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ESG Next: An Interview With George Serafeim, Harvard Business School Professor of Business Administration

Posted on by Greg Behrman

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 work looks like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of social impact and sustainability leaders who are shaping 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.

Greg Behrman, NationSwell CEO and founder, sat down with George Serafeim, Charles M. Williams Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and author of “Purpose and Profit: How Business Can Lift Up the World,” to discuss the current state of the field of ESG, why criticism of the field — even bad faith or partisan criticism — can be a good thing, and the integral ways that purpose and profit depend on one another. Here’s what he had to say.

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Was there a moment in your life that drove you to purpose-driven work?

George Serafeim, Harvard Business School: Growing up in Athens, Greece, I witnessed the golden years of our country — years marked by a tremendous amount of growth. But at the same time, I witnessed that if you don’t have transparency in a system, then you don’t have accountability — and if you don’t have accountability, you actually don’t have meritocracy. I witnessed  all the bad outcomes that come from that lack: a 25% decline in gross domestic product, a lot of people losing their livelihoods and their quality of life, a lot of people going into unemployment, and, as a result, a tremendous amount of pain.

Witnessing that has shaped my belief that transparency is extremely important for building accountability — and therefore meritocracy — in society. I think historically, we in America have had very little transparency about the extent to which organizations are impacting the environment and society around them. For me, it was almost like connecting dots — it led to a lot of my work around creating measurement, and metrics, and increased levels of transparency because once you can measure stuff, then you can start building momentum and unleashing waves of innovation that can improve outcomes.

That has been the story of ESG in the last decade.

Behrman, NationSwell: As you think about this field of ESG, where are we now? How do you assess this current moment?

Serafeim: There was no field of ESG a few years ago — and that is very important to recognize because when you create a field, you’re also trying to educate people about the need for a field. And then you scramble to put a field together using the best available tools that you have, the best data that you have, the best frameworks, the best models, the best learnings, the best of everything. Much like product development, you have a minimum viable product (MVP) of a field.

In the beginning phase, there would be people at an organization responsible for ESG and sustainability, and they might not even be in the right places in terms of organizational structure. Think about a tech company where the tech people have no idea what’s happening on the sustainability side.

But now we’re a step or two past this MVP stage, and we actually understand what works and what doesn’t, and we have an understanding of what we need to do to improve it, and improve the infrastructure around it. ESG is more and more incorporated into what an organization does, its core products and services. We’re creating guardrails around what the field of ESG should be. Now it’s a matter of actually improving the field.

Behrman, NationSwell: Does it advance us past the MVP stage to incorporate ESG throughout the core of the organization, as opposed to as an ancillary appendage?

Serafeim: Absolutely. It requires a different mindset. It requires us to ask, “How can we make a profit by having a more positive impact on the world?” instead of treating profit and purpose as disparate entities wherein we’d be asking ourselves how we can distribute the profit that we’ve already created based on some ESG consideration.  

The evolution in thinking we need actually requires ESG to be integrated into the important functions of our organization — it is an entirely different mindset.

Behrman, NationSwell: What is the next big step we have to take as a field — and how do we unlock it?

Serafeim, HBS: The first step is a systemic level of impact measurement and evaluation. We need to get to a world where we actually have comparable, reliable, and relevant impact measurement and evaluation inside organizations. This is what we have been working on with impact-weighted accounts. We also need more collaboration across organizations. Many of the environmental and social challenges that we’re facing require collaboration across multiple companies, across value chains, so that needs to happen more. 

Behrman, NationSwell: Are impact-weighted accounts the answer to systematic evaluation and measurement — or does it need further development?

Serafeim, HBS: I think it still needs further development, for sure. So, as context, we created the idea of impact-weighted accounts about two and a half years ago. And now, it is an idea that has spread worldwide, from the United States to China. And we’re seeing the idea of impact-weighted accounts applied in companies, in investment firms, by policy makers in cities and municipalities, everywhere around the world. I don’t know if it will be the ultimate solution, but I do know that it is a step in the right direction, where we need to systematically measure the environmental and social outcomes that we’re creating, and the value of those outcomes. We need to understand the value that we’re achieving because allocating scarce resources is a very difficult task, and that understanding would help us to prioritize those resources. 

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some takeaways from “Purpose and Profit” that help advance the way that the field’s leaders think about ESG

Serafeim, HBS:  I wrote this book because when I reflect back on my experience, I think we went from a world where very few people that went into business were asking, “What is the purpose of business? What is the purpose of me, specifically, going into business?” 

I have witnessed a tremendous amount of change, and I’m fortunate to be sitting in a seat where I observe hundreds of young people going into business every year, and whose decisions about their careers are being guided by the central questions of, “How can I make a difference? What is the impact that I will have?”

So, I wanted to write the book around two questions. The first one is, “What has changed?” And the second one is, “What can I do about it as an individual?”  I think there are many people that are extremely competent at telling other people what to do, but the most important question to me as an individual, manager, entrepreneur, young person — whatever that might be — it’s always about what I can do within my own organization. And as a result, the book is focused on both trying to understand what has changed, and how I should think about those issues within the context of my own individual career. 

This is what brought me to profit and purpose. I put them together because purpose is extremely important: it motivates action, and it energizes people.  But at the same time, the pursuit of profit is also very, very important because in business, if you actually cannot be profitable, then you won’t be in business for a long time, and you will fail the people you’re serving, to whom you have promised to deliver impact. Profit allows you to scale up, hire more people, create jobs, and provide products. So, the question is: How do we take them both together,  balance them out, and ensure we have a great mix of the two?

The business environment has changed in pretty significant ways. Technology has been a fundamental driver of that change in the operating context. Let’s look at employees. If you go back 30 years ago and you were trying to find a job in a completely different state, that was quite challenging, right?  But now, because of advancements in technology like LinkedIn, you would be able to actually make a choice that was not available to you before.

The same is true for consumers: not only has choice changed, but voice has, too. Now, most of the competitiveness of organizations is actually driven by things like social capital, the trust that you have from society to the brand that you’re offering; intellectual capital, the collective ingenuity of all your employees; and of course, human capital and natural capital as well. As a result, because of all of those more intangible assets that businesses depend on, the voice of people — of consumers, employees, and stakeholders — has become a really important driver of strategic decision-making and value inside organizations.

