Storytelling That Sparks: Using Impact Narratives to Connect Employees and Communities
Discover how to harness the power of storytelling to strengthen the bridge between your employees and community impact. Through real-world examples and interactive exercises, you’ll learn strategies to capture and share compelling stories that showcase purpose and inspire broader engagement including:
- Understand and develop the “why” of storytelling
- Build a story bridge
- Craft effective stories of impact
Guests
- Jennifer Bradbury, Global Corporate Philanthropy Executive
- Sarah Middleton, President & CEO, Mission Up
Virtual Event Resources
Top Takeaways
- Storytelling is a bridge between employees and community impact. When done well, it strengthens engagement, deepens purpose, and drives action.
- Effective storytelling makes it easier for marketing (and leadership) to amplify impact. Stories can differentiate your brand, enhance employee and customer pride, and drive business results.
- You don’t need to be a professional writer or marketer; just follow the simple framework in the CSR Storytelling Playbook. By clarifying your why, using a story bridge, and crafting compelling narratives, anyone can tell impactful stories that inspire action.
Understanding Community-Centered Volunteerism
Thanks to our guest speaker Breauna Dorelus, Founder and Cause Consultant at Connecting the Cause.
This live event is part of the Volunteering & Social Impact Live Learning Series, which introduces topics that will be discussed further at the 2025 Points of Light Conference.
Virtual Event Resources
Top Takeaways
- Behind every volunteer opportunity is a root cause of an issue and a system that perpetuates the necessity of the volunteer opportunity itself.
- We must first understand the truth of why problems exist and ensure the volunteer work is aligned with the community’s needs.
- “Centering community” does not mean dismissing volunteers. It means that communities are an integral part of the process, not just recipients of aid, which creates harm. Too often communities are on the receiving end of a volunteer’s charitable acts instead of seen as an interdependent ecosystem where everyone has a role.
Reflection Questions
- What is currently in my power to repair and rebuild?
- Understand and recognize power dynamics within volunteerism. Where does the volunteer hold the power in engagement spaces, and where does the community hold the power? Do shifts need to be made?
The Civic 50 2025 Survey Launch Webinar
This webinar provides essential information for companies interested in applying for The Civic 50, featuring insights from Farron Levy, founder & CEO of True Impact, and Melissa MacDonnell, president of Liberty Mutual Foundation & senior vice president of Community Investments at Liberty Mutual Insurance.
Top Takeaways:
- Participation in the survey is free and confidential (only the top 50 companies are publicly recognized).
- Every participating company receives a complimentary benchmarking scorecard report.
- The program serves as a valuable tool for planning, evaluation, and showcasing social and community impact.
For more information, including FAQs and a downloadable document with the survey questions, visit the applicant information page. If your company plans to participate this year, please email [email protected] to receive important updates and reminders.
Policies that Enable Employee-Powered Change
Imagine a workplace where every employee feels empowered to drive positive change in their community. Many companies achieve this by establishing policies that create opportunities for impact. These policies align a company’s culture and core values with daily operations, setting clear expectations and creating an environment where employees feel supported.
Discover how codifying practices such as Volunteer Time Off (VTO) can foster a culture of service, enhance employee engagement, and secure buy-in from all levels.
Top Takeaways:
- Having a volunteer time off policy demonstrates a company’s commitment to creating positive social impact while also providing value to the business and to employees.
- When designing a policy, clearly define what is in scope including who can take advantage of the policy and what activities are eligible.
- Think about the end user when making VTO decisions. You want the benefit to be as accessible and frictionless as possible.
- Understand the audience who will need to weigh in on the policy and any updates; bring them along with you as you design or revise.
- Position the policy in different ways when driving awareness so employees can fully realize the benefit being offered.
Additional Resources:
- Volunteer Time Off
- Civic Time Off
- General CSR/Volunteering Questions: Ask a CSR Friend
Building the Case for Investment: Why Employee Community Engagement Matters Webinar
As corporate social impact practitioners, we know that employee community engagement programs can foster a sense of community, boost employee morale and productivity, combat polarization and ultimately contribute to the bottom-line. But how do you illustrate the value in a way that garners program and infrastructure investment?
