Impact Audio

Lever for Change has flipped the script of traditional philanthropy. By adopting a challenge model and offering big dollar prizes, they get community organizations off the hamster wheel of chasing funds. In doing so, they unlock the big picture thinking necessary to create long-term, systemic change.

This episode covers how to:

• Rethink your approach to risk

• Make innovation a priority

• Build mutually beneficial partnerships

• Provide holistic support

For additional resources, visit our episode notes: submittable.com/impact-audio/kristen-molyneaux

Without employee support, CSR programs don’t stand much of a chance. But employees aren’t just looking to get involved, they want to be inspired. At Splunk, Patricia Toothman has made it her mission to strengthen the connections between teams and give everyone a sense of ownership in the company’s social impact work.

This episode covers how to:

• Lead without formal authority

• Meet employees where they are

• Develop a cohort of mission-focused peers

• Align efforts across your company

For additional resources, visit our episode notes: submittable.com/impact-audio/patricia-toothman

Social impact isn’t something you can measure on a quarterly basis. To understand the value of CSR programs, you have to take the long view. From her vantage as managing director of corporate insights & engagement for Chief Executives for Corporate Purpose (CECP), Kari Niedfeldt-Thomas sees a lot of companies making this mistake. She advocates for a paradigm shift in the corporate sector.

This episode digs into how to:

• Adapt to rapid change and new expectations

• Tap into employees’ unique expertise

• Adopt a long-term view of social impact

• Tie individual efforts to systemic change

For additional resources, visit our episode notes: submittable.com/impact-audio/kari-niedfeldt-thomas

Whether you’re at the beginning of your career or you’re decades in, working in CSR requires a unique ability to balance conflicting priorities. At a time when there’s more urgency than ever around social impact, Angela Parker believes that practitioners have a golden opportunity to redefine the value of their work.

This episode covers how to:

• Better understand your role as a facilitator

• Apply a strategic framework to social impact

• Find the organizations that align with your values

• Connect DEI and CSR initiatives across teams

For additional resources, visit our episode notes: submittable.com/impact-audio/angela-parker

At Okta, social good has been a priority since the beginning. But over time, the CSR team has shifted its understanding of what should drive these programs. It’s not just about taking the solutions the company has on hand and offering them to nonprofits. It’s about identifying the problems out in the world that Okta is uniquely positioned to help solve and then committing time and resources to run at them.

This episode explores how to:

• Identify your company’s superpower

• Get grassroots support from employees

• Take an ecosystem approach to supporting nonprofits

• Build integrated CSR programs around what communities need

For additional resources, visit our episode notes: www.submittable.com/impact-audio/erin-baudo-felter

Google.org shatters the traditional CSR mold in a variety of ground-breaking ways. Their ability to do so is rooted in their unique approach to innovation and connecting social impact to personal experience. Though many companies don’t have the global presence and technical resources of Google, there’s a lot to learn from how they approach social problems—lessons that can guide CSR programs of any size and scope.

This episode digs into how to:

• Tap into every employees’ unique potential

• Take concentrated risks to spur large-scale innovation

• Build solutions for the long-term

• Collaborate directly with impacted communities

For additional resources, visit our episode notes: submittable.com/impact-audio/jen-carter-future-of-CSR

Impact Audio is a podcast that gives social impact practitioners practical advice and inspirational stories to help them better serve their communities. Host Sam Caplan, VP of social impact at Submittable, interviews leaders in the nonprofit, public sector, and corporate social responsibility spaces to understand their approach to their work, their perspective on current trends, and their thoughts on the future of social impact.

What are the factors that encourage charitable giving and how should people decide where to focus their efforts? Effective altruism is a social movement and research initiative with unique (and controversial) responses to these questions.

In this episode of Impact Audio, you’ll hear Luke Freeman, Executive Director of Giving What We Can, discussing the guiding principles behind his organization. Luke also talks about motivational psychology, CSR, impact measurement, the pandemic, and criticisms of effective altruism.

Listen in to learn about:

• What actually motivates people to give back

• How businesses can support employee giving and lead by example

• Giving What We Can’s process for choosing charities and measuring impact

• The movement’s responses to trust-based philanthropy and criticism about causality

• How US philanthropy sets itself apart from global giving

We hope you enjoy the conversation.

What do emerging leaders in philanthropy need to succeed? And what can current leadership learn from the up-and-coming generation? In this episode of Impact Audio, Storme Gray, Executive Director of Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy, talks with Submittable about a more equitable vision for the sector—and how to make space for vital change.

This episode digs into:

• How philanthropic organizations can recruit and retain diverse talent

• The value of curiosity, inquiry, and collective care

• How global interconnectedness shapes a new ethos for emerging leaders

• The power of pausing your inbox

• Why everyone is a leader in their own right (and continuously emerging)

• Advice for new talent seeking to make a career in philanthropy

Thank you for listening. We hope the conversation moves and inspires you.

How can businesses transform their employee volunteering programs from a task-based checklist to an experience that makes a lasting impact? In this episode, Chris Jarvis, Co-founder and CSO of Realized Worth, joins Sam Caplan, VP of Social Impact at Submittable, to discuss the strategies, intention, and brain science that can help CSR meaningfully evolve.

Tune in to learn about:

• The rapid evolutions of CSR and employee volunteerism

• True measures of program engagement

• A transformative vs transactional approach

• Two simple strategies for making volunteer work meaningful

• Neuroscience’s relationship to empathy—and how it can impact results

• Transformative learning theory and how it can revolutionize CSR

We hope you enjoy the conversation.