My book also gives guidance to readers about actions they can take to align their convictions and values with their careers. As an example, if you are extremely passionate about addressing an environmental issue like climate change, or a social issue like diversity and inclusion, you have some choices. The first one is: you can choose to find employment in a place that maximizes the alignment of your purpose to begin with — like an environmentally conscious person choosing to work with a solar energy company. Individuals making choices like this value that level of alignment right from the beginning. 

Others might choose to join organizations where the level of alignment might be low in the beginning, but what they actually value is the rate of change. These people might join a traditional energy company and you try to make a difference by changing that company. We all make different choices and we need to be thinking about those parameters in a systematic way when we think about our own individual purpose and impact at the workplace.

Behrman, NationSwell: There’s political pushback against ESG, and there’s measures of skepticism towards ESG from various quarters of the investment community. Does this criticism impede progress, or is there a world in which all of this is helpful, that the pushback sharpens folks and helps them pressure test their ambitions?

Serafeim, HBS: It would be a shame if the field of ESG becomes a partisan political issue. I view it as a field of development, where it actually becomes part of our management and our governance, that people incorporate into their career pathways — that leads to organizations collectively seeing more positive outcomes.  To me, that is not a Democratic or a Republican issue, it’s a human aspiration issue.

Now, I know that many people view it as a political issue, and it would be a shame if we cannot actually shake it and say, “This is about human aspirations, and how we move forward, and how we actually improve real outcomes.”

When it comes to criticism, there’s lots of it that is quite helpful to advancing the field of ESG. I have written papers that could be construed as a criticism of ESG because I think we should improve things — if you don’t criticize it, how else can you improve?

That said, there are criticisms of ESG that are driven by incentives, personal agendas, and misconstructions of what a concept might be.  I would separate those out because I don’t think they’re helpful, and they serve very specific purposes. But taking a step back from those, the fact that there’s criticism is a good thing because it means interest in the field is peaking, that it’s making a difference, because if it’s not, nobody would care. So the fact that there’s pushback, helpful and unhelpful, means that after a long period of time ESG is finally really affecting things.

For anyone working in an administration position in an organization, it’s important to filter the criticism, keep the good ones that actually can be helpful in improving your organization, filter out the ones that are not helpful, and then feel good about the fact that there’s any criticism at all — because it means the field is actually making a difference. 

Behrman, NationSwell:  Who are some of the ESG practitioners whom you admire?

Serafeim, HBS: Social Finance, led by Tracy Palandjian, is an organization that for me is incredible, it’s amazing the amount of work that they have been doing there. We’re working with another organization, the Value Balancing Alliance out of Germany, they are an incredible organization as well.  

I have been impressed by many people, and one of my personal favorites is Sir Ronald Cohen. The fact that he has been able to be a serial social entrepreneur catalyzing the whole impact investing movement and going strong for 50 years with the conviction and the vision to drive forward things that — for many people — look unimaginable or impossible.

Ilham Kadri, the CEO of Solvay, is someone that has always deeply impressed me. Her vision around sustainability, advanced materials, and how we can actually use technology in science to move forward is something that I have admired a lot. 

Sarah Williamson at FCLT is a pragmatic, collaborative leader who has really made a difference when it comes to how large institutions everywhere around the world are thinking about the issues of long-term prosperity.

And I’d round that out with some scholars and academics: Harvard Business School’s previous and current deans, Nitin Nohria and Srikant Datar, who both demonstrate an enormous amount of intellectual rigor and capacity to implement and visualize the future with conviction for where a long established legacy organization like Harvard Business School needs to go. Lastly, Rebecca Henderson is one of the most important global scholars of our age. I’ve learned a lot from them.

There are so many great organizations and practitioners — I would say what they usually say, that it takes a village, is just so true when it comes to that. We’re talking about system change, and system change takes a lot of people.

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

ESG Next: An Interview With Rose Stuckey Kirk, Verizon Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Officer

Posted on by Greg Behrman

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 work looks like — and how best to advance that work in practice?

Enter NationSwell’s ESG Next, an exemplary group of social impact and sustainability leaders who are shaping 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.

To kick off the series, Greg Behrman, NationSwell’s CEO + founder, interviewed Rose Stuckey Kirk, Chief Corporate Social Responsibility Officer at Verizon, who talked to us about the importance of professionalizing the field of ESG, the false premise that leaders have to choose between business opportunity and social good, and the art of “walking the halls” of your company to achieve internal buy-in on your impact initiatives. 

Greg Behrman, CEO + Founder, NationSwell: Is there a defining life experience or circumstance that drew you to social impact and sustainability work?

Rose Stuckey Kirk, Chief of Corporate Social Responsibility, Verizon: I grew up in a small, somewhat rural community in Arkansas, about 60,000 people at the time. My neighborhood was comprised of people who looked out for each other. If I was on my front porch when I was a little girl, I could hear the neighbors next door on their front porch. And I could hear the adults having very interesting conversations as they discussed ways to solve the issues of the city. At the same time, they were also keeping an eye out for the kids playing outside. I remember many times when an adult would pause mid-sentence and yell at someone else’s kid to course-correct their behavior.

So I grew up with this sense of the porch as a place where interesting conversations happen, where people were looking not inward, but outward; and looking outward meant sharing big ideas about the community and the world.  

All of that shaped my approach to what I do, and how I think about the world at large and communities in particular.  At a basic level, I believe we all have a responsibility to each other and a responsibility to lift up our communities.

Despite this belief, when I was building my corporate career, I had my hard hat on. It was all about P&L, and taking on really big challenges, and driving revenue, and managing sales forces, and managing union employees.  

And so when I ended up with the opportunity to focus on corporate social responsibility, it wasn’t called ESG — it was more like your company had a philanthropic arm — I was asked to take that on and make it more central and core to the strategy of Verizon.

I came into it with an agreement that it was just going to be a two-year gig, and I could go do something else afterward. But I ended up really falling in love with it because I saw so much opportunity, and so much of a space where we could think through where the world is going, where society is going, and what has to undergird decisions that we make in the business space that drive revenue — decisions that we need to make to connect our societal arm to that same space.  I remember so many conversations with one of our former CEOs encouraging me to move back into the P&L function of the business, but I honestly had no interest. I had found my happy place. 

