LBG’s recent research with NPC lifted the lid on impact practice. It found that more and more companies are taking a long hard look at the activities they support and are asking fundamental questions about the value they deliver, not just to society, but to the business too.
It also shows that something of a schism has opened up in the way that companies approach their contributions. Where some are content to remain responsive and provide flexible funding others are becoming increasingly more targeted in what they support and goal-oriented in what they want to achieve.
You can see the latter trend reflected in the community programmes of leading companies:
- Some are setting bold goals against which success can be measured, such as Jaguar Land Rover’s ambitious targets to inspire 2 million young people through engineering and to improve the lives of 10 million more!
- Others are identifying the issues that matter most to their business and building programmes to tackle them, such as KPMG’s drive to raise employability skills, increase access to its profession and to build the capacity of community organisations;
- While others still are targeting a particular group on whom they want to impact, such as Barclay’s aim to reach five million young people through targeted support.
By setting such ambitious goals these busineses also set themselves the challenge of demonstrating their progress towards their achievement. All the companies mentioned above work with others through the LBG network to address this challenge and develop shared approaches to measuring results.
If you want to know more about how these companies and other funders are changing their strategies to deliver impact. Then come along to our Knowledge Series on 25th March and hear about the experiences all the companies mentioned have gone through to achieve a bigger bang for their buck.
Jon is Head of LBG