One of the primary challenges we see with values-driven messaging these days is that it stays at the level of values and doesn’t prove out how you’re demonstrating those values. For today’s savvy consumers, that’s no longer enough. It’s easy to say that you value sustainability, but what steps has your organization taken to move the needle in that space? This blog will walk you through a framework to define your approach to impact measurement so that you can avoid greenwashing and differentiate your brand as one that is making a measurable difference.
Differentiate Your Organization’s Specific Value Insight
Whether your organization is just starting out and you’re in the process of thinking through your organization’s mission, vision, and values, or these elements are well defined, now is a great time to take your values one step further to your value insight or insights. Your values as an organization are likely defined by the shared values of your organization leadership, stakeholders, and audience–the things your community rallies around. When you find the intersection between this and the place where your organization is differentiated as a business, something magical occurs, you find a value insight that you can own.
Take Bombas for a moment—an impact-driven clothing brand. From the beginning, they’ve differentiated themselves as a brand that is so confident in the strength and comfort of their product, they offer a lifetime happiness guarantee. They also value supporting communities experiencing financial insecurity and homelessness. Their approach to their differentiated value insight is to donate a garment to communities in need for every one purchased. This aligns their quality product with their values as an organization in a measurable way and allows their customers to participate in the impact. The result has been tremendous success and the ability to expand this concept including the use of antimicrobial treatment on donated garments to extend their life.
This exercise is going to look very different for every organization, and may pose unique challenges depending on your model, but that shouldn’t stop you from pursuing it. Finding synergies between your values and your value delivery make delivering on your impact goals more attainable and measurable as they’re tied more directly to your business goals.
Gain Buy-in Across Stakeholders
It’s time to rally your community around your impact and test their alignment with your approach. This will look different across your different stakeholder categories:
Leadership and Investors
For leadership and investors, this is all about aligning on expectations and ensuring that your approach is financially viable for your business. Your commitment to impact relies on it working in favor of the sustainability of your business because what good is your impact if you only get to invest it in for a short time before you’re forced to pull back or sink the business?
Customers
Gaining customer sentiment before going to market with your approach to impact is also critical. By this time, your approach should already have been informed by an audience analysis and a strong understanding of their values, but impact is nuanced and your audience is smart. The last thing you need is to have invested time and energy into your approach to impact only for it to fall flat because there are unintended consequences that negatively affect one population in your pursuit to support another. Pressure test your approach so you can spread the word with confidence.
Employees
For your employees, this is an opportunity to pulse-check excitement and get buy-in on responsibilities. Especially if your impact goals include commitments to volunteerism or other factors that your employees will participate in directly, you’ll want to ensure the majority of the team understands how your approach aligns with your brand’s ethos. Employees increasingly desire value alignment with their organizations and so doing this pulse check and making sure your approach resonates could be the difference between a major retention success and complacency. Finally, you’ll want to really lean into conversation with folks who will play a role in measurement and ensure they understand what they’ll be accountable for to ensure the impact is properly captured and communicated. That brings us to our final section.
Define How You’ll Measure Your Impact
Once you’re confident in the ways that your organization wants to make an impact that demonstrates your values, you must define the different data points that will clearly articulate your impact to your audience. One great way to do this is to picture telling the story of your impact to a customer. Where might someone have said, “Prove it”? You don’t have to scroll too deeply on the Bombas website before you see that they’ve donated one million garments using 3,500+ giving partners across the U.S. Their impact is clear and demonstrated simply.
Once you understand what data points you’re looking to capture, you need to take the time to look at the feasibility of capturing that information, whether that information will be captured automatically through the use of technology or manually by an employee, and what that process will look like. Ensure you have a strong workflow that gets the data to your communications team in the right format and at the right time to tell your communications story effectively. We get far more granular about this impact measurement process in our blog about quantifying your impact.
Final Thoughts
Future-proofing your organization’s approach to impact requires a comprehensive strategy that aligns with your core values, differentiates your offerings, and can be easily measured so your audience knows you aren’t just another greenwashing voice in the crowd. By embracing this framework, your organization will be well-positioned to differentiate and create meaningful change all of your stakeholders will be proud of.
This can be a challenging path to take on your own and often benefits from a third party examining your best approach to value insight. We specialize in executing this framework to help businesses affect change and gain the trust of their customers. Reach out to take the first step.