Behrman, NationSwell:  You’ve been a leader and practitioner of ESG for some time now, and you’ve seen interesting ebbs and flows in the field. What is your assessment of this moment? How do you make sense of where we are? What are the biggest opportunities? What are the biggest watch outs or challenges about the current moment?

Kirk, Verizon: I think for anyone who has been in this field for a while, it is probably the dream that we all wanted — for this space to be viewed as important and central to a company and its strategy. But how we professionalize this space at this moment is really important:  When we hire an attorney or a lawyer, we expect a level of education or schooling, and that they have been a practitioner; when we hire an accountant, we have the same expectation. I believe that the space needs that same level of qualifications, that we are clear about how we build these ESG strategies, and that all of it is aligned with our business strategy.

It means not putting people in these roles whose qualification is their passion for purpose-driven work, but putting people in who are really capable of building qualified, scalable, measurable, authentic work. 

The big watch out of the current moment is that we’re being held accountable. Regulators are asking, “What are these targets? What are you guys talking about? What is really real here?” The sustainability space is under attack and many companies are beginning to do green-hushing. The amount of shareholder proposals and challenges to the work is mounting at a fast rate. But from my vantage point, all that is saying is that companies need to see this work and category as a professional aspect of their business. 

Collectively, this space and this scrutiny is about holding companies accountable. Authenticity matters. And that means not touting how great you are for the planet if your business and operations aren’t aligned with that; don’t jump on the racial justice bandwagon if you’re not willing to hold your leadership accountable for execution throughout the organization. I love how disciplined Verizon is about these things. We’re not fans of moonshot targets. We’re all about doing what we say and holding ourselves accountable.  

I think I drive people crazy in my ecosystem by asking, “What’s the target? What are we solving for? Was this good? Was it not? Is this a good use of time and money?” Because you can’t say after the fact it was good. You have to have everybody aligned on what we’re achieving, and then demonstrate that it was good against that set of objectives. And I’m really disciplined around that approach.

Behrman, NationSwell: How is your work at Verizon helping to professionalize the field? 

Kirk, Verizon: The first thing is the staff that I have hired. My team is comprised of experts from the education, environmental, social innovation, marketing, and finance space. It’s really interesting watching them do their jobs. They approach the work from a real customer-centric, insight-driven space. Then, those insights are used to actually create programs that align with our overarching business strategy at Verizon. 

The second thing is the manner in which Verizon investigates our work and holds us accountable for understanding issues across the spectrum, aligning the work with the priorities of the business, driving real outcomes, and demonstrating the true impact of the work. There is a strong emphasis on auditing the work and the outcomes that we communicate. Our disciplined approach to managing cost-per-program, evaluating the outcomes from our partners, and moving partners along a delivery continuum is truly best-in-class. 

The third approach is the need to really understand how Verizon makes money and the role that our work plays in contributing to that.  The work that we do requires a level of discipline across our entire ecosystem. As a result, the partners who work with us are finding that they are leveling up as well. Take for example our work in education: If you are one of our partner schools, the level of technology integration we require to be incorporated into our schools — everything from 5G labs to new 5G applications — requires our partners to aggressively enhance their understanding of edtech and the school districts to enhance their IT and other technology departments. I think this latter point shows how you can extend and expand the professional development space because of your work. The majority of my education team comes from the sector. They have spent time in classrooms in vulnerable school districts. They understand the need, they get the pedagogy.

Behrman, NationSwell: How do you think about the relationship between business opportunity and social good? Do you start with one, and then think about the other?

Kirk, Verizon: I don’t know that you have to think about one before the other. You first should consider the company you work for, the assets you have, and how you can leverage them to drive societal good and potentially drive revenue. Honestly, this is easier to do when your offerings are tangible — think consumer goods. But, if you do the right level of insight work and partner well with the business, you’ll find your social innovation opportunities. 

I don’t want my team to ever be in a situation where they’re not valued. I don’t want them to be in a situation where they’re viewed as just fluff. I want really smart people that can inform the business, that are called into meetings because of their expertise, and that’s what I love. 

You must have a good strategy, the right staff, and then you’ve got to “walk the halls” to get buy-in to your strategy at the top of the house, and then be hyper-focused on outcomes. I work out of a big building with 3,000 people in it with really, really long hallways. And I used to tell my team, “I’ve got to go walk the halls, and I’ve got to get the CFO to buy into this, or, “I’ve got to get the marketing person to buy into it,” or, “I have to get IT to be willing to support it.”

When you build programs that have demonstrative measurable outcomes, you can show people the connective tissue.  Bear in mind that you might not be able to add the big, big value that you’re trying to add immediately, and it’s going to be a space where you need the business to buy into the time that it will take. But when you look at that, you’ve got to sit down and get inside of people’s heads with what they think about what you’re doing. 

I think often, people walk the hall and say, “Here’s my idea. Do you support it?” I tend to say,  “Here’s what I’m thinking of — tell me where there are holes and issues.” And I say that because one of the things I have found is that most people really like to build with you. They like to be collaborative if you give them the chance. In doing that, you get the watch outs.  When you do it up and down the value chain,  you are creating a space where people can engage and help you tie it more closely to the business.

If there’s an art to walking the halls; it’s making sure that you set a vision, you set a strategy, you know where you’re going, but you don’t sell it without getting the buy-in and without people being able to edit it. And what I love about doing that is by the time I get into the big room and the big meeting, everyone says, “Yeah. Yeah. I’m aligned. Yeah, Rose came and talked to me. She spent an hour with me on it. I’m aligned.” 

Behrman, NationSwell: What are some of the habits you practice that make you an effective leader?

Kirk, Verizon: I try to pay attention to the details. I know how this business makes money. I know where I can lean in and who I can go poke to get engaged. I’ve developed great relationships with the entire leadership table, and those are the direct reports of the CEO. I have a great relationship with the CEO. I know how to ask for help, and I know how to apply that help. And then I also know how to set a strategy, how to enable my team with the right tools, and then get the heck out of their way and let them be able to implement.

And I love it when they say, “Yeah, I hear you, but,” or, “You asked for this, but,” or, “Okay, you asked for this, but you couldn’t see these other 10 things, so I’m giving you something that’s even better than what you asked for.” And I love that. 

It’s about getting to a comfortable level in life where you can confidently get out of the way of your team, but not become disengaged, and not shrug off your responsibility so you’re still there to fight the good fight when it’s necessary. And so I think that that’s a little bit about the leadership style, and I’m so glad that it resonates across the business, and that people see that leadership, and that passion —  and my badassery when I have to be a badass.

