Impact, Insights and Advice
I recently spoke to Common Impact CEO Danielle Holly. Danielle has supported hundreds of nonprofit organizations on positioning and branding strategies to more effectively scale their models of social impact, while also helping numerous corporations - including JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, Marriott International, and Fidelity Investments - navigate the new era in corporate social responsibility and skills-based volunteering.
Adam: Thanks again for taking the time to share your best advice. First things first, though, I am sure readers would love to learn more about you. How did you get here? What experiences, failures, setbacks or challenges have been most instrumental to your growth?
Danielle: As we’re in the heart of the COVD-19 crisis, when I think about how I got to where I am today, it was very much defined by another crisis. I grew up in NYC, and was graduating college right after the city, and world, was rocked by September 11th. I was heading towards a career in television, but my job fell through during the crisis and I landed on Wall Street. I was immediately exposed to the massive amount of money that was moving through the system on a daily basis — and how decisions were being made, sometimes poorly. My day ended when the bell rang at 4pm and, with the disposable time that my early 20s allowed, I started supporting nonprofits in the area, using the skills I was developing during the day to help them with their finances and planning — what I would now call skills-based volunteerism. It was remarkable to me how much these small cash-strapped nonprofits were able to accomplish, and how necessary their services were to the community. My daytime and evening experiences were, literally, night and day, and I became fascinated and motivated by this idea that we have the resources we need in the world — we’re just not directing them appropriately. We needed a mechanism and, specifically, we needed to give citizens the easily accessible, eye-opening experiences like the one I had — where just a few hours spent supporting a mission-based organization had an impact. It also changed the way I thought about my own mission, career and the ways I could use my skills and experiences to make a difference.
Adam: In your experience, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? How can leaders and aspiring leaders take their leadership skills to the next level?
Danielle: I believe leadership means inspiring the people around you to be a part of something larger than themselves. Whether it’s your organization’s employees, the members of a board, volunteers or your family, a leader guides the people around them to see the “big picture” and how their support can make a difference. Everyone knows what it’s like to be inspired by a big picture mission, but what I’ve found critical to leadership is, after inspiring people with that mission, to very quickly and specifically give them a sense of how they can help — and the issues or challenges on which they’re uniquely positioned to make an impact.
There are so many things I’ve learned about leadership over the past few decades, but the first thing that I tell people who come to me for advice when they are stepping into a leadership role is to be fiercely interested in criticism, but not to take it personally. So often criticism isn’t about you – it’s about the person giving it and their personal context – but it tells you far more about how to lead in a situation than praise. When you let criticism sit with you, when you stew in it, it cuts off your ability to lead.
Adam: Who are the greatest leaders you have around and have you learned from them?
Danielle: I’ve been privileged to be surrounded by leadership every day, and it takes all forms. The leadership that inspires me is so rarely formal leadership and the folks that are in the top seat, but those who choose to lead informally. Right now, in the midst of COVID-19, I’m seeing leadership everywhere. Crises like this strip away the pretenses and constraints that people tend to feel, and allows their leadership and values to come through. I’ve been on the phone with philanthropic leaders, who have been holding back tears as they have to stop funding the organizations that have built partnerships with for years. I’ve been on video calls with nonprofit executives who have gone from leading rapidly growing organizations to shutting their doors within the span of two weeks, and are figuring out how to stay strong for their teams and families. I’ve seen my own staff – at all levels of the organization – step up and figure out how to stay connected to each other while we’re all in separate spaces, how to name when they’re feeling overwhelmed, and how to lift each other up when they know they need support. It’s been incredibly inspiring.
Adam: What are the best lessons you have learned on leading a non-profit organization?
Danielle: Do you have a few hours? I’ve learned so much, I could talk about this all day. I’m so glad I landed in the nonprofit sector for this part of my career. One of the dimensions of nonprofit leadership that feels constantly challenging is balancing the business and the people. The people that work at nonprofits are typically passionate, empathetic people who want to give back, and put so much heart and effort into their work. Our society wouldn’t be able to function without them. But, it can make the hard decisions even harder. The work feels very personal to staff, and so shifting services, making staffing changes, or other decisions that helps sustain the business of the organization can cut deeply. I’ve had to figure out how to be people and mission-focused, while still able to confidently do the things I need to do to sustain Common Impact.
Adam: What is your best advice on building, leading and managing teams?
Danielle: Everyone gets their energy in different ways — from different types of people, different types of work and at different times of the day. Pay close attention to what energizes individual team members, and have them bring that to their work and the team environment. We all have to do some work during the day that we don’t love or wouldn’t choose to do, but as long as employees have a piece of their work that really energizes them and their work clearly connects to a larger purpose, teams tend to be more functional.
