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At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Miriam Warren, Chief Diversity Officer at Yelp, about how her childhood home was the beginning of her journey to the field, the three questions she asks herself before pushing for corporate action amid pivotal social moments, and the fellow leaders that inspire her leadership.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: How did your professional and personal journey lead you to this work?

Miriam Warren, Chief Diversity Officer, Yelp: My journey started as early as my earliest memories. I grew up in a home where I was the only person of color, and the only one who looked like me. Growing up without other Filipinos meant that I was always trying to understand how I fit in with my family, and more broadly, what family means. I didn’t have the words for it then, but that was the early spark that had me thinking about building communities where different people (myself included) can feel like they belong. 

I found my way to the corporate world, and eventually to Yelp, where I built the some of the first communities of contributors to the site. Eventually, I turned that same attention inward to help build the employee community at Yelp as its first Chief Diversity Officer. 

I feel grateful to be able to do work that is meaningful, helps others, and brings light to issues that aren’t talked about enough.

Behrman, NationSwell: How do you make sense of this moment in ESG? Where are we now, and where do you think we’re going?

Warren, Yelp: Despite the narrative that some parts of society want you to believe, the idea that businesses have social responsibility is not a new one. From the emergence of the cooperative movement in the late 19th century to the creation of the first corporate charitable foundation in the early 20th century, plenty of historical influences—Quaker principles, labor movements, and fair trade practices, among them—have laid the groundwork for demonstrating that businesses have a broader responsibility to society.

More importantly, the idea isn’t going anywhere. The stakes feel even higher than before, whether we are talking about political polarization, climate crises, social and economic inequalities, or any number of other core issues that define and threaten our society. Businesses will play a critical role in supporting their customers, communities, employees, and other stakeholders, particularly to the extent that other institutions that have historically served them are failing.  

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some of the programs, strategies, or initiatives you’re leading at Yelp into which other field builders should have visibility?

Warren, Yelp: We should all strive to be more proactive and less reactive, and the way to do that is to have a preexisting framework for evaluating issues so that we can feel like we are happening to the issues and not the other way around. 

Yelp’s framework asks three questions: how does the issue map to our values? Does it matter to our stakeholders? And most importantly, are we uniquely positioned—through our platform or our business—to drive positive impact?

Let’s take reproductive healthcare access as an example. Our values align with the notion that bodily autonomy matters. It was also clear that the issue matters to our employees, many of whom are located in states contemplating or enacting restrictive abortion bans. We hoped to drive positive change by introducing a travel benefit to ensure healthcare equality for all our workers regardless of what state they were in. We also knew that consumers use our platform to find reliable information about reproductive healthcare services, and that we were therefore uniquely positioned to help them find what they were looking for.     

Behrman, NationSwell: To which leadership practices do you attribute your success? 

Warren, Yelp: I have always felt strongly about the concept of calling people in, not calling them out. We’re all on a learning journey, especially in this type of work. At one time or another we’re going to use the wrong words or frame a situation in a potentially problematic way. I want to cultivate an environment where people can make mistakes and know they have space to learn from it.

It takes a lot of energy to do this work and to maintain the grace, compassion, and patience to meet people where they are. I welcome the opportunity to explain why people use different pronouns than you. I’m happy to discuss your confusion over Black History Month. I won’t lose my cool when it comes to enumerating the challenges that many women, and particularly mothers, face in the workplace. My goal is to engage positively, and if someone feels positively toward me, there’s a good chance they’re going to walk away with a better understanding of why these issues matter to others if not to them.       

Behrman, NationSwell: Who are the leaders that inspire your leadership?

Warren, Yelp: Rodney Foxworth is always at the top of my list. His mission-driven work is incredibly inspiring to me and informs a lot of the way I think about many things, from economic development and philanthropy, to being an effective nonprofit board member.

Erin Baudo Felter at Okta is a fellow tech funder and social impact practitioner whose work I hold in high regard. She and I met through another colleague in this space years ago, and it’s been so useful to think together through issues we’re both tackling. 

Lastly, I’d spotlight Vignetta Charles. She is the CEO of ETR, a nonprofit organization committed to advancing health equity globally. Vignetta’s leadership awes me while also reminding me that laughter and friendship go a long way in making this work sustainable. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What are you reading that inspires your leadership?

Warren, Yelp: I cannot overstate how powerful “The Persuaders” by Anand Giridharadas has been for me. It has given me an incredible amount of hope in a time that sometimes feels hopeless, and it’s given me a lot of fuel to keep going. One of my big takeaways from the book is that people who are engaged in changing minds and bridging divisions should talk much more about what we’re for—not just about what we’re against. That notion has really resonated with me and I’m working on applying it expansively in my life.

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To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub. Yelp is a NationSwell Institutional Member. To learn more about membership in NationSwell’s community of leading social impact and sustainability practitioners, visit our site.

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Michele Jawando, Senior Vice President at Omidyar Network, about the untold story of ESG’s unlikely allies, the importance of strong and engaged workers for any organization, and why we don’t have permission to surrender to the sorrow — even when working to advance justice becomes incredibly challenging. 

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Can you tell us about how your professional and personal journey led you to where you are today?

Michele Jawando, Senior Vice President , Omidyar Network: I endeavor for my work to be grounded in the simple idea that my contributions should advance and make meaningful contributions to the communities that I serve; that is the single thread that I am proud to be able to trace through my life’s work and purpose. 

It’s a thread that begins with my great aunt, who was both the first woman and the first Black woman attorney on the island of Bermuda; it continues with my grandmother, who was the first Black nurse at a segregated hospital; with my father, who went to law school and engaged his practice in global human and civil rights work; really, through my entire family, who have steadfastly been involved with the social and civil rights movements in Bermuda, Jamaica and here in the US. 

And now, it is with deep humility that I’ve been able to continue it from there on through to every place I’ve worked. All of my work, every single day, is in service of trying to pull that thread forward. Continuing it is a deeply personal, deeply spiritual call for me, and I’ve been fortunate to work at places that can match my passion. 

So it is with reverence for this past and deep appreciation for the present that I’ve arrived at my position in the field.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s unique about the work you’re leading? What are some of your programs, strategies, and approaches into which other field builders should have visibility?