I  also love challenging people to go places that make them feel uncomfortable and turn projects and initiatives upside down. Everyone grows as a result. 

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

Kirk, Verizon: I have stacks and stacks of books next to me, but I prefer to turn to my people for inspiration and insight. My team lets me know when my leadership style needs to be tweaked or fixed. It’s that learning and feedback I get from my peers: They will tell me when I need to hold back or rethink. And listening to my team and my peers, and watching the creativity that comes from them, to me is the best business lesson there is because it is real, and it is authentic, and it is helpful, and it is aligned with the world in which I live. 

And in terms of who I admire, when I first took over this role, I called Laysha Ward. Laysha is an executive vice president at Target.  I called Laysha because I had such respect for what Target was doing years ago. They set the standard for how to bring consumers into the work and to see value in it. Laysha did not know me. But, she took my call and was so generous with her time and advice. I’ll never forget that.  I have incredible respect for her and the legacy work that she did and that she continues to do. For me, your value is that you can leave a legacy; so much so that the next person who comes in behind you sees such an impact that they don’t drop your work and turn to something else, and others who once worked for you take your blueprint to other companies and duplicate your activity. That is real leadership. 

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

New NationSwell survey results show how private sector social impact leadership is evolving

Posted on Nick Cericola, Liesl Schnabel

This week, we published key results from NationSwell’s first annual social impact leadership survey. Based on responses from 47 individuals, including 17 that represent Fortune 500 companies, the findings contribute new – and occasionally unexpected – insights to our understanding of how social impact leadership is evolving.

As the private sector increases its focus on social and environmental impact, leaders in ESG, CSR, and related disciplines are navigating an inflow of new responsibilities and the increased attention of stakeholders. Employees, customers, C-suite, and investors all bring unique perspectives, incentives, and expectations to the table. And in a year like 2022, there was no shortage of issues for them to raise up. In the past 12 months, we have witnessed the onset of the Russia-Ukraine war, the highest daily case counts of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple mass shootings, deadly instances of extreme weather, and the repeal of Roe v. Wade – all followed closely by ever-louder calls for the private sector to speak out and step up. Social impact leaders are on the receiving end of those calls.

Through this survey, we were keen to better understand how leaders adapt their priorities and decision-making to meet the moment. Our research was guided by a few core questions – answers to which can provide guidance for social impact leaders as they embark on their work in 2023:

  1. How did leaders assess their organization’s social impact and their personal efficacy within their companies over the past year? While nearly 65% of leaders characterized the social impact environment as challenging over the past year, three-quarters (75%) were satisfied with their organization’s social impact. A similar proportion of respondents (72%) felt that they were individually quite influential over their organization’s social impact during the past year, indicating a high degree of alignment between assessments of individual and organizational performance. However, leaders felt less positively about their organizational response to social and political moments; only about half (58%) of leaders said their company’s response to social and political moments was strong, and even less (29%) felt “very” or “extremely” influential over the company’s response. 
  1. What were the most significant forces that changed the way social impact leaders approached their priorities and decision-making over the past year? A plurality of leaders (34%) found the continued presence of COVID-19 and affiliated workplace disruptions to be the most influential force on their work. In close second (26%), the Russia-Ukraine war had global repercussions that required repositioning of social impact priorities. Despite the pressure for companies to respond to the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade by expanding employee benefits and speaking out against the decision, very few leaders (9%) felt that this critical moment had a significant impact on their job-related priorities or strategies. 
  1. What did leaders do differently based on these forces, and why? Over the past year, most leaders (66%) changed their social impact priorities at least moderately, a slightly larger number than those who anticipate making at least moderate changes in the year ahead (55%). Almost half of leaders (45%) increased involvement with coalitions and peer groups in response to the conditions they faced in the preceding 12 months, indicating awareness of the power in collective action when confronted with ever-increasing social and environmental challenges. Reflecting relatively low confidence in their organization’s response to challenging social and political moments, 51% of leaders sought to build new or better frameworks for navigating those moments going forward.
  1. What are leaders anticipating the environment, their organizations, and their jobs to hold in store for the year to come? Overwhelmingly, leaders are pessimistic about how economic conditions will affect their work in the year to come. While almost half (47%) of leaders felt that economic conditions were a significant barrier over the past year, a considerably larger share (68%) anticipate economic headwinds in the next 12 months. This is by far their greatest anxiety. When asked what will increase their job-related confidence for the next year, nearly a third (30%) of leaders indicated a need for more personnel and 28% identified a need for a larger budget. The largest proportion of leaders (34%) responded that better data on their organization’s social impact would boost their confidence, and a similar number (28%) said the same for more clarity on their organization’s social impact vision and goals.

Our detailed analysis of these findings (and more) can be found in our full report. We encourage you to reach out with any questions, feedback, or personal insight you may have. 

An Interview With Kristen Bovid, Executive Director of Dow Company Foundation

Posted on by NationSwell Team

As Executive Director of the Dow Company Foundation, a NationSwell Institutional Member, Kristen Bovid leads Dow’s Business Impact Fund, an initiative that “designates corporate contributions toward new, business-aligned global citizenship initiatives that solve social problems through Dow’s technology and expertise.”

NationSwell spoke with Bovid about the specific ways that her work with Dow supports and advances social good, how the fund has evolved, its impact and more. 

NationSwell’s Anthony Smith: What is the Dow Business Impact Fund — and how does it help support and advance social good?

Kristen Bovid, Dow: We designed the Impact Fund to create shared value. It’s a competitive grant program for which employees are allowed to submit ideas annually, and we have more than $2 million to invest in these projects each year. The rest of our grant portfolio is more traditional philanthropy, and this fund is about making both social and business impacts. We’re looking for projects that create social good and align with our sustainability commitments.

NationSwell: What are some examples of partnerships you’re investing in, and what has the impact of those investments been?

Bovid, Dow: A recent project allowed us to team up with a major agricultural solution provider to empower Oliver’s Village, a nonprofit organization in South Africa, with gardens to support self-sustainable agriculture. This supported their efforts to build capacity revenue from their produce and become less reliant on donations. 