Adam: Your organization works with some of the prominent companies in the country. What advice do you have for entrepreneurs on how to effectively cultivate relationships with household name companies?
Danielle: Many entrepreneurs and nonprofits see companies as a way to resource what they’re doing, as a checkbook. And while money is certainly a part of partnership, it can’t be at the center. Common Impact has always approached partnerships as a mutually beneficial relationship where, together, we’re building something that we care about and that benefits our own mission or purpose. When you have confidence in what you have to give– particularly as a nonprofit or small business where the power dynamics with big companies can be so tough – it becomes a lot easier to build sustainable partnerships.
Adam: More broadly, what are your three best tips applicable to entrepreneurs, executives and civic leaders?
Danielle:
Reach across the aisle: The most powerful thing that leaders from any sector can do is to encourage diversity of thought and discourse. From politics to philanthropy to business, we often allow our identity — whether it’s our political affiliation or the sector we work in — to define the stance we take, how vocal we are, and with what we agree or disagree. Indeed, it’s nearly impossible to break the algorithms of online and social media that are designed to feed us reinforcing, narrow perspectives. We need our business and political leaders to model a more nuanced, less-polarized discourse on what our society needs.
Shift our investment mindset: The private sector is starting to realize that a sole focus on financial returns is not a sustainable way of doing business. Companies need to look at institutions and solutions holistically as they design and redesign their services. What returns the greatest initial profit is not necessarily the best long term solution. While most companies understand this in concept, the investment community continues to demand quarterly results, encouraging harmful short-termism. We need the investor community to step up and evaluate companies and investments based on their overall, long term benefit to society — and to both shareholders and stakeholders. Larry Fink, CEO of Black Rock, has led this charge by stating that his firm — one of the most influential investment firms in the world — will be evaluating companies in this way. We need to see more investors leverage their influence on the private sector to inform a more sustainable economy.
Adopt a local mindset: Research tells us that most people want to be more deeply civically engaged than they are right now, but they don’t know how to get involved. Local business, nonprofit and public sector leaders need to do a better job of translating big missions into local actions, and help people understand how they start to tackle big societal challenges in their cities and towns.
Adam: What are the future trends in CSR and ESG?
Danielle: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) started as a compliance function, with companies answering the question, “How can our company do the least amount of harm?”. We’ve come a long way from that, where most companies have a robust CSR program that engages their employees, that invests in local and global organizations that are solving our society’s challenges, and are regulating their operations, supply chains and emissions to ensure that they’re contributing to the sustainability of society. The next evolution needs to be truly moving past single bottom-line decision making, which we haven’t yet done, and is tested in moments of economic uncertainty and crisis. COVID-19 is revealing the fault lines in our society and economy. It’s revealing the inequities in healthcare, food access, and across racial and class lines, that are the result of a system that has put profit over people for years.
We’re going to see companies supporting the organizations that provide services in basic human needs (food, shelter, health) and likely pulling back on other funding. We’ll see them flexing funding guidelines and structures to allow organizations to survive, which I’m hopeful that will translate to better, more flexible funding practices on the other side of COVID-19. We’ll see a greater understanding of the critical role that the nonprofit sector plays as we need to rely on the social service organizations to keep people alive and safe.
In this moment of crisis, we need to lean in to business as a force for positive social change. With the financial pressure surrounding an economic recession, it’s going to be harder than ever to make the day to day decisions required to do that. COVID-19 is going to test businesses’ commitment to CSR and ESG and will lift up the companies who are truly committed to a better society.
Adam: What is the single best piece of advice you have ever received?
Danielle: Early in my career, one of Common Impact’s board members told me to “Hire the athlete, not the sport.” It is the single line that has stayed with me as I’ve recruited board members, staff and volunteers.
Recently, as the COVID-19 crisis was unfolding, one of my mentors said, “Danielle, never waste a good crisis”. It sounds funny, but these moments where our routines, norms and lives are shaken, are the moments when big change is possible.
Adam: What is one thing everyone should be doing to pay it forward?
Danielle: Figure out where your skills, expertise and background can make a difference in the world. We all have superpowers, and they can be a force for good. One of the reasons I’ve continued to be inspired to work at Common Impact is the remarkable transformation I see in individuals and social change organizations when we tap into those superpowers in a really tangible way. We all want to help – we just don’t always know how, and Common Impact provides those connections.
Adam: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Danielle: We have the resources we need to solve every social challenge we face. We have enough food to feed every person on this planet, but billions of people are starving every day. We have enough shelter to put a roof over every person’s head, but our homelessness challenge grows. By tapping into our neighbors and citizens who want to be engaged but aren’t, we break down the barriers that are blocking us from connecting those resources to the areas of need. We unlock new resources, we better access those we already have, we help each other better understand these challenges and most importantly, how we can solve them.