Jawando, Omidyar Network: We’re trying to figure out how we diversify who’s at the table, who’s talking to investors, and who’s engaged in this conversation.  And we’ve been partnering with a few incredible organizations to help make that happen. One I’m really excited about is the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. You probably don’t often think about faith and corporate responsibility as going hand-in-hand, but ICCR has been working at this intersection for five decades, and successfully engaged Fortune 500 companies from a faith perspective on issues like public health, pollution, and forced labor in ways that have changed corporate behavior for the better.. This is an opportunity to bring a very different voice into this conversation. We’ve also been working with an organization called the Investor Advocates for Social Justice, grounding us in the belief that investing can be a key part of a social justice framework — core to any movement. 

Too often, workers are missing from the conversations on the most important decisions an organization makes. People sometimes forget this, but some of the biggest investors in the world are the pension funds of working people. That’s why I’m really excited to spotlight our partnership with the Committee for Workers Capital; they’re working to center the perspective of workers within the investment community. To have strong corporations, you need strong workers. Including them makes your company stronger, which in turn makes your investments more profitable. It’s a very different way of thinking about smart investments, but I think it’s critical as we move forward. Workers, employees, customers and community members are uniquely positioned to identify when a company is doing something risky — even before the company’s leadership apparatus does. 

It can’t just be about investors, corporate board members, or academics; the present moment is giving us an opportunity to broaden the conversation and giving people more opportunity to see what a co-created future could look like.  If we don’t engage more of these groups at every level of decision making, then they’re missing out on opportunities for agency and growth, and management is missing out on their crucial perspective.  And so I think it’s such a critical moment for ESG investors to really listen to stakeholders to show up differently. But though it’s a great opportunity, it’s also a challenging moment, but only because it’s still so hard for us to have multi-party conversations in this country. 

Behrman, NationSwell: How are you making sense of this moment for ESG? 

Jawando, Omidyar Network: In order to create real change in the system, the conversation around ESG has to be deeply grounded in broader social conversations. 

We all want to see businesses do great work, and we want them to operate sustainably. But I think why we’re having such a passionate conversation about this right now is because we differ on what “great work” and “operate sustainably” mean. We’re seeing ESG as a topic bubble up almost daily because I think each person on the planet is impacted by corporations, and wants to be actively involved in what the solutions are. Changing the framework to make corporations and companies more profitable, more inclusive, more thoughtful — all while adding a greater amount of dignity in the work — is exactly what we need to be doing. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s exciting to you about this moment, and where do you see it going?

Jawando, Omidyar Network:  I see policy as an opportunity to scale impact, so I am currently really  interested in what we’ve seen in Missouri, where citizens stood up before the state legislature and said they wanted to see their pensions invested in a responsible and sustainable way  And while we know there’s been an uptick of anti-ESG legislation, the untold story that’s unfolding under the headlines is that you’re getting really interesting bedfellows. Players like the Missouri Chamber of Commerce, SEIU, the Sierra Club — they  were all working together to defeat these anti-ESG bills. There aren’t many places where you’re seeing unlikely allies coming together. You really love to see it.

To me, that’s proof there’s something unique about this work that is positive and is worth fighting for and is worth engaging. But there’s been such a collapse of nuance, which means it’s been hard for people to hold that you can both be profitable and have ESG as a core part of your investment strategy. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What is it about your leadership style that helps you to be effective? 

Jawando, Omidyar Network: As a leader, I strive to acknowledge that the people who come and work with me — or for me — have some challenge in their life that they’re dealing with every day, alongside their work. That acknowledgment helps me as much as it helps them. If I can walk into a workplace, or a board room, or Capitol Hill and recognize that these are people who are dealing with challenges in their lives, the dialogue will be a lot more productive than if I see them all as adversaries or challenges, lead with people’s humanity and it changes the dynamic every time. 

I’m not saying that view doesn’t come with its own set of challenges, but I deeply believe that this is the best approach to leadership. 

Behrman, NationSwell: Who are the leaders who inspire your leadership?

Jawando, Omidyar Network: Edelman CEO Lisa Ross is amazing. Not only is she a people first leader, but she’s also a true believer in the power of representation. There’s something unique about her voice that helps me really grapple with the importance of the work we’re doing.

KR Liu, who heads accessibility marketing at Google, is a constant source of inspiration to me. She’s one of the most profound people that I’ve worked with, one who’s helped me advance my own thinking about accessibility, representation, and policy. She lives with such intention and passion. 

Another leader who inspires me is Nicole Taylor of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. I think it’s hard running any foundation, but when you show up in the valley and you’re trying to hold a lot of different equities all at the same time, it’s even more challenging. And yet, Nicole  does it with such grace, effervescence, and a deep commitment to this work.

The last leader I’d like to mention is Amandeep Singh Gill, who’s the United Nations Secretary General’s Envoy on Technology. Whether you’re a techno optimist or a techno realist, it’s undeniable that technology has a profound effect on society. Amandeep is working to make sure it is not just a catalytic force, but a unifying one. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What are you reading, watching, or listening to that’s inspiring your leadership?

Jawando, Omidyar Network: “Blind Spot” by Jon Clifton has such great insight into why leaders were missing the unrest that led to everything from the Arab Spring to the state of our politics in America — and really asks us to reckon with what we value as a society, and whether we’re using the right metrics for what makes a nation thrive?

I’m loving “How to Citizen” with Baratunde Thurston, who just did an episode on democracy fractals and sci-fi. I’m a big, big sci-fi nerd. I love the way it calls the imagination to a different place. 

Lastly, Ross Gay is one of my favorite authors, and my favorite poem of his called “Sorrow is Not My Name.” I think about it every time the work gets challenging, or it feels like we’re taking a step back. I’d like to read it for you:

“No matter the pull towards the brink, no matter the florid, deep sleep awaits. There is a time for everything. Look, just this morning a vulture nodded his red grizzled head at me and I looked at him admiring the sickle of his beak. Then the wind kicked up and after arranging that good suit of feathers he up and took off, just like that. And to boot there are on this planet alone, something like two million naturally occurring sweet things, some with names so generous as to kick the steel from my knees. Agave, persimmon, stick ball, the purple okra I brought for two bucks at the market.

“Think of that, the long night, the skeleton in the mirror, the man behind me on the bus taking notes, yeah, yea. But look, my niece is running through a field calling my name. My neighbor sings like an angel and at the end of my block is a basketball court. I remember my color’s green, I’m spring.”