Oliver’s Village in South Africa

Another example is Project Yba, which is in Brazil. Dow has farmland in the rainforest, and the goal of this project was to help reinforce the concept that a standing tree is worth more than a fallen tree. To do that, we helped build up the opportunities and biodiversity mapping of our farm work alongside nonprofits and community members to allow them to access our farm in a safe and sustainable way. Working with the nonprofits, the community members learned how to extract some seeds from a tree, extract the oils and use that to sell it to major corporations, which generates sustainable income for the local communities while preserving the rainforest.

NationSwell: How do you choose grantees? What factors do you look for? What indicators do you look to?

Bovid, Dow: We invite employees to submit concept notes to describe their project ideas. Every year, we receive more concept notes than we can fund. We invite the project leads with the best ideas to provide a full proposal and presentation to the selection committee. Dow leaders representing different geographies, businesses and functions comprise the selection committee.

The Committee evaluates proposals based on social impact, the business impact for Dow, business/strategic alignment, implementation and risk, the strength of partners, measurement plan and alignment to Dow’s sustainability commitments. We consider all of those factors to decide which are the strongest projects. This year, we invested just over $2 million. This allows us to try a new model locally and see if it works. If it works, then we can invest further and scale it.

NationSwell: When the fund was started in 2016, it focused solely on water and plastic waste. How has that focus expanded? And what are your focus areas for 2022?

Bovid, Dow: We launched the Impact Fund focusing on specific Dow business units but quickly realized that the fund is flexible enough to create shared value with any of our businesses. We now allow any business – and any employee – to submit an idea for the Business Impact Fund.  These projects are opportunities for us to explore new, innovative ways to expand our markets and address critical social problems. Right now, we’re especially interested in projects that help support decarbonization.

NationSwell: How do you get internal buy-in on initiatives like the Impact Fund?

Bovid, Dow: When we first created the fund, it was challenging to convey our envisioned impact. We are fortunate that Dow is committed to creating social good and supports innovative ways to deliver new outcomes. We tried something new and now our Foundation board and business presidents see the impact a project can have on their business and society.

So far, the fund’s projects have achieved very promising outcomes:   928 jobs created; 10,695 MT materials recycled; 34,591 MT CO2 emissions avoided; >1.6MM people impacted. 

The fund allows businesses to test new models, deliver social impacts, and drive employee professional development. Once we award businesses a project, they truly start to understand the value of using Impact Fund investments to pilot an innovative idea. Often, after their project finishes, project leads go on to submit more ideas for the fund.

NationSwell’s membership program is built for leading corporations, philanthropies, and investment firms, designed to help leaders take their work in CSR, ESG, DEI, Impact Investing, Sustainability, and Philanthropy to the next level. For more information on NationSwell’s Institutional Membership community, visit our hub.

Announcing the Launch of “Fearless Philanthropy”

Posted on Amy Lee

On behalf of the NationSwell team, and all the hands that touched this work in ways big and small, I’m delighted to announce the launch of “Fearless Philanthropy: Driving Impact Through Innovation” —  an action-oriented report made possible by support from our friends at Wells Fargo Foundation.

The report makes eight clear recommendations for how heads of philanthropic organizations can take action to advance their work by adopting these expert-tested approaches. To surface these insights, NationSwell interviewed philanthropic leaders at Wells Fargo, American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, Amgen, Entrepreneurship Funders Network, Essex Community County Foundation, George Kaiser Family Foundation, Google.org, Lyft, and Salesforce. 

“Philanthropy’s role is to be the risk capital for impact — to lead the way for public policy and corporate action, and show what is possible,” Jenny Flores, Head of Small Business Growth Philanthropy at Wells Fargo Foundation, said to us. “For companies in particular, it’s not enough to have corporate responsibility initiatives siloed away in one department.  Societal impact needs to be an integral part of the core business strategy that every employee can take part in because it ultimately helps us to serve customers and communities better.”

We were so thrilled to work with Wells Fargo Foundation to bring this report together. Jenny and her team have been pushing the envelope on impact-driven innovation through corporate philanthropy. With so many converging global crises in the world today, now is the moment for philanthropy to be bold, and it was inspiring to speak to leaders that are stepping up and shifting towards more effective collaboration, greater business alignment, and deeper community engagement.

Download the report here.

Amy Lee is Managing Director of the NationSwell Studio

An Equitable Vision for Healthy Longevity as the Backbone of a Just Future

Posted on Dr. Erwin Tan

What if the people of the not-so-distant future valued older adults’ health outcomes as the assets they truly are? What if their governments forged deep partnerships with the private sector to implement policies and initiatives that support the equitable opportunities for vitality of older adults across racial, social, and economic lines so that all people don’t just survive longer — they actually thrive longer? What does the face of society look like when its systems and structures encourage people to engage, physically, socially, and mentally at every stage of life — including later life?

This isn’t a pipedream — it’s a possibility. The National Academy of Medicine’s roadmap plots for 2050 envisions a world whose people enjoy “healthy longevity,” a term which the academy defines as “when years of good health approach the biological life span, with physical, cognitive, and social functioning that enables well-being.”

Healthy longevity, the National Academy contends, isn’t just important for older people: it’s the backbone of their vision for a future where nations prosper because younger and older people work across the generational lines and solve challenges together, each one benefiting from the other’s skills, worldview, and way of working.  It’s a world in which individuals, families, communities, and societies flourish to their pull potential — and it’s only possible after decades of dedicated work prioritizing and advancing equity.

The National Academy’s roadmap contends that if we’re truly to build a future where healthy longevity is enjoyed by all, we must reduce disparity and drive equity by 2027 in order to be on track to achieve it by 2050. Heightening the urgency of taking action in the next five years, researchers for the academy emphasize that “by 2023, governments should establish calls to action to develop and implement data-driven, all-of-society plans for building organizations and social infrastructure needed to enable healthy longevity.”

Historically, increases like these in a society’s life expectancy occur in conjunction with lifespan equity — that is, similar lifespan across demographics. But achieving this vision of equity and healthy longevity doesn’t happen on its own — it requires purposeful, focused and, if societies are to hit their target of 2050, urgent action.

As part of AARP’s commitment to a world where generational equity and equity in healthy longevity advance in lockstep, we say: let’s move now to embolden the public, private, and non-profit sectors to work together to organize cross-sector plans of action to enable healthy longevity. 

