Look around you. Everywhere you turn, you see global problems that seem more intractable than ever. And all despite decades of effort on the part of well-meaning benefactors, non-profit organizations, and philanthropic groups. What are the barriers impeding the tireless work of the concerned thousands from achieving meaningful progress? Is it time to reimagine the way we leverage partnerships to address existential issues like sustainability, education, equality, healthcare, and hunger?
Okay, let’s look around again. This time, we’ll focus on the typical model for funding and deploying assistance to affect social change. When a philanthropist or corporation seeks to contribute toward an issue, funds are donated to a nonprofit organization. The nonprofit then utilizes these resources how, where, and when they feel appropriate. This approach is certainly laudable. But what if you prefer meaningful social change via collaboration, innovation, accountability, transparency, and more immediate results? The traditional model is apt to disappoint you.
What if there were a more forward-thinking way to drive change? Imagine an approach that decentralized the traditional benefactor/nonprofit pipeline, and opened up alliances with corporate America – with its global reach and vast resources – for innovative, custom-tailored give-back strategies.
The need for new vision, strategies, and partnerships fueling impact-driven work was the genesis of RipplEffect, the strategy and marketing agency built specifically for the stewardship economy.
Founders Stephanie Moon and Lauren Biegler gained the first-hand experience with the limitations of the conventional impact-driven infrastructure. As Lauren says, sheepishly, “In our previous careers in the nonprofit space, we became part of the problem. It was our agenda, our goals, our little world. So we decided to step away and really problem solve, to explore ways to make the world a better place by partnering with big companies – lots of em! All of ‘em! – to use business as a catalyst for change.”
Stephanie describes this new ethos as “Intelligent Impact.”
“We believe give-back should match a specific, exisitgn need. So we collaborate with companies to find soultions together. We’re well-expereience in the nuances and complexities of impact-driven work, and use this intel to determine precisely the impact should be targeted with our partners.
To deliver Intelligent Impact with corporate partners, Lauren and Stephanie hand-picked a team of specialists possessing a rare mix of industry experience and passion for change. “Radical Pragmatists,” you might say.
Marketing and brand strategy, Web and digital technology, film and video, graphic design, interactive experiences, social media, copywriting – the RipplEffect team combines award-winning creative executions with breakthrough strategies to deploy initiatives that enable quantifiable impact. Forging innovative partnerships with successful, well-established brand names is foundational to RipplEffect’s approach. “We’re not out to destroy the world and build a new one,” says Creative Director David Cocciante. “We want to utilize the systems already in place, in a smarter, fairer, more sustainable way.”
PepsiCo is one of many corporate entities onboard with RipplEffect’s new direction in driving impact. As part of the largest single grant given by the Foundation in PepsiCo’s corporate history, RipplEffect helped engage and educate conscious consumers, internal stakeholders, and the general public on the “crop gap” — the unequal access women face in agriculture-dependent economies. Highlights include a five-part global campaign featuring award-winning short-form videos created by female videographers local to each region.
Intelligent Impact offers a proven methodology for driving meaningful change in addressing the most challenging issues of our time. As author and marketer Ryan Holiday suggests,
“Stop looking for angels, and start looking for angles.”
The founders of RipplEffect have built their business on it.
