Topic: Strategy

How organizations structure for social good

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

On June 11, NationSwell convened a braintrust for members to dig into some of the most important currents shaping team and role structure and some of the organizational models that can help to support and sustain impact work.

Some of the key insights from the event appear below:

Key takeaways

Structure and reporting lines vary widely based on organizational strategy and maturity. Where impact teams report can depend on the maturity and strategic goals of the program, and reporting lines may need to evolve over time. Social impact and sustainability are often separate functions, reporting into different parts of the company (e.g., COO, operations, HR, or marketing). Placement of the function (e.g., under CLO, HR, or comms) often depends on program maturity and whether the organization is people-first, compliance-driven, or brand-focused. Several leaders reflected that reporting into HR, for example, enabled more access to talent systems, while legal provided early structural rigor.

Team composition trends toward generalists with both strategic and operational skills. Many teams are small, averaging around 8 to 10 people, and rely on generalists. Leaders expect individuals to handle a full range of activities: strategy, partnerships, metrics, and implementation. There’s a strong emphasis on hiring people who are both strategic thinkers and capable of hands-on work (e.g., activating events). 

Embedding impact within business strategy strengthens staying power. Teams that align their work with core business priorities, such as talent, compliance, or innovation, are better positioned to access resources and avoid being viewed as a cost center. One leader noted aligning with workforce development helped justify programming.

Use cross-functional councils to build shared ownership. Internal councils are an effective tool for grounding impact goals across the organization. These groups are organized around key strategic pillars and bring together employees from a range of departments who touch the work in different ways. Participation is encouraged to contribute insights, share progress, and help connect the dots across business units. 

“Do more with less:” empower local champions to scale impact. Explore models that extend reach without growing headcount. Consider activating employee “ambassadors” or “champions” to lead local efforts, particularly in geographies where dedicated impact staff are not present. These roles are typically voluntary but treated as extensions of the core team. To support them, some organizations create toolkits with pre-vetted nonprofit partners, templated event ideas, and communications materials. Others align local efforts with broader impact pillars, encouraging flexibility while maintaining cohesion. 

Community-centered approaches are replacing top-down models. In terms of programming, local activation and place-based work is increasingly common, accompanying a shift from models that “swoop in with solutions” toward ones that listen to and co-create with communities. Companies often prioritize impact in communities where they operate, reinforcing brand values while allowing tailored, responsive programming. 

Metrics and measurement are growing priorities, but still a challenge. There was wide agreement that impact teams are increasingly expected to deliver meaningful metrics, not just stories. Yet many leaders indicated that capacity or clarity around measurement remains uneven.

Navigating and Adapting to a Changing Landscape

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Non-profit leaders are navigating mounting challenges — from funding freezes to attacks on the language they use and the communities they serve — and the need for space to regroup and strategize has never been more urgent.

On May 28, NationSwell convened a group of peer leaders for a candid discussion about how we can be nimble and effective in a swiftly evolving landscape.

Some key insights from the discussion appear below:

Key takeaways:

  • Adopt short-term pragmatism while planning for long-term resilience. Rather than framing strategy around long-term organizational sustainability, several leaders are focusing on short-term adaptability, emphasizing nimble pivots, warm lead cultivation, and realistic budgeting. 
  • Bridge the gap between funder caution and nonprofit urgency. A disconnect persists between what nonprofits need (e.g. more capital, more flexibility) and what funders are offering (e.g. deliberate, slower-moving strategies). Bridging this chasm requires coordinated field-wide messaging, funder education, and intermediaries that can facilitate solution-oriented discussion. 
  • Prioritize transparency and grounded leadership. Executives emphasized the importance of open, honest communication, both within leadership circles and with staff. Being clear about what is known and unknown, while modeling vulnerability, has helped maintain trust, particularly in moments of organizational or funding instability.
  • Normalize nonprofit consolidations and shared infrastructure. In a financially constrained and uncertain landscape, nonprofit leaders are proactively exploring mergers, acquisitions, and structural partnerships. This moment presents an opportunity for funders to support responsible consolidation efforts and shared services that streamline operations and extend impact. 
  • Rethink donor engagement strategies. Leaders are seeing success with listening tours, reframing proposals in response to donor constraints, and rebalancing toward more place-based, community-anchored approaches. These methods help preserve key relationships and open doors for new partnerships.
  • Invest in leadership development as a resilience mechanism. The field is confronting a dual crisis: external funding threats and leadership fatigue. Now is a critical time to support succession planning and mentorship across generations, particularly for rising leaders managing back-to-back shocks early in their careers.
  • Use values alignment as a stabilizing force. Organizations are returning to their core values to navigate ambiguity, realign priorities, and avoid mission drift. Reaffirming organizational identity, especially when facing funding restrictions on identity-centered language, anchors staff morale.
  • Recognize and respond to the emotional toll of continuous crisis. Nonprofit leaders likened the current environment to the early pandemic, marked by confusion, fatigue, and emotional overload. Strategies like all-staff transparency briefings, mental health weeks, and permission to “tap out” reflect an emerging ethos: institutional survival depends on tending to human needs