Healthy Longevity will also require equity, and part of this call to action includes the collection of data on where local and geographic and racial disparities persist.  Many of the communities with the worst life expectancy may not be able to implement calls to action to advance healthy longevity without external support. Knowing where disparities exist must be followed by focused investments in communities who are experiencing the most disparities in healthy longevity. 

Acting on the Roadmap recommendations to address disparities now will catalyze a virtuous cycle of social and economic growth that sees young and older people working together to bolster economic activity. AARP’s Longevity Economy Outlook estimates $1.6 trillion in increased economic activity, 10.1 million more jobs, and $934 billion more in wages and salaries in 2030 alone if life expectancy disparities — like those that fall along racial lines — can be eliminated.

It’s clear from the data that investing in equitable health outcomes like life expectancy results in increased human capital, more opportunities for intergenerational mentorship, work, volunteering, and play. An investment in equity is an investment in the full economic potential of our nation: greater productivity, innovation, and capital gains starts with more people living longer, healthier lives.

Longevity Economy Outlook

The Longevity Economy outlooks are a series of data analyses from AARP that describe the contributions of Americans age 50-plus, worth over $9 trillion in 2018 and projected to grow to $26.8 trillion in 2050.  A recent Longevity Economy outlook report – Our Collective Future: The Economic Impact of Unequal Life Expectancy concluded that the annual economic cost to the U.S. GDP caused by disparities in life expectancy is expected to reach $1.6 trillion in 2030.  The current inequities in life expectancy could cost the U.S. around 10.1 million jobs and $934 billion in wages and salaries in 2030. That totals 5.1% of the projected GDP, which would be equivalent of the combined size of Massachusetts’ and Virginia’s economies in 2030. Additional key findings in the report include:

  • Disparities stifle economic growth, resulting in an annual loss of $1.1 trillion in total consumer spending in 2030. 
  • The U.S. could have 5.9 million more people in 2030, with 92% of these among the 50-plus cohort, if everyone had the same opportunities to live longer, healthier and more productive lives.
  • Inequities in life expectancy could cost the U.S. around 10.1 million jobs and $934 billion in wages and salaries in 2030.

Leadership and Lindy Hop: What dance can teach us about our management style

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

The makings of a great leader can be found in unexpected places and situations, often well outside the executive suite. To illustrate this point, NationSwell sat in on a conversation between Council members Roselinde Torres and Danny Richter to talk about the surprising ways that dance — Lindy Hop, to be specific — can sometimes be illustrative of an elegant and adept management style. 

Here are the top three takeaways from the conversation:

  1. Leadership, like dance, is more effective when you take time to learn the fundamentals — specifically, figuring out how to weave together expertise and connection.
  2. Stringing together six and eight-count dances is a bit like speaking a language that your partner intuitively understands — it won’t work unless you’re on the same page. Communication in a business setting functions in a similar way: Finding common ground and speaking the same “language” is integral to any fluid, successful work relationship.
  3. Just as every dancer has a distinctive style, every leader will leave a unique imprint on their teams, and understanding yours is crucial to your presentation. Having an intuitive spatial awareness helps you to move gracefully around the dance floor, and having an intimate self-awareness can help you carry that same grace forward in a leadership role.

Keep reading for the full interview.

Danny: I’m so excited to be having this conversation, and to be having it with Roselinde, because she has a lot more experience than I do in terms of leadership. 

Roselinde: I’ve been very interested over the past three years in finding non-traditional metaphors and analogies for leadership. Oftentimes when I work with leaders, it seems for some of them that great leadership is out of their reach — like it’s not something they have within themselves. What appealed to me about Danny’s instruction with the Lindy dance is that he’s coming from a place of demonstrating leadership in an everyday activity, to some extent. It’s a reinforcement that leadership is within all of us, within everyday people, we just have to see these examples. I hope people might use the Lindy hop analogy to look at their own leadership expression, to recognize that leadership is all around us.

Danny: I began swing dancing because it was fun, because I enjoyed it, so that was my entre into dance. As my career was progressing, I had more leadership expectations and started having reports — people who were reporting to me. As I was continuing to dance, it was almost by accident that I started to notice some of the parallels I’d observed since having learned how to swing that I could use in my evolving role as a leader. And the biggest thing that struck me was that Lindy Hop, and social dancing in general, was a good way to practice leadership that a lot of people think you can’t practice. I came to realize that it’s a real and fun way to practice, and I started being intentional about weaving in elements that expose me to different people and different styles. 

As you said, Roselinde, in my work I do talk with a lot of regular people — we have 200,000 people in our organization in every U.S. state, and I get up in front of them for long periods of time, 30 minutes at a time, and the spotlight is on me and I need to improvise answers to questions. That’s actually one parallel, is that mastery of fundamentals. The fundamentals of those dances — those six count, or those eight count steps — and then combining them in new and interesting ways that match with the person I’m dancing with. In my real job it comes from mastering the fundamentals of science, policy, and economics, and then really bringing them together to weave and connect to the person who’s asking the question and address what they’re asking.

The more people I talk with, the more people I dance with, the better I get at listening and figuring out more quickly where they’re coming from and what it is they’re looking for from me. So that’s where I start to see parallels between this really practical way of becoming better, not just as a Lindy Hop swing dancer, but also as a leader, as someone who’s expected to connect with people. 

Roselinde: Right off, the thing that I hear you describing is this notion of partnership — that you have a partner that you’re working with. Most leaders now have to build relationships with many different types of partners within the organization, and outside of the organization. And the question is, do you really have a sensibility for that partner? And also, how do you interact in a way that makes them want to keep dancing with you? 

Danny: I think one thing I come back to is that I think dance is a kind of language. I generally like and appreciate language, and the different perspective that the grammar of language forces upon you when you work in the way it enables me to get an insider’s perspective, I just find it fascinating. And it’s the same thing with Lindy Hop. When you think about it, those six and eight-count dances I mentioned earlier are like words or phrases that everybody knows, almost like a cliche. When you’re stringing those together, you’re talking, you’re creating sentences, and there’s the opportunity to tell jokes purely through dance. If they expect something and then you break with that expectation, there’s a surprise — I’ve had a silent dance, and then the follow I’m dancing with just breaks out in laughter because I told a “dance joke.” And I find that absolutely fascinating, that there’s this conversation, because there’s so much nuance about how people talk to each other. There are shades of meaning for different words, and there are shades of meaning for different dances, and for different moves. That will change depending on what song you’re dancing to, and there are certain songs that have different contexts because of the words. So if you break with what is expected in the context of that actual song, that can mean something different. 