That piece calls me back to all of the things that are beautiful and simple and worth fighting for. We can’t get lost in the sorrow. We actually don’t have permission to do that. Then we start to feel like nothing can change — and I believe deeply that things can.

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To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub. Omidyar Network is a NationSwell Institutional Member. To learn more about membership in NationSwell’s community of leading social impact and sustainability practitioners, visit our site.

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Jennifer Skyler, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer at American Express, about the importance of leveraging your core values in times of disruption, drawing new strength from embracing discomfort, and the timeless, underappreciated value of resilience.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Can you walk us through what’s unique about how you and your team have approached ESG?

Jennifer Skyler, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, American Express: When I first joined in 2020, my team undertook a comprehensive process to refresh the ESG strategy and framework based on a materiality analysis of key stakeholder issues. That was an important first step — those first efforts culminated in the launch of our ESG Strategy and Framework which encompasses three core pillars: financial confidence; climate solutions; diversity, equity, and inclusion.

That framework guides us to drive action in alignment with our values and address the top issues that matter the most for our company and stakeholders. It provides the guiding principles, operational structure, and resources to be able to make meaningful, positive impact in people’s lives and the world we live in. 

By having a foundational framework in place to address those issues, we can set tangible goals, build action plans to achieve those goals and hold ourselves accountable for progress, and provide transparency into our efforts for our internal and external stakeholders. 

Behrman, NationSwell: How is the work you’re leading at American Express unique?

Skyler, American Express: We have a very special, values-driven culture. As Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, I carry the responsibility of championing the Blue Box values that our company and brand stand for, making sure all our actions and communications are tightly aligned to those values.

I joined the company in 2020 — and as you can imagine, that meant that my arrival was met with the unprecedented challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Before we even began to address those challenges, we committed to one core principle as our north star: that we would back our colleagues, customers, and communities above all else.

That commitment has since proven critical to how we managed to emerge as an even stronger company. From the early days of the pandemic, we doubled down on our backing of our stakeholders. We invested in the health, safety, and holistic well-being of our colleagues through expanded benefits and support programs. For our customers, we offered financial relief to those experiencing economic challenges and evolved our product benefits and services to meet their changing needs in the face of the pandemic. We also provided philanthropic support to economically vulnerable communities to help them address their challenges and support their recovery.

Those investments have paid off a great deal and put us in a strong position today, where we’re seeing great momentum across our business. Our customers and colleagues are sticking with us, and we are attracting many more to our workforce and card member base – all enabling us to deliver record growth rates that we’ve been seeing for several quarters now.      

Having gone through such a pivotal moment at American Express, I have an even greater appreciation now for working at a company with sound and consistent values that you can lean on during good times and bad times.

Behrman, NationSwell: Is there a significant program or initiative you’re leading into which other field builders should have visibility? 

Skyler, American Express: As Chair of the American Express Foundation, which facilitates the company’s philanthropic and community impact efforts and am deeply inspired by the work our nonprofit partners do to improve their communities. In December, we relaunched the American Express Leadership Academy, transforming the curriculum to help enhance the business and leadership skills of high-potential nonprofit leaders to meet the unique challenges of today. Since its launch in 2007, the Academy helped more than 165,000 social purpose leaders reach their potential.

This year, the theme of our Leadership Academy was resilient changemakers, and I think my overall thinking as a communications and corporate sustainability leader over the past few years has really embodied this idea. If the pandemic has taught us one thing, it’s that we can’t foresee the future and the challenges we will face tomorrow. What’s most important is developing the right skills and having the tools to be able to effectively tackle life’s challenges– whatever they might be – and remain resilient.

More personally, I love to support small businesses, whether shopping in my own neighborhood or at local shops wherever I travel. I have now had the opportunity to turn this personal passion of mine into even greater real impact given American Express’ continued commitment to backing small businesses, like through our Backing Historic Small Restaurants grant program in partnership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has awarded $2 million to 50 historically significant restaurants in the U.S. over the past two years and will provide another $1 million to 25 new recipients this year.

Behrman, NationSwell: To which leadership practices do you most attribute your success and efficacy?

Skyler, American Express: One of the behaviors that we’re expected to demonstrate as leaders is courageous and transparent leadership, which has been something I always believed in. Being courageous and embracing discomfort is necessary to be able to achieve growth and realize your full potential.

You cannot grow in your career without discomfort. You must be receptive to feedback and not be afraid to fail to make progress. That’s why I am always focused on challenging myself and my team to think differently, aim higher, and learn from both successes and failures to grow with each experience.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s inspiring your leadership right now? 

Skyler, American Express: I’m a voracious consumer of so many different podcasts and media – often multiple screens at a time – so if I made a list, it would be ridiculously long. I like to hear all sides of an issue and stay on top of the fast-paced, ever-evolving environment that we operate in.

Of course, every now and then we need a break from the news cycle. Right now, I’m loving Daisy Jones and the Six on Amazon Prime as my respite.

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To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub. American Express is a NationSwell Institutional Member. To learn more about membership in NationSwell’s community of leading social impact and sustainability practitioners, visit our site.

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Brandee McHale, Head of Community Investing and Development at Citi and President of Citi Foundation, about the unexpected challenges of headwinds becoming tailwinds, the necessity for leaders to break out of their echo chamber for inspiration, and why economic mobility is the foundation of her unlikely journey to the field of ESG.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Tell us how your professional and personal journey led to this work.

Brandee McHale, Head of Community Investing and Development at Citi and President of Citi Foundation: My work is at the intersection of traditional ESG, business, society, and philanthropy; I can’t believe I’m going to actually say these words, but I’ve been here for 30 years. 

I never thought that this was where I would land. When people hear that I’ve worked 30 years in the global financial services company, they naturally assume I came from Wharton or Harvard Business School — and while those are fantastic places, I actually don’t have a business background. In fact, I don’t even have a high school diploma.

I wasn’t on the path to economic success, and what really got me back on track was volunteering in my local community. Through volunteerism, I built a professional network — and I didn’t even know I was building one at the time. I just got very engaged with volunteering alongside the former mayor of the city where I’d grown up. And it was through giving back and being involved in volunteer service that actually built up my own confidence, and I began to see myself the way others saw me. I went back to school, I got my GED, and I answered some bulletin board ad for a summer internship at Citi in their corporate charitable giving department. 