Creating Shared Value and a Better Business Case for Impact

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

The business case for social impact has traditionally leaned on external data and proof points to advance prioritization and resourcing.  But in today’s climate, executive leaders need more than generalized ROI studies — they need impact strategies that directly address their most pressing challenges. How can impact leaders shift the conversation from justification to integration, proving shared value in ways that truly move the business forward?

On May 15th, NationSwell convened leaders for a virtual Leader Roundtable on Creating Shared Value and a Better Business Case for Impact. Some of the most salient takeaways from the discussion appear below.

Takeaways:

Leverage your organization’s core assets to create impact. Programs that deliver both business and social returns often draw on unique corporate capabilities—such as expertise, data, technology, or logistics—to create value in the marketplace while also addressing societal needs. These asset-driven approaches tend to be more durable and scalable than philanthropic giving alone.Taking an asset-driven approach creates an important and inherent link between your impact and enterprise goals.

Speak the language of the business In making the case for your impact programs to key stakeholders and executives, it can be helpful to show how they do double duty in addressing the key challenges your business is seeking to address. Pivoting the language you use when addressing these stakeholders to include more of the metrics and terms they use in their day-to-day — (ie. how programs are creating volume growth, etc.) can also be helpful in making the business case for impact.

Don’t underestimate storytelling when seeking buy-in or equipping leaders to convey your impact. One leader shared that using a mix of ROI metrics and storytelling has been most effective in conveying impact to key stakeholders. Stories can help to personalize the work in a way that makes it easier to understand than the raw data, and also helps to provide executives with anecdotes that they can feel proud of and easily convey in forums or at speaking engagements with other leaders.

Hardwire your strategy and goals so they can “outlast the CEO”. In designing with legacy and longevity in mind, ensure that programs have shared ownership and accountability baked in so that no one leader or executive can “take the work with them.” Ensuring that your impact work is well-integrated with larger business goals from the beginning also helps to ensure that it will continue for the long term.

Co-create with the business, not for the business. Successful impact teams work closely with internal business units to design and execute programs. This involves building strong cross-functional relationships, adopting the same performance discipline as the core business, and ensuring shared ownership of outcomes and accountability.

Invest in strategies to engage middle management. Middle managers often control the day-to-day levers that enable or block employee engagement and program execution. Their buy-in is essential, yet frequently overlooked. Unlocking this layer can accelerate adoption and boost program credibility across the organization.

Don’t let perfection stand in the way of progress. Waiting for the ideal set of metrics or a fully formed theory of change can stall good ideas from taking hold. Leaders emphasized the importance of launching early, testing often, and using results to build momentum and iterate.

Anticipate how executives are thinking. Beyond ensuring credibility and demonstrating partnership, regularly engaging with and shadowing business leaders can help you to understand how they’re thinking in ways that allow you to be more intentional about the ways you design and measure your impact programs. Using the same discipline the business is using around operations reviews, setting long-term goals that are business-aligned, and understanding risk tolerance can all help to make the work more resilient. 

Embed your programs in your people strategy. Taking a personal approach to design that’s based on your team’s needs can help to drive employee engagement and create a sense of shared value and purpose. Creating more intentional upskilling or engagement opportunities can help to curb attrition rates, cultivate buy-in, and drive community impact.

Corporate Impact Investing Design Toolkit

Corporate Impact Investing Design Toolkit

This resource is a toolkit aimed at supporting corporate social impact investors in developing their investment strategy. The toolkit includes seven implementation tools developed from the report, “Seven Critical Design Choices for Corporate Impact Investors.” The tools provide step-by-step actions to structure, integrate, and standardize impact investing practices within corporations.

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Corporate Social Impact Models and Approaches

Corporate Social Impact Models and Approaches

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This practical guide is designed to help leaders and organizations orient their existing social impact strategies within a larger context, and identify opportunities to progress.

The guide includes four models of corporate social impact in practice today, ranging from CSR to business-integrated strategies. Each model includes definitions, actionable recommendations, and real-world case examples. The goal is to help leaders determine the best way to deepen impact within your organization, which may mean advancing from one model to the next or further developing your current model.