There’s also this concept of musicality — that’s how well you’re listening to the song that you’re hearing, and how you respond. So if there’s a break in the song and you know that it’s coming and you actually break, it’s a lot more enjoyable. Not only are you two dancing together, you’re working well within the context in which you’re both operating. 

What I’ve come to learn is that it’s actually pretty rare to dance with a leader who can speak verbally while you’re having this dance dialogue. But that’s something I love to do, I love to be dancing and holding a conversation. And so that’s another way that I try to connect, really — how can I have fun while dancing with this person, and also get to know them? What are the topics I can cover, and can I get them to laugh, not just because of the fun of the dance, but also because of the conversation we’re having in 3-5 minutes. It really enables me to drill down into that emotion, and to connect quickly with people. In my line of work, people are so passionate about climate — how do I figure out what they care about so that I can make them feel heard?

Roselinde: I was thinking about the use of language in dance and how you convey that, and it reminded me of a time when I did a public domain leadership event where we had people come in from different functional disciplines, and I remember a conversation between a manufacturing engineer and a creative marketer who worked for a very edgy retailer. The two of them were talking about the notion of “process discipline”. And what was interesting was that even though it was the same phrase, it meant something completely different for each of them. And when they started describing what it meant for each of them, I still remember the face of the creative marketer who was horrified at these very precise steps and seemingly conforming structures being described by the manufacturing engineer as best practice.

So I think what that brings up, Danny, to reinforce what you’re saying, is that it really is important to think about the language, the meaning of the words, for that individual, or that team that you’re trying to connect with as a leader. You can’t presume that your language is their language. You can get it from listening, you can watch feedback to see what’s resonating or what isn’t, but I also think it’s about what you said about how sometimes it’s just a matter of asking — asking questions, asking if we’re on the same page with what we’re describing. I always suggest that if people are going to do homework, to include some homework when they’re going to interact with a constituency that they may not know. A lot of times, having worked across the corporate sector, nonprofit groups and government institutions, I’d see these groups interacting with each other for various purposes, and I would always say, you really want to do your homework to see, what is that language, what is that paradigm or mental model for the way they think about time and decision-making and what matters and their values? Doing that up front, rather than just winging it and then “stepping in it” upon your first interaction and making a negative first impression which is very hard to undo.

The other thing you made me think about was the notion of leadership energy. What is the energy exchange that you get? I think energy is more aura than it is charisma, or I think it’s more resonant than it is a rational thing to describe. I imagine when you’re dancing, you’re putting yourself out there for people who want to have an experience, but then they give you something back, and that’s what informs what you choose to do.

Danny: I think that’s where the accents come in. For example, in Washington, D.C., one of the most fundamental forms of Lindy Hop is the swing out, and people in DC dance a very round swing out. But I learned in San Diego, and I learned a very linear swing out, and honestly sometimes that accent is still something I struggle with. If you go up into Baltimore, a 45-minute drive away, it’s more linear, and so there can really be these interesting accents. What you were just saying about the aura, what you leave behind, that takes us back to our original conversation of challenging you to think about what your leadership imprint is. I know what my swing dancing imprint is: I’m an energetic dancer, I’m a very stomp-y dancer. But I think that’s also a great invitation to think about what you want people to come away with as a leader in a professional context. You can think about this with music in general: We listen to music because of the way it makes us feel. I’d be interested in hearing more about what other advice you give to people on what their leadership imprint, their stamp is?

Roselinde: The notion of the imprint came up for me because I would see a dissonance where I would have a conversation with a leader in their office and then we’d go out and interact with their team or the public or whomever and for some people there was a dissonance between who they were privately and who they were publicly. And sometimes I would ask them, what do you think their experience of you was there? And most of them were unaware, either because they were more focused on themselves or nervous or focused on getting to the content of what they were delivering. And then the other place we really spent a lot of time was on new leaders. I worked with a lot of new CEOs and Presidents of organizations, people who were going to take on a new role, and I would say, you can either just let it happen — just spontaneously, whatever comes out — or you can be more intentional. If you have certain things about yourself that you want other people to experience so you know that when they have a conversation with you, it’s not only what you lead them with, it’s also what they experience in the moment. 

So people would say, well I want them to feel me as being very collaborative and open-minded, and then you’d observe their conversation and it would be dissonant because they were doing all the talking. So I think the imprint idea is, what is the experience that you deliberately create, and can you actually have elements of your imprint reinforce that.

I’ve had the benefit of watching multiple generations of leaders, and those imprints actually stay with people. You can trace it all the way through different leaders and different configurations. Coming back to the dance analogy, I’m going to bet that if you’re dancing with someone and they experience something while dancing with you that delights them or awes them or makes them feel like, ‘wow, that’s really a cool move,’ that they’re probably going to share that with other people. They’re probably just going to put that into their repertoire and keep sharing it.

Danny: You were talking about the level of self-awareness you need to have, and there are lots of ways you can practice this. One of the things I do is dance with people who are below my skill level, and I always ask, ‘would it be alright if I try to teach you something?’ Because a lot of times, people don’t want to do that. So that self-awareness that people don’t want to learn, they’re just there to have fun, but also just where your body is. If they’re way more skilled than me, I try to move out of the way and give them breaks so that they can show off and be the star of our partnership. It comes back to this idea of listening being so important, in dancing and in leadership.

And that awareness needs to extend in a physical sense as well. One of the easiest ways to just totally make sure someone has a bad time is to send them into a wall or another person. You need to not just have awareness of where you are and where they are, but also what’s coming at you. You need to just have general awareness of what’s going on. 

Roselinde: I think from now on I’m going to quote this notion of “sending somebody into a wall,” because how many leaders have done that unintentionally? I think the other aspect of sending someone into a wall may be emotional sometimes. Maybe not physically pushing, but the same principles apply, right? What is going on around you, and are you paying attention? Sometimes you may have a conception of reality that’s very different from what another person’s is, so you’re going along and you’re doing whatever, but in their reality, they just hit a wall, a psychological wall, an emotional wall, whatever. So it’s obviously unintended, you don’t want to intentionally send someone there. 

