Old Resource Type: Trend reports

Q3 2025 Social Impact Trends

Q3 2025 Social Impact Trends

NationSwell’s quarterly trend spotter provides impact professionals with visibility into the most noteworthy, timely, and material shifts in the field. For Q3 of 2025, our report explores the following six trends:

  1. Corporations are quieter on ESG/DEI – and delaying some reports
  2. “One Big Beautiful Bill” has material implications for corporate giving strategies
  3. Values-driven public pressure is influencing reputations and sales
  4. Workforce development is surging as a strategic priority, driven by widening skills gaps
  5. Impact teams are increasing AI adoption while attention grows on need for ethical governance
  6. The U.S. is experiencing climate & ESG policy setbacks while global rules march on
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Making the Case for Investment in Impact

Making the Case for Investment in Impact

This resource is intended to guide corporate social impact leaders in securing and growing their organization’s investment in their work. The case-making points and data included focus on the importance of social investments to key stakeholders: employees and customers.

The resource prepares impact leaders for budgetary conversations with context on the landscape, data, and talking points. We also provide tools for securing investment by aligning with business objectives, exploring measurement approaches for calculating ROI, and anticipating changes brought on by ongoing uncertainty.

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Q2 2025 Social Impact Trends

Q2 2025 Social Impact Trends

Q2 2025 trends indicate that employee engagement and wellbeing are at alarming lows; nonprofits face heightened threats amid federal scrutiny and funding cuts; DEI efforts are under political attack but still supported by consumers and investors; cross-sector coalitions are forming to defend civil society; funders are stepping up with bolder strategies to counter government pullbacks; and companies, though quieter publicly, remain committed to impact through value-aligned, resilient strategies.

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Corporate Social Impact Team Design

Corporate Social Impact Team Design

This resource is meant to help leaders look at their own organizations to consider: what’s working, may be changing, and could be next for your impact team design. It provides a practical, anonymized compilation of organizational charts serving as a foundation for shared learning and strategic reflection on:

  • the current landscape of impact team design,
  • the size and complexity of structures by industry, 
  • the functional areas of teams in relation to the broader company, 
  • reporting lines to the chief suite

This resource will continue to evolve as more models are shared. Email us at [email protected] if you would like your corporate social impact team to be represented in the next iteration of this resource.

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Impact Team Offsite-in-a-Box

Impact Team Offsite-in-a-Box

Team offsite conversations can serve the purposes of reconnecting colleagues, grounding them in a shared organizational ambition and inviting individual and collective ownership over the direction of the team’s work. This resource supports impact leaders with modular sessions to design effective, energizing team offsites that drive clarity, connection, and strategic alignment. It is based on agendas that NationSwell has created for its own team conversations or in partnership with member organizations. 

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Snapshot of Employee Engagement Trends

Snapshot of Employee Engagement Trends

NationSwell surveyed 60 impact leaders between February 26 and March 5 to better understand employee sentiment and engagement trends in early 2025. Participants ranged across organization types, including corporations, non-profit organizations, corporate foundations, and private philanthropies. This resource provides key learnings from the research, as well as four ways impact leaders can boost engagement. 

Key learnings and results from that survey include:

  • Employee engagement is trending lower in 2025
  • Leadership communication is inconsistent
  • Most engagement initiatives remain, but flexible work is being reduced
  • Burnout is the top engagement challenge
  • Employees need more transparency leadership
  • Most organizations use engagement data to support their business case

Four ways impact leaders can boost engagement:

  • Make the case for internal transparency between leadership and employees
  • Defend essential employee engagement infrastructure
  • Collaborate with HR partners on workforce wellbeing initiatives
  • Invest deeply in making work purposeful for employees, regardless of setting
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What’s Happening in DEI

What’s Happening in DEI

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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Effective Storytelling Strategies for Impact Leaders

Effective Storytelling Strategies for Impact Leaders

This resource is a practical guide for impact leaders looking to build or refresh their storytelling strategy. It distills several key components to building meaningful impact stories, including understanding key audiences, mapping out appropriate channels and timing, and developing meaningful and action-oriented messaging and content. The guide also includes examples from the NationSwell community to illustrate storytelling in action. The aim is to tell stories that are creative, human-centered, and audience-first. 

The components covered in this guide include:

  • Goals
  • Audience
  • Channel
  • Timing
  • Core Message
  • Call-to-action
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