Beyond that sense of service, what’s motivated me through the years is the knowledge that it should not have been as hard as it was for me to get from where I was to where I am today. We all have an interest in helping others, but my interest is in leveling the playing field to make it easier. There are far too many exit ramps on the path to economic opportunity — and there are far too few on-ramps. And that’s really how I’ve thought about my career. How do we build more on-ramps and shut down those off-ramps?

Behrman, NationSwell: How do you define this moment in ESG? Where are we, and where are we going? What’s the potential, and where are the pitfalls?

McHale, Citi: I tell my team all the time, this is our moment; let’s not blow it. We’ve lost the luxury of saying nobody’s focused on our issues, that we’re the lone voice here in the company. This is now front and center, and there’s a spotlight on us: we have a whole range of stakeholders, investors, employees, clients, and the public looking at ESG now. I think it’s okay for ESG practitioners to feel unnerved by the eyes that are suddenly on us. It can make you skeptical of everything you’re doing; it can even drive paralysis.

And especially in this moment of so much divisiveness, that paralysis is very real. If you try to please everybody, you’re going to please nobody. So you have to identify your North Star and fly consistently towards it. And I think if you stick with your values, while you’re not going to make everybody happy, you’ll have the ability to withstand any potential criticism. 

In the face of divisiveness, you have to be bold. And I’m excited to be bold. But I’m also clear-eyed about the fact that we are in the very early years of thinking differently about the purpose of the private sector — and its role in driving societal impact. For 20 years, the wind has been against me and my fellow practitioners. We all got really strong from flying against the headwind. But it’s a funny thing when all of a sudden the winds change, and suddenly it’s a tailwind and you should be flying farther and faster, but you actually feel more likely to fall because you don’t have the right kind of skills for this velocity.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s different about how you lead? To which leadership practices do you attribute your effectiveness?

McHale, Citi: Our most important tool is our people — and that’s especially true when you’re an ESG practitioner. When you’re working in large companies, if you have a role that has something related to ESG in it, you probably had a job description that led you to believe that you would be spending your time externally focused.

But if we really want to have an impact, we are internal change agents. So while it may seem as though we are funding external change agents, what’s different and what I hope is the model that I’ve helped to develop, is that we see ourselves as change agents working across the company to influence, again, business practices, to influence strategies, to influence a focus on communities that have oftentimes been left behind, while also understanding how to partner with others externally so we can maximize impact. And to do that, you really need to build a team that feels empowered to use their voice. And in turn then we empower our company, many times not just to engage in actions, but to also use our voice and to ask, what is our commitment to an issue? 

And a great example of this, I think, is our work on racial equity. Like many companies, after the murder of George Floyd, we were searching for what we could do to make a difference. We did do some immediate philanthropic funding to civil rights organizations, but we knew that that was completely necessary, and insufficient. We realized that the real opportunity we have is to step back and ask, what is the specific role that financial institutions can play in racial equity? And for us, it was to look back and say part of what fuels racial injustice in the United States is the long-term perpetual racial wealth gap.

And while we’re very proud of the role that Citi Foundation has played on this issue philanthropically, philanthropy is insufficient to really address this issue. We’re working across the company in a comprehensive way to clarify what our role is in helping people get into the financial mainstream and accumulate financial wealth and assets.

In terms of leadership practice, I’m a big believer in purposefully making space that exists outside of your echo chamber. It’s something you have to practice actively; we tend to not realize we’re on autopilot, going to the same meetings, the same events, and the same conferences. This action can be something simple, like auditing who it is you tend to take your meetings with. But it can also mean getting out of the big cities. I’ve probably spent way too much time in my career thinking that the United States is New York, D.C., and California. It turns out, there’s a country in between these cities. And seeing how these communities approach economic mobility in ways that perhaps weren’t on your radar can give you that spark of inspiration that leaders are so often chasing. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some unique programs or initiatives you’re leading that other leaders may benefit from knowing?

McHale, Citi: I’m really proud of our work to help students get to and through college. We identified two primary barriers for students: the first is financial, and the second is navigating an increasingly complex system, especially if these students are the first in their family to attend college. 

To counter these barriers, we started a platform that supports initiatives opening up college savings accounts for young people. It’s an effort we’ve already begun scaling in San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, with more locations to be announced soon. We initiated this approach a decade ago, and the first group of students from the San Francisco public school system is graduating this year. 

It’s an initiative that did more than just give kids accounts — it also changed the narrative around college for these communities from “if” to “when.” We’ve witnessed parents, kids, and family members depositing even small amounts into these accounts, and schools building a culture that focuses on college admissions — not just high school graduation.

The program in San Francisco, which is called Kindergarten to College, has become the framework for these initiatives. Some places even have similar Baby Bonds programs. They all aim to level the playing field by providing the same opportunities that a child born in a high-income family might have, such as a 529 account opened for them at birth.

It’s clear that schools aren’t bankers, and that’s why we’ve helped them by developing an online platform that allows school systems, or large youth-serving nonprofits, to manage the program. They can sign up kids, track deposits, and support families through the program. At the back end, we ensure the system works with various banking partners — whether it’s Citibank or a local community development credit union. This approach eliminates the need for everyone to reinvent the wheel, essentially creating a scalable “franchise” opportunity.
This solution was informed by our philanthropic work. We discovered that, while there is funding available for matched funds, unless programs can run efficiently, they will not be able to operate at scale. 

Another area is our Citi Impact Fund, which invests in double-bottom line companies. It’s important to remember that it’s not just about injecting capital — it’s about support. Providing post-investment support and assisting our portfolio companies to thrive, extend their networks, and boost their revenue-generating opportunities are of the utmost importance.

Though the Citi Foundation’s Community Progress Makers initiative, we offer core operating support grants of $500,000 each and say to grantees, “Go forth. We are not the experts here, you are. We trust you.” We’re not in the business of what I like to call “torturing” our grantees. 

Funding shouldn’t be onerous. Removing that red tape is part of our commitment to ensuring philanthropic capital is the most catalytic resource it can be. It should be the most flexible research and development money that’s out there. 