Danny: I do want to pick up on one thing Roselinde just said, about sending people into an emotional wall. There are some things that I learned very early on in dance, including the fact that there are leads and there are follows. Generally speaking, men are leads, generally speaking, women are follows, but there are many women who have led and many men who have followed. One of the things I check up on is, how do I make sure that women who are choosing to dance as a follower are in power? One of the things that they emphasize is that you can just say no. There’s an important element of power in swing dance that should be really fundamental in any conversation, but in terms of throwing people into a wall, one thing I’ve seen many times is you get people in your class who have just learned the pretzel, or they’ve just learned how to do aerials, and they really want to try them out but they’re kind of dangerous. You almost never see aerials in social dancing, you’ll see them in competitions, but those are the things that you really need to ask for, that you can’t do without permission. So that’s another way you can avoid that emotional wall — if you’re consistently saying, let’s do this thing, let’s do this new thing I learned, I want to try it, but your partner says ‘nope,’ they can end the dance right there and just walk away. So there is this element of power that you can get at with dance as well, and there are parallels — not just for leadership, but also in life.

Roselinde: It’s interesting, I hadn’t even thought about the notion of gender roles in the traditional frame of dancing, but I do like this idea of aerials. Sometimes if you’re going to do something extraordinary that’s never been done before — and after all leadership is about guiding people to a place they probably have not been, or they want to go but don’t quite know how to get there — I do think leaders will be asking permission to do “aerials” from time to time. So I do think allowing teams to say no, they don’t want to do it, is important, and maybe there are other ways to build confidence.

I’ve used this term ‘confidence currency,’ which is the transfer of a currency of belief. That people believe they can do something, when you equip them with the skills, resources, capabilities, backups, constituencies, to do it. I do think aerials are fantastic, and it’s often a task of leadership to do something extraordinary by identifying and supporting those who can do the aerials.  If it was easy, or common, everyone would be doing them, right? 

NationSwell is an award-winning social impact company that assists changemakers, thought leaders and purpose-driven business executives as they drive social impact at scale. Through a robust membership community and the nation’s leading social impact studio, NationSwell supports these impact leaders on a range of our world’s most pressing issues. Learn more here.

NationSwell Fellows Program: Where Young Leaders Level Up

Posted on NationSwell Team

NationSwell is launching its first fellowship program, NS Fellows, sponsored by the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact. The NS Fellows program aims to provide the network, support, and knowledge to help young leaders level up their environmental and social impact. Over the course of ten months, the Fellows will work to refine an individual social impact project, connect with established leaders in their field, build upon their expertise of environmental and social issues, and co-design the program in its inaugural year.  

We are proud to announce the seven young leaders who were chosen as Fellows in the first year of the NS Fellows program: Uma Agrawal, Thea Gay, Sophia Kianni, Saadhvi Mamidi, Sarah Miller, Sydney Claire Neel, & Safiyah Zaidi. These young leaders stood out with their immense passion for their environmental and social issue areas of focus, demonstration of leadership in the field, and focus on the importance of intersectionality. As social impact trailblazers, they work on a range of issue areas including climate justice, healthcare access, disability rights in the workplace, racial justice, & more. We can’t wait to see what these Fellows will achieve over the next ten months! Meet our inspiring Fellows:

Uma Agrawal

Health and Design Coordinator from California, working to create equitable healthcare pathways through innovative systemic change for underserved communities

She is driven to find ways to make healthcare equitable and accessible and is currently helping build a “digital front door” with physicians, technology partners, and business leaders, that takes into account the diverse needs of underrepresented communities. With her passion for finding systemic solutions, she will capitalize on the network and tools of the program to design healthcare systems interventions that work to connect with the communities they serve.

Thea Gay

Recent college graduate from Florida, bridging the gap between climate justice and diversity, equity, & inclusion

She is laying the foundation for the next generation of advocates and focuses on intersectionality and greater representation of marginalized communities in social impact efforts. She will use the Fellowship to find creative solutions that tackle the compounding effects of colonization, racism, the patriarchy, and other oppressive systems, particularly when it comes to how climate change disproportionately affects historically marginalized groups.

Sophia Kianni

College student from Washington D.C., making climate change education globally accessible

She is the founder of Climate Cardinals, a youth-led nonprofit, which has translated over 50,000 words of climate information into 100 languages and serves as aUnited Nations Climate Advisor. She will be utilizing the NS Fellows program as a platform for building upon her Climate Cardinals work, using technology to solve climate-related issues.

Saadhvi Mamidi

College student from North Carolina, championing disability advocacy in the workplace

She is a co-founder of Bringing Occupational Accessibility in Teams (BOAT), which provides workforce development tools and resources for people with disabilities. She recently launched a podcast where she discusses how to make the workplace more accessible with other disability advocates, employers, and workers with disabilities. She’s going to use the Fellowship as a way to develop a stronger intersectional lens for her disability advocacy work and grow her podcast.

Sarah Miller

Project Specialist at United Way from Indiana, building climate & community resilience

They are intent on creating a greener and more resilient future for the State of Indiana, and have previous experience in climate action, community mobilizing, and building engaged partnerships. They plan to use their time in the Fellowship to build connections and grow their expertise, in order to build coalitions that will have a real impact on tackling community challenges, like poverty alleviation and climate change adaptation, more holistically in Indiana.

Sydney Claire Neel

College student from Institute of American Indian Arts, using storytelling to uplift the Indigenous experience

She is a Cherokee Nation citizen with a mission to tell the stories of her community as a way to advocate for their research and policy needs. She works with the Research for the Front Lines and the Graphix Project on equitable research. With her time in the program, she aims to build a network and support system for Indigineous women, driven by Indigenous women.

Safiyah Zaidi

Federal consultant in Washington D.C., advocating for policy change in healthcare for women and girls

She is a business analyst and assists federal agencies, working to make public services more accessible. She is also passionate about the health and wellbeing of Muslim women. She recently published a policy brief on the role of Medicaid-funded doula care to improve maternal outcomes for mothers in the South.

Learn more about the NS Fellows program and how you can be involved next year by clicking here.

NS Fellows is sponsored by the American Family Insurance Institute for Corporate and Social Impact, a venture capital firm and partner of choice for exceptional entrepreneurs who are building scalable, sustainable businesses in a long-term effort to close equity gaps in America. It also recognizes that capacity building and supporting organizations and experts that have been working toward social causes are equally important in making a positive impact within our communities around the country.