FAQ

What is impact?

What does impact mean in business?

When we talk about impact in business, it is usually about activities that have the intent to make changes in people’s lives.  These are typically economic, socio-cultural or environmental (the pillars of sustainable development).

What is an impact enterprise?

You might be familiar with the term “social enterprise”.  Both mean the same thing but an impact enterprise doesn’t just have a socio-cultural focus, rather it can be focused on any factor of positive change (typically across the sustainable development pillars of socio-cultural, economic or environment).

What does impact driven mean?

Impact driven means that your organisation has a focus on influencing positive change, typically within the pillars of sustainable development (Socio-cultural, economic, environmental).   

Is an impact enterprise, charitable?

No.  They can have a charitable focus or heart, but that doesn’t mean they have to do things for free or donate time/money/product. 

An organisation can be impact driven by their desire to make education accessible without barriers.  Or by prioritising marginalised groups (eg, women or indigenous people) as their customer base.

How do you demonstrate impact?

Impact measurement using numeric and / or quantitative data is an important part of being able to demonstrate your impact.  How you relay that information though, is up to you.

Can any organisation be impact driven?

Most definitely.  There is not yet a legal definition of an impact enterprise (or the other common term “social enterprise”) in Aotearoa so there are no hard or fast rules.

To establish if an organisation is impact driven, ask the people behind it what their focus is – what change do they seek to make in the world.  Even better, how do they measure that.

Is impact investment the same thing?

Not quite.  Impact investment in Aotearoa is a little behind the rest of the world, but there are increasing numbers of impact investors.

In a nutshell these are private investors that want to see their funds doing good in more ways than just returning an increase in money. 

Can an impact enterprise be profitable?

They can and they should!

A successful and profitable organisation is going to have the ability to make far more positive impact than one that is financially struggling. 

While it is admirable to want to donate funds or time, you should focus on building your business income as a priority.  Then you will have more resources available to maximise your impact.  

Our impact focus

We are committed to providing access to quality business education and resources for people that want to make a difference.  We do this through coaching, strategy and action planning, connection and navigation.

We believe that every person has the right to be seen and accepted for who they are. Diversity and inclusion are our core values and these underpin all of our actions.
Be a bloody good human. Always.

We are ethical employment champions through our strategic business support and our own employment practices. All of our activities are aimed at supporting organisations to grow sustainably.

We encourage and promote organisations to report on their own sustainability practices (not just environmental).  We are also committed to reducing our own environmental footprint. We actively avoid printing documents and we utilise online tools to support this.  That means that when you work with us, all documents are provided electronically (including the ones that need your autograph) and, as much as we love kōrero kanohi ki te kanohi, we have most of our meetings online rather than in person.  The biggest bonus to that is we get to work with incredible people across the country!

In a gentle way you can shake the world – Mahatma Gandhi