work we do as the beginning of a chain reaction: through CRM, we build your capacity for stronger relationships, then your reach expands and your impact grows.
But recently this notion of “impact” has taken on more urgency for many of us, as we see many of our longtime clients and most admired nonprofits face funding cuts.
What Believe in Impact means to us
In order to weather these political storms and keep pushing toward a more progressive society, we believe businesses have an ethical responsibility to step up and put a portion of their profits directly toward nonprofits. This is part of why we became one of the first 100 B Corps and why we have been recognized for our ethical leadership in the Portland business community.
As our CEO and Founder Rob Jordan often talks about (and goes into eloquent detail in this blog post), Idealist Consulting’s ultimate goal is to transcend the public-private sector divide and boost social impact for everyone we work with, through small and large operational decisions that affect the products and clients we work with. This is much more than a tax write-off for us - it’s a belief that businesses must move toward what Rob calls a “Business to Human” approach in order to lift everyone up:
“Finding the middle ground is going to be necessary to our ever-changing economy and generational demands. The blending of the nonprofit and business worlds will continue to push us further into this middle ground. But each business and nonprofit will need to embrace new ideals and learn to adapt. I’m certain that this will happen and Idealist Consulting is ready to embrace this future dynamic.”
To this end, we are thrilled to announce the inaugural year of the Idealist Grant, which will dedicate 10% of our profits from working with the corporate sector back to a select progressive nonprofit. We are currently receiving nominations from the staff at Idealist Consulting. We will announce the winner of the 2018 Idealist Grant in early January.
What our commitment to Believe in Impact means to you
If you are a business that works with Idealist Consulting either as a client or a partner, we fund the Idealist Grant on your behalf. It comes from our bottom line but you get the benefit of knowing you have made an impact on a nonprofit by helping to add to this grant.
If you are a nonprofit, you may be lucky enough to be considered as a recipient of the Idealist Grant. If nominated, you will have a chance to fill out your own short application telling us why you are progressive and working toward impact.
Why does this matter more than ever?
No matter what type of company you work with, there is a growing tide of backlash against tech companies. Followers of the popular HBO show Silicon Valley know that talk about tech companies “saving the world” often feels hollow and empty because the leaders don’t walk the walk and care about impact personally. Indeed, many tech leaders today are taking extreme measures to regain their humanity in the age of allegations of Russia using Facebook to influence the 2016 US Election.
At Idealist Consulting, we work in technology because we believe it is the most direct way to effect change at scale and truly make an impact. We are more inspired than ever by the progressive work of our nonprofit clients and we aim to show there is another way to be a tech company today.
Interested in staying informed about future cycles of the Idealist Grant?