I’m also excited about the Foundation’s Global Innovation Challenge – Food Security, which is our first global open source effort, designed to improve food security and strengthening the financial health of low-income families and communities. 

The world is moving so quickly; and when it comes to food security, so many issues are interconnected — economic empowerment, financial health, supply chain. It excites me that we are now embracing the ways these issues are interconnected instead of focusing on just one component of them.  

Behrman, NationSwell: Who are some fellow leaders that are inspiring your leadership right now?

McHale, Citi: I’m inspired by the leadership of Kathleen Enright, CEO of the Council on Foundations. She’s tackling some of the hardest conversations in philanthropy today. Janice Bowdler went from the nonprofit sector at Unidos US  to the private sector with JPMC, and now she’s in public service as the Counselor to the Secretary at the U.S. Treasury on matters of racial equity. I absolutely love this multi-sector transition.In the impact investing space, the biggest rockstar is Melissa Bradley. When we were building our Impact Fund, she challenged us to be different – to stop talking and just do it differently. 

All of these women are fearless about giving the counterpoint to what someone may be saying.

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some books you’re reading, shows you’re watching, or podcasts you’re listening to that inspire and inform you?
McHale, Citi: For me, it’s really important to listen and learn from nonprofit leaders and change agents. I follow Financial Health Network’s Financial Pulse survey to keep up-to-date on the financial lives of everyday people around the country. I also really enjoy listening to Jennifer Tescher’s EMERGE Everywhere podcast, which focuses on financial health and breaking siloes between sectors.

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To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub.

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation (PJMF), about what this moment in artificial intelligence (AI) means for ESG practitioners, the importance of pushing past digital literacy and towards digital agency, and the big questions that leaders should ask as we build an equitable and human-centered future enabled by technological innovation.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Tell us how your professional and personal journey led to this work.

Vilas Dhar, President, PJMF: My life’s journey has been defined by an insatiable curiosity and a commitment to accelerating innovation that sustains human aspirations, creativity, and joy. This socially minded curiosity was shaped by the time I spent with my grandfather in India.  At the start of each visit, I would proudly show him the new tools or gadgets I was developing and he’d always respond in the same way, “Now that I’ve seen how much joy and creativity these tools bring you, how can they also uplift the people in your community, in your family, in the world around you?” 

That question defines so much of my journey and is one I continue to ask myself today. I’m an incredible optimist about the world that we can build together, and that optimism started at a very young age. I had early exposure to amazing technologies: from exploring firsthand the technical innovation behind my favorite video games to hearing my mother describe how a computer was changing her job as an administrator at a university. I saw all the incredible ways these tools helped us spend more of our time doing the things that actually mattered — like connecting to each other — and helped us move away from rote mechanical tasks. Because of these technologies, we were able to use our creativity and inspiration to build cool things that, in a way, improved our lives. 

But at the same time that I was growing up and seeing all the transformative potential of technology, I also spent a lot of time with my family in rural India — in a world where technology hadn’t yet entered the picture. We’re not talking about computers here; we’re talking about basic things like power and running water. I remember these movements of contradiction so clearly because they highlight the frustrating tension that shapes so much of my professional journey: on one side, I have an unshakeable optimism about what we accomplish through ingenuity and shared action; and on the other, I can’t fathom why we are okay with a world where only a few get to enjoy the benefits of that innovation – simply because of who they are or where they grew up. 

We have to change that. 

Behrman, NationSwell: You’re an expert on artificial intelligence. What can you share to help moor ESG practitioners around what this current moment means? How can we lean in?

Dhar, PJMF: When I look out at the world, it feels like there’s actual potential for a transformation of power. These technologies are creating new agency for people across the planet, and we’ve been given — right here, right now — a chance to make decisions that include technology, but aren’t just about technology. They’re about who gets to participate, who gets to decide, and who gets to inform those decision makers. They’re about the uniquely human element of this transformation – one that will affect us all.

The big question isn’t about asking how to better understand these technologies and map their potential to the social justice work we do. We’ve already seen these new technologies do amazing things, from empowering frontline earth defenders to predict and stop illegal logging and poaching, to revolutionizing the efficiency of humanitarian aid delivery after a natural disaster. Now the big questions we need to ask are around our values and what we hold dear; how we’d reshape our very society; how we’d think about democratic and inclusive political processes to amplify marginalized voices; how we’d measure the value of our time and our labor; and how we’d re-design our governance structures and mechanisms of participatory decisionmaking.

We built an entire class of institutions after World War II that did amazing work in creating new economic opportunity and uplifting people across the battered postwar world — but that was almost 75 years ago. And while the private sector has moved forward and civil society has moved forward, we have to ask whether these institutions are ready for the challenges of the 21st century. Are these institutions fit to tackle the enormous scale of global hunger, injustice, climate change, pandemics, and beyond? Our positive frame is to ask, how do we convene all the different stakeholders in society to uplift global majority voices — and not just the Global North? How do we build new multilateral institutions that are fit-for-purpose, community-driven, and resourced to proactively address the major global challenges that we will face over the next 100 years?

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some activations that might enable leaders to better meet this moment?

Dhar, PJMF: Two categories come to mind: intention and action. We have to name and hold a set of intentions around building more inclusive and participatory decision-making infrastructure. That requires those who hold power to open the doors for those who aren’t traditionally included in those rooms, and it requires them to build trust with underrepresented or marginalized individuals so that they are willing to engage with us. 

I have deep trust in communities to define and shape their own destiny. So often, we’ve assumed that those who hold the power, privilege, and tools we are speaking about can make decisions for everyone else. But the truth is, communities are great at defining their own course. If we don’t intentionally engage them as the architects of their own future and proactively equip them with the right tools, opportunities, and support to succeed, then we’re missing the point.

Then, we have to understand that every person on the planet needs to experience not just digital literacy, but digital agency. It’s so easy to say that AI is this new thing on the horizon that’ll affect us in some profound way, but we actually need to understand these tools well enough to determine what their consequences might be on our lives. We need to create and nurture a shared and accessible language to discuss these tools and advocate for equity, justice, and human rights as they proliferate around us. That’s both an individual and collective intention we have to set. 

