Julia Firestone

A practice I use in coaching to help clients identify core values is called the “Peak Experience.” You can explore this for yourself by thinking back to a moment in your life when you felt truly content. Write a description of this moment and notice what values might be present in it. If it’s difficult to identify them, you can google search “core values list” and select the ones that resonate with you from this moment. Aim for just 3-5. Then, consider where they show up in your work. If for example “courage” comes through as a core value for you, you can share a story of a time when you went against the grain to make impact in a new way or influenced others to make a difficult but ethical choice.

There are many reasons why your well-being might be at risk in social impact - secondary trauma from the experiences of those you serve, the actual setting of your work, or perhaps organizational culture and toxic leadership. For all of us in social impact, there are 2 big picture keys to keeping us well: 1. Visualizing the future we dream of and returning to that vision often. 2. Maintaining a collectivist mindset - find your people who share your values and vision and remember that we all contribute but no one person can do it alone.

Transparency in reporting is easier said than done given the entrenched power dynamics inherent between funders and nonprofits and even across team members within nonprofits. This is why setting clear expectations with funders from the get-go is so important as well as inviting them into early conversations about goal setting and defining what impact actually means.

We tend to replicate the same goals and measurement approaches that have been used previously, but before getting started, I encourage teams to have robust conversations about what impact really means. Is it simply the number of participants in our programs, or are we aiming to increase participant's sense of safety, stability, and access to opportunity? Give this conversation space rather than serving as an afterthought and for nonprofits, you might even consider inviting program participants and funders to take part in the discussion. This is how we move from vanity metrics to true impact and shift larger systems over time!

When starting out in social impact, I grappled with the ethical complexities of the sector as I realized that there is no such thing as ethical purity. Nonprofits sometimes play the role of plugging gaps that government could (should) be doing, donors and funders may have acquired wealth through concerning or downright horrible means, private sector companies may have funds to create a social impact team thanks to underpaying other employees or exploiting resources…and true activist organizing roles tend to be so low paid that you may struggle to sustain yourself. So the real question is this: what are your ethical boundaries? What’s most important to you in an imperfect world?

We often associate assertiveness with urgent response, however, remember that it’s ok to collect your thoughts and request conversations about the issue at hand later. One way to practice assertiveness in the moment is actually to call a time out if the conversation is becoming heated, encouraging a short break. During that time, you can gather your thoughts or even propose a different means of facilitating the conversation to ensure all voices are shared and have space.