The models covered in this guide include:

  • Traditional CSR
  • Asset-driven impact
  • Shared value initiatives
  • Systems change leadership
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Elevating Impact Programs and Models

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

On March 20th, NationSwell hosted a virtual Leader Roundtable designed to explore how leaders and organizations are redefining the cutting edge of impact program design, focusing on emerging examples of “best in class.”

Some takeaways from the event appear below:

Insights

Embed innovation across your entire organization, not just your programs. Truly innovative organizations don’t treat innovation as a separate function. They integrate it into the DNA of their operations – whether that’s aligning their endowment with their mission, reimagining office spaces to model sustainability, or increasing payout rates to meet the moment. Every asset and decision point becomes a tool for change.

Redesign capital systems to center community aspirations. Instead of asking communities to navigate traditional financial structures, forward-thinking initiatives are flipping the script, inviting capital holders to revise their own rules and reduce barriers. This includes creating accessible capital pools, layering equity and credit tools, and prioritizing long-term ownership for individuals historically shut out of wealth-building opportunities.

Stay focused and back it up with data. Programs that maintain focus on a specific goal (like economic mobility) can drive powerful results when paired with robust measurement. Embedding evaluation from day one allows organizations to surface insights over time and use them to adapt offerings, close disparities, and prove long-term outcomes.

Treat storytelling as core infrastructure for social change. Narrative change is more than a communications strategy, it’s a structural lever. For instance, investing in platforms that amplify the lived experiences of working-class communities, especially those underrepresented in traditional media, can reshape public dialogue and policy priorities. Grounding storytelling in on-the-ground organizing ensures alignment with real-time needs and movements.

Use the full balance sheet – and imagination – of philanthropy. Flexible, mission-aligned capital is essential in moments of disruption. Whether through program-related investments, purchasing real estate on behalf of community partners, or deploying guarantees and patient capital, philanthropic organizations are finding creative ways to stretch beyond traditional grantmaking and meet partners with the tools they truly need.

Invite your grantees to define what capacity-building looks like. Capacity-building is most effective when it indexes to what funders say they need most, and trusting their guidance. Some funders are developing operating LLCs to manage certain functions on behalf of partners, while others are providing flexible resources to partners to build their capacity in-house. Sometimes, the best technical assistance is simply a larger, unrestricted grant.

Center relationships as the foundation of innovation. Innovation travels faster when rooted in trust. Funders that build authentic relationships with their partners (viewing them as co-strategists, not just grantees) are better equipped to adapt to changing contexts. Whether that means co-designing participatory grantmaking models, convening peers across regions, or responding to global challenges with shared learning, deep relationships unlock collective intelligence.

The Power of Place-based Strategies

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

Place-based approaches have become a cornerstone for fostering long-lasting, meaningful change, by connecting organizations, cities, and communities across the United States. Through focusing on local needs and opportunities, place-based strategies have proven essential for building community resilience and driving positive, tailored outcomes.

During the final event in the Building Thriving Futures series hosted in partnership with FUSE, leaders dove into actionable strategies to strengthen partnerships across sectors and address critical challenges in supporting small businesses, advancing housing equity, and expanding workforce opportunities. 

Some of the key takeaways from the event appear below:

Insights:

Impact leaders need to support and work closely with local decision makers. City and state leaders are the largest social services providers for communities. As the federal government pulls away funding and infrastructure, it won’t change the community needs and people will look to their local and city governments to do more. The current destruction is huge — some populations like in Kansas have/had a large proportion of federal workforce — and philanthropists and private sector leaders need to help local public sector leaders expand their capacity to navigate the change. 

Learn from existing models that bring disparate people together for local change. For example, JobsFirst and FresnoDRIVE are initiatives funded by public, philanthropic, and private dollars aimed at boosting workforce, education, and inclusivity, and are high-aspiration, long-term plans.  

Diversification of funds is key — understanding who in your community is reliant on federal funding and helping them diversify to de-risk and change keeps occurring. Consider how you can help track the dollars being cut in your region, predict the ripple effects that will impact your grantees and community, and stem the loss. 

Balance listening and surviving, with planning for the future. Many organizations are navigating changing infrastructure, adopting a defensive posture, and doing the important work of helping grantees and community partners survive this turbulence e.g. by providing more unrestricted funding to plug gaps. However, also make time to think about those things that will help you “swing for the fences” and plan for a new future e.g. investing in the capacity and social capital of local talent who can rise into transformational leaders. 