And then there’s the action. We need a new social conversation about what economic and moral structures we want to build. And we need to include voices across civil society, across government, across business, and across communities. We need conveners who will step forward to bring those groups together. And we need a bold willingness to act, to begin implementing what comes out of these conversations. I believe deeply in honoring human inspiration; what I mean by that is if someone has an amazing proposal, we can talk about it for months or we cantry it within just weeks. It’s the latter approach that will inspire and cement positive change.

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some unique programs or initiatives you’re leading at PJMF that other leaders may benefit from knowing?

Dhar, PJMF: We are re-envisioningwhat it means to be a philanthropy in the 21st century – where  grant making is now just one of the many tools we have to build public trust. We’ve restructured how we think about strategic intervention in civil society, moving from an idea where people apply for a grant and we make a decision — which just feels so disconnected from the outcomes we’re looking for — to a process in which we first strategize with civil society around what an ideal future would look like, and then collaborate with them to build programs to advance that future. That means, while we still make a lot of grants, we also partner directly with nonprofits to build capacity around data and AI, and we partner with governments and academic institutions to build entirely new frames of reference for human-centered AI.

To this end, we’ve recently built and deployed a new initiative called the Centre for Trustworthy Technology in partnership with Deloitte and the World Economic Forum. Together, we’re creating an entirely new convening space to think about policy for the AI-enabled age. We work directly with communities across the United States to support the idea that those who have traditionally been left out should be key architects of not only our technologies, but also of the societies we live in — groups like CodePath, Per Scholas, and The Hidden Genius Project.

We also work with AI scientists from Indigenous communities, and our work with the International Wakashan AI Consortium is emblematic of our approach. We support AI code camps on Indigenous sovereign lands to train young people to harness the power of these technologies and to give them a pathway to educational and professional opportunities. We also support their efforts to build new AI tools and models to preserve Indigenous languages, capturing thousands of years of ancient wisdom and applying that wisdom to a world that uses AI to translate and help young people connect to their own stories. 

Behrman, NationSwell: To which leadership practices do you most attribute your effectiveness?

Dhar, PJMF: My leadership style stems from a core belief that leaders have to be willing to call out what’s wrong in the world today; to call out inequity, injustice, and systemic exclusion as antithetical to the world we want to create. One key part of how I practice leadership is that I question the way things are done, and whether what we’re doing today is actually helping to build a better world. There are two benefits to asking that question. The first is more straightforward: if what you’re doing isn’t actually helping, you can ask the hard questions about what it will take to change the course of your actions; and the second is that by taking this first step as a leader, you enable and empower the community of people who work with you and around you to be able to do the same. 

This is a shared journey. If those of us on the journey can say we don’t like what we do, and if we can say we know there’s a better way, then the question you’re left with becomes a very human one: How do we come together to do better? And the answer to that question contains the real work of leadership, which is all about building trust; about becoming more humble and more curious so that others can make their voices heard; about making sure that our outcomes and our visions are aligned. As leaders, we need to demonstrate that we are truly accountable to each other; and we need to find and build spaces of shared joy to actually incentivize us to do more and do better.

When it comes to some of the issues that we focus on, we’ve become comfortable with the idea that there are technologists who make technology decisions and policymakers who make policy decisions. But for us, leadership is about empowering communities to know that technologists and policymakers should act as representatives of community interests, and that communities, too, have a right to participate in these decisions. At the end of the day, we want to affirm and show that we are here to support and serve communities along their own journeys of self-advocacy and self-actualization. And that also implies a responsibility for us to take shared ownership over the decisions.

Behrman, NationSwell: Who and what are inspiring your leadership right now?

Dhar, PJMF: At a foundation like ours, I come into contact with so many inspiring trailblazers, movement builders, and bold disruptors every day – that I couldn’t possibly name every one. But I’ll name a few here. Brandon Nicholson  runs The Hidden Genius Project, an amazing intervention that gives young Black men a full suite of support and engagement to help them find professions in technology. The Project started in Oakland, but Brandon scaled his work to multiple cities around the country; he’s just an amazing, incredible emerging leader. Gabriela Ramos, the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, has taken this very deep international, global majority approach to thinking about how AI and technology are transforming all of our political structures. She’s a great writer, an inspiring leader, and a trusted colleague and friend. Michael Running Wolf is an Indigenous AI scientist who has committed his entire life to using these tools to connect people to the stories and wisdom of Indigenous culture. Through his leadership, we have begun to foster the next generation of young Indigenous coders, scientists, and changemakers. 

I also want to highlight the work of our partner: Tara Chklovski at Technovation — an organization that teaches girls technology and leadership skills to catalyze climate action across the globe. PJMF is proud to support and partner with civil society leaders like Tara, who are revolutionizing the application of technology to further social impact, gender equity, and empowerment. I’m sharing a recent quote of hers from THE Journal: “At Technovation, we want to champion the equitable adoption of new technologies and acknowledge as an opportunity that our students must learn how to engage with ChatGPT and use it to develop solutions to the world’s most pressing problems.” Tara and I recently hosted a LinkedIn live on “AI and Leadership: A Pathway to Girls’ Empowerment and Climate Resilience,” to dive into some of these problems and how our two organizations are partnering to address them.

In addition to the transformative changemakers I work with, I also derive inspiration from reading. One book that made a unique impression on me and my work was Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin – a story that reminds us of just how important it is to find joy and fulfillment in our lives and the work we do. The second is a tract that I’ve read many, many times in my life: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. It’s an inspiring work that shapes acceptance of the many, many paths to our own internal truth.

I also feel fortunate to work in a field that contains such rich discourse from a broad range of sources. For example, Politico’s Digital Future Daily is a tech newsletter that regularly features different experts in the digital space, ranging from Microsoft’s Chief Responsible AI Officer Natasha Crampson, to DAIR’s Timnit Gebru, to the Future of Life Institute’s Mark Brakel. These are critical resources to not only inform communities about how AI and other technologies might affect their lives, but to also foster democratic dialogue around forging an equitable and rights-based approach to AI development and use.

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To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub. PJMF is a NationSwell Institutional Member. To learn more about membership in NationSwell’s community of leading social impact and sustainability practitioners, visit our site.

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Melissa MacDonnell, President, Liberty Mutual Foundation and Vice President, Community Investments, Liberty Mutual Insurance, about what this moment in corporate philanthropy means for practitioners, the power of a collaborative framework for funding, and how employee volunteerism programs can better center inclusion.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Tell us how your professional and personal journey led to this work.