Join us to explore the benefits of employee community engagement and its impact on business success. In this session, we will dig into recent research from Ares Management and additional proof points that not only demonstrate the intrinsic value of employee community engagement and how it aligns with broader business goals but also showcase how forward-thinking companies have successfully secured financial investment from senior leadership.
Top Takeaways:
- Know your audience. Tailor your messaging, format and timing in order to have the best reception.
- Preparation is key. Start collecting data now that can be useful when you need to build a case.
- Look for opportunities. Know what’s happening in the short and long term and use it to your advantage.
- Stay relevant. Connect social impact work to the challenges your leadership is facing and how it can help them achieve business or their professional goals.
- Try testing first. Experimenting can give you proof of potential enterprise-wide outcomes and can be an easier sell.
Resources Mentioned:
Prove and Improve Your Company’s Social Impact Without Overburdening Your Partners
The last few years have been revolutionary in how companies approach their relationships with nonprofit partners. Movements like “trust-based philanthropy,” which encourages a more trusting, transparent and equitable collaboration between funders and their nonprofit partners, are exciting and growing in popularity. How can you, as a CSR leader, support these movements yet continue to track the data you need? Attend our upcoming webinar to find out how to gain actionable insights while keeping both your company’s and your nonprofit partners’ needs in mind.
Sara Ansell, senior manager of social impact at True Impact, walks through the steps to track essential impact data, ditch ineffective processes, and help your nonprofit partners improve at the same time. Based on her years of experience helping hundreds of grantees and funders measure their impact, Sara will cover best practices in data collection at all stages of working with nonprofits. She will review the metrics that are most actionable and the ones that are outdated.
You’ll also hear from Nate Brown, senior vice president and director of the PIMCO Foundation,
who will share more about PIMCO’s thoughtful, comprehensive approach to social impact measurement. Together, Sara and Nate will discuss what a collaborative impact evaluation process looks like, whether you are measuring employee volunteerism, grant-making or pro bono efforts. After their discussion, you’ll leave with solid takeaways to drive societal change and meet business goals—for your team and your grantees.
Key Takeaways:
- The four golden reporting rules for funders are keep it simple, keep it timely, keep it uniform, and keep it supportive.
- Count what counts. Understand the difference between inputs (resources used), outputs (activities or goods and services delivered) and outcomes (impact!).
- Ask for your nonprofit partners’ whole story (the full impact of their program), not just what might be related to what you funded. What is the bigger narrative that your employee volunteers or grants supported?
- Minimize the burden on partners and maximize the usefulness of data collected. Be upfront with partners about your reporting requirements and standardize your reporting template. You’ll find an example here.
Innovative Approaches to Engaging All Employees in Social Impact Webinar
From staff stationed at manufacturing plants and retail outlets to call centers, night shifts and those on the move, engaging employees who don’t sit at a computer most of the day can pose unique challenges. Watch this interactive webinar centered around the universal topic of involving employees traditionally referred to as “hard-to-reach” in your company’s social impact initiatives.
Our panelists delve into the various obstacles faced when attempting to connect with these frontline and other “non-wired” employees and explore ways to overcome them. Together we uncover successful practices and innovative solutions that have proven effective in fostering meaningful engagement.
Hear from these CSR leaders:
- Gary Levante – senior vice president, corporate responsibility & communications, Berkshire Bank
- Sylvia Stevens-Edouard – senior director, community relations, Liberty Mutual
- Megan Zamora – senior manager, global responsibility, Starbucks
Key Takeaways:
- The challenges of engaging a wide variety of work roles, environments, and work shifts in corporate employee volunteer programs cross all industries and company sizes. Most companies have a segment of the workforce that can be harder to engage, whether it’s bank tellers, remote workers, manufacturing employees, reporters, sales reps, or clinical teams.
- Be ready to make the business case for the additional effort that might be required to engage these groups; the wins definitely outweigh the potential downsides and data can help you tell that story.
- Including all employees in your social impact programming must start with vocal and visible support from senior leadership and a clear connection to corporate values from day one.
- Be intentional when designing programs and strategies to engage your “harder to reach” employee populations, including understanding employee motivations and operational barriers. Start small and stay flexible.
Download the accompanying learning brief, “Making Social Impact Accessible for All Employee Roles and Settings.”