Consider how we can fall in love with the problem and use it as a spark for innovation? Turbulence allows us to consider what we should double down on, what can we pivot away from because it is not an immediate priority, and what can we think differently about? In this time where national actions are impacting hyper local communities, it could be a useful exercise to borrow from entrepreneurs and figure out how you find the hardest, stickiest pain point and build energy around addressing it.

Drive investments to data and make sure you have secure data infrastructure locally, as it may not always be there federally. There may be opportunities for new investments and new partnerships that hinge on this data. 

Philanthropies have the power to bring place-based peers together to support each other. Information and strategy help us adapt more rapidly. By bringing together members, partners, or organizations you work with, across states and cities, who are working to combat the same barriers and issues, you scale insights and learning and help prevent a constant reinventing the wheel and repeating the same growing pains.

Invest in telling the story of place-based impact. With so many programs and initiatives at risk due to their reliance on federal funding, telling the story of their impact is more essential than ever. The role of communications and communications teams is often an afterthought, but the importance of language and framing has never been more crucial. Storytelling matters — even if it means we need to pivot or look at it a different way, we keep the story going.

What’s Happening in DEI

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Are you a leader navigating DEI backlash and looking for clarity you can act on? This resource distills the political, cultural, and economic forces shaping corporate DEI, and unpacks how companies are responding to mounting threats. In this report, you’ll find actionable archetypes and strategic considerations to inform your organization’s path forward.

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Q1 2025 Social Impact Trends

Q1 2025 Social Impact Trends

Q1 2025 marked one of the most turbulent periods for the social impact sector since the COVID-19 pandemic. What emerged was a mix of reactive, proactive, and strategic responses: creating shared value, evolving DEI approaches, strengthening supports and deepening engagement, and advancing collective action.

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Strategies for Collective Wealth Building

Posted on by Brianna Provenzano

As social inequality and economic disparities continue to rise across the United States, there is a pressing need to reverse the trends, transform the economic landscape, and build a foundation for sustainable intergenerational prosperity. Data shows areas of greater inequity experience weaker economic growth — so it benefits all of us to overcome those inequities.

On February 26, NationSwell convened leaders from across sectors for a virtual roundtable on the strategies and opportunities they’re seeing to address systemic inequities, including affordable housing, access to quality education, healthcare disparities, and the racial wealth gap.

Some takeaways from the conversation appear below:

Insights

We need to invest in widening “wealth literacy” not just financial literacy.. There are still knowledge gaps in how individuals tend to conceptualize income as wealth vs. understanding asset-based accumulation.

Lowering the barriers to entry can give millions more people access to powerful tools. . Tools that have been widely vetted and applied — including grants, “patient” loans, and market rate loans — are still some of the best in our collective arsenal, but access is still an issue for communities who have been historically regarded as unbankable. In order to mitigate those roadblocks, organizations like the Groundbreak Coalition focus on stacking resources to make it easier for people to find them and benefit from their collective impact — using tried-and-true puzzle pieces, but reconfigured in a more accessible way.

Employee ownership is a powerful way to empower people to build wealth. Organizations such as Ownership Works offer businesses of all sizes the opportunity to offer their staff stock – a vital pathway to wealth building, and addressing the imbalance that currently the top 1% wealth owners own 99% of the stock and mutual funds. 

Safety net reforms show promise when they mirror the values of trust-based giving. The principles of trust-based giving — like not having to prove your worthiness over and over again — a should be reflected in our social safety net and direct cash transfer programs. 

Targeted policy reforms like “baby bonds” help to reimagine the role the government has to play in closing the wealth gap. Baby bonds are government-funded trusts created at a child’s birth. California has started the largest baby bond program in the country aimed at children who have lost a primary caregiver through COVID or have long term stays in the state’s foster care system.

For underserved individuals, entrepreneurship can be a significant pathway for wealth generation. Undocumented and formerly incarcerated individuals are not always able to legally work as employees; and incarceration is shown to be a huge factor in the wealth gap. Entrepreneurship creates avenues to work as your own boss and can help to make inroads for wealth-building. Focusing on business development and supporting co-ops and CDFIs — as well as working with partners focused on seeding community-based organizations (CBOs) —  can help to strengthen such opportunities.

Narrative change is a necessary component of the wealth-building conversation. As a society, our tendency to attribute poverty to a moral failure or theorize that poverty is solvable through hard work and the “bootstraps mythology” help dictate the ways that policies are prioritized and shaped, creating tremendous barriers to entry that exacerbate the wealth gap. Using sociopolitical context and narrative storytelling can help to catalyze our communities into feeling like they’re part of a larger picture in wealth-building — helping to create buy-in, engender pride, and form a sense that this work is larger than ourselves.