Melissa MacDonnell, Liberty Mutual:  My mom worked as a social worker in Newark, NJ and instilled a strong sense of service in my nine siblings and me.  When I was in high school, she would take me every week to volunteer with adults with disabilities.  I helped them with daily tasks like making the bed, going to the local store, completing household activities, and more. Because of my mom, service became a part of my DNA, a lens through which I would see the world. 

One of the memories that will always stay with me was of one man with whom I worked. He was misdiagnosed as a child as having developmental disabilities; when in fact, he was deaf. Therefore, he spent his entire life in an institution. It was striking to know that the inability to understand his struggle resulted in a life of institutionalization. I built a strong bond with him and spent time teaching myself sign language. I wanted him to know I saw him. 

Later, I became a volunteer GED teacher and taught young people who were forced to grow up way too soon, forced to leave school to make money for their families, forced to deal with the urgency of needs today rather than building for their futures. 

I also had the chance to become a big sister; twenty-four years later, we are still sisters. Becoming a big sister for a girl living in a group home showed me how many people are struggling on their own, without the basic supports so many of us take for granted.

Behrman, NationSwell: How do you define this moment in corporate philanthropy?

MacDonnell, Liberty Mutual: It’s such an exciting moment for corporate philanthropy. When I started nearly 25 years ago, philanthropy was more of an offshoot. The company was always deeply committed to the community, but there was a desire to keep the philanthropy separate.  That desire came from a really good place; however, it left some of our potential for impact off the table.

Today, we are an integral part of Liberty Mutual — we’re central to the purpose of the company. There’s a recognition that our engagement in the community is collectively owned through our foundation and through each of our 50,000 employees who want an opportunity to give, serve, and volunteer. And with the proper construct, we have the chance to empower and engage all of Liberty to bring our expertise, our skills, our passion, and our resources to bear for our communities.

I think we’re just all collectively inspired by the opportunity to invest the strength of Liberty Mutual as a force for social good.

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some unique programs or initiatives you’re leading that other leaders may benefit from knowing?

MacDonnell, Liberty Mutual: Our work in youth homelessness is a great example of a programmatic body of work that we’re proud of. 

In youth homelessness, we found an issue that was not getting visibility or support, where there was a real and demonstrable need. We heard from our education partners that young people were showing up to school with backpacks stuffed with everything they owned. And we heard from adult shelters that they had to turn away more and more young people every day. 

The more we pulled the thread, the more we recognized that youth and young adult homelessness was something that really needed attention. So, we started to invest and joined a collaborative that included city and state officials, nonprofit leaders, Liberty Mutual, as the corporate leader, and, most importantly, young people with lived experience. Together, we helped the City of Boston successfully apply for $4.7 million in federal funding, which was critical for creating 157 housing opportunities for youth and young adults experiencing homelessness. Since 2018, Liberty Mutual has committed $24 million towards the issue, largely in Boston.

As a result of these collective efforts, the number of young people experiencing homelessness in Boston has dropped 44%. This collaborative approach is the reason this effort has been so successful — because it included so many voices and so many experts—particularly young people with lived experience.

Internally, another example that comes to mind is our Liberty Torchbearers program, where we provide employees the opportunity to serve annually in the community during work hours, volunteer on their own time to earn nonprofit mini-grants, and give to nonprofits that mean something to them, while earning a 100% company match with no upper limit. 

What differentiates Torchbearers is that even as we use it to drive organizational cohesion around giving back, we center it on individuality and inclusivity at its core. We’re all different, and we’re all in different seasons of our lives; we all give, volunteer, and serve differently from one another. If you’re a working parent and your way of giving back is volunteering your time during the workday, you can be a Torchbearer; if you’re at a different stage in your career and don’t have as much time to volunteer, but do have the resources to donate, you can be a Torchbearer. Or if you’re a manager and you really want to infuse service in some sort of team building, you and your team can engage in a community project together as Torchbearers. 

Having a framework that is inclusive and respectful of the different places and stages of people’s lives makes Torchbearers such a positive and impactful program.

One last initiative comes to mind: We’ve pulled together a cross-functional team within the company to explore how we can bring to bear the unique strengths of Liberty Mutual on behalf of our neighbors most disproportionately impacted by climate change.  So we’ve been inventorying our expertise on the corporate side and listening and learning from our community leaders so we can accelerate, enhance, and advance climate resiliency first in Boston and then beyond.

Our hope is that this work will tap into the best of who we are, and what we do. We have expertise, we have technologies we’re constantly creating for our customers, and there’s so much that can be transferred into our community.

Behrman, NationSwell: To which leadership practices do you most attribute your effectiveness?

MacDonnell, Liberty Mutual: I live with a very deep sense of urgency on behalf of our neighbors. I feel strongly about the needs in our community, and I feel deeply about the people whose voices aren’t always heard. I also believe in the goodness of my colleagues. Together, we can meet this sense of urgency and do everything we can to advance social good. 

Behrman, NationSwell: Who are the peers that you admire and what are some resources – a book, podcast, article, etc. – that inspire  you?

MacDonnell, Liberty Mutual: I admire Jill Shah, the president of the Shah Family Foundation, and Ross Wilson, their executive director. I love the work they do. Not only are they generous givers, but they add tremendous value to community discussions and to the field of philanthropy.

A company I admire is UPS. I love how they’ve used their “superpowers” especially their expertise with distribution in times of crisis: the way that they responded to COVID, getting different services out to people as well as their activation during natural disasters. They’re there, they jump on it, and they do what they do so well in their business. 

In literature, there’s a book by Phil Buchanan called Giving Done Right. I really appreciate his point of view, and his warnings about the power dynamics of philanthropy. George Serafeim’s Purpose and Profit is also a terrific work I strongly recommend. It’s such an interesting book jam-packed with real-life cases. I have also learned a lot by Bill Gates’ How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.  In fact, I’m reading it for a second time right now!

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To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub.

At a moment of unprecedented attention, investment, and opportunity for the emerging field of ESG, leaders are asking: Who is best preparing their organization for the society of the future? Who is innovating today to meet decades-long environmental and social goals? Who is setting standards that catalyze their industry’s change for the better? Who is defining what bold and aspirational look like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of investors, executives, authors, philanthropists, social sector leaders, academics, and field builders who are helping to shape business as a force for social and environmental progress, advancing — and even pioneering — the most forward-thinking and effective programs, initiatives, technologies, methodologies, practices, and approaches.

For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Shamina Singh, Founder and President of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and Executive Vice President of Sustainability at Mastercard. We spoke with Singh about the “S” in ESG, her commitment to continued learning and service, and the power of leaning into the urgency of the moment.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: How would you make sense of this moment in ESG? 

Singh, Mastercard: It’s an exciting time for sure, but it’s a time that’s born out of crisis. We face monumental climate issues and rampant income inequality on a global scale. This moment demands that practitioners maintain focus on what we’re genuinely aiming to solve.

It’s encouraging to see everyone across the spectrum trying to figure out how to get it right; but as investors, companies, politicians, and governments are all grappling with what ESG means for them, we have to remember that each group has its own unique incentives and roles. The task at hand is balancing these different perspectives, creating a unified approach, and maintaining urgency among lots of different stakeholders. 

Behrman, NationSwell: How is the field of ESG evolving? What’s next?

Singh, Mastercard: What comes next is the private sector continuing to navigate an increasingly dynamic regulatory environment. Between the EU and the US, requirements for measuring corporate climate impact will require greater resourcing and administrative attention. At the same time, more communities are experiencing climate change directly and in real time, managing mitigation and adaptation simultaneously. It’s that intersection of climate change and the related economic impact that’s on the agenda now.

There’s broad agreement about how we measure an organization’s environmental factors and impact, but we’re still in the sense-making stage when it comes to social factors. Current measures don’t capture the impact of private sector initiatives like financial inclusion, relief and aid tied to the war in Ukraine, and the development of COVID-19 vaccines. The thinking about how to measure what businesses do in the social impact space keeps changing, so even companies that have been doing this work for a while face the shifting challenge of how to capture and report their impact. 

Looking forward, there’s an opportunity to embrace standardization around the ‘S.” If we don’t, and if it continues to shift, there’s a chance that practitioners might deprioritize these efforts, particularly as the regulatory focus on environmental factors continues.

We can apply the best practices that have been used to standardize environmental factors to communicate social impact measure — and that’s one of the things we’re proposing at the Center for Inclusive Growth: a framework for the social factors that mirrors the environmental, which might help companies and other stakeholders to tell their story around the ‘S’ as clearly as they do around the ‘E.’  

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol Corporate Standard offers a model. In this protocol, Scope 1 covers the emissions that companies directly control, Scope 2 covers emissions associated with a company’s energy consumption, and Scope 3 covers the indirect emissions generated through the company’s supply chain.  We could use a parallel structure for social impact standards. Scope 1 could include the direct social impact of a company’s policies on its own employees. Scope 2 could account for how a company’s core competencies – like products, services, and work within supply chains — address societal challenges. And Scope 3 could encompass philanthropic giving, grants, and other community investments. 

This is a conceptual starting point, but the idea is to create a framework that quantifies the work companies are doing that provide a positive benefit to society.

Behrman, NationSwell: What’s unique about the work you’re leading? What are some approaches, strategies, or practices you’re deploying that other field builders should have visibility into?

Singh, Mastercard: There are three aspects of our work I’d like to call out. 

First is the unique framework we’ve established around creating impact. Though the Center is housed within Mastercard, we conduct independent research. It’s important to build our programs on an independent evidence base. The goal is to understand and utilize the assets of the company for social and environmental benefit, and to share that approach with the world. For us, this involves identifying and using Mastercard’s resources to progress toward these ends, and then ensuring our corporate activities are informed by these crucial issues. It’s the recognition that our business success depends on a healthy planet with an inclusive economy, and that we do well by doing good.

Secondly, as a company with extensive data assets, we recognize that data science can be harnessed for better decision-making—but unfortunately, social sector organizations are not building data capacity at a rate that will allow them to capitalize on a new data economy. 

In 2019, we established a program dedicated to building the field of data science for social impact. This initiative aims to enhance the social sector’s capacity to harness the power of their data. In partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation, we created data.org—an organization dedicated to building data science capacity around the world. Our aim is to close the information inequality gap, the growing divide between those who have data and those who don’t.

The third highlight is our focus on small businesses through a global initiative called Strive. We know that small businesses are the engines of the economy, and we are putting our assets to work to support their success. Strive supports businesses with a propensity for growth, and we focus our support in three areas: capital, digital transition, and market access. 

Behrman, NationSwell: Tell us about the Center for Inclusive Growth. How has it evolved?

Singh, Mastercard:  In modern corporate America, social impact isn’t always treated as a central business strategy. The Center for Inclusive Growth seeks to change that narrative by harnessing our company’s resources to generate meaningful change, primarily through a focus on financial inclusion. 

We founded the Center with clear principles for our work, all of which is rooted in evidence-based methods for applying the insights, impact, influence, and investments we have at our disposal.

Thinking about ESG, the Center’s role grows more critical. Many companies have a c3 foundation or an impact fund along with their primary business. The Center brings together these elements and helps determine the most effective application for philanthropic capital and business assets. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What leadership practices have helped you operate effectively?

Singh, Mastercard: I act upon the deep sense of urgency that I feel. It’s simply not acceptable to me that people are suffering, particularly in a world that’s rich with technology, medical advancements, and information. Yet, these resources aren’t being shared widely enough.

You see this sense of urgency reflected in the Center’s philosophy of creating networks. The premise is simple: One’s place of birth shouldn’t dictate their life’s trajectory. This concept of mobility resonates deeply with me. I believe everyone should have the opportunity to fulfill their potential.

Behrman, NationSwell: Is there anything you’ve read, watched, or listened to that has inspired your leadership?

Singh, Mastercard: There’s a book by Sendhil Mullainathan called Scarcity that has profoundly influenced my thinking. The book offers a nuanced and illuminating view on poverty, showing that people with limited resources are often excellent decision-makers because, from necessity, they’ve learned to operate in an environment of scarcity, not abundance. The goal then should not be to instruct them on what they should do, but to help them expand their bandwidth and time.

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To learn more about how our ESG Next honorees are shaping business as a force for social and environmental good, visit the series hub. Mastercard is a NationSwell Institutional Member. To learn more about membership in NationSwell’s community of leading social impact and sustainability practitioners, visit our site.