In Hong Kong, many social impact leaders and entrepreneurs are constantly designing and implementing innovative solutions to address protracted issues in our society. However, without the resources or budget to hire marketing experts, leaders and entrepreneurs often face challenges in raising their brand awareness, communicating their work and impact, and connecting with funders and collaborators who are mission-aligned.
One effective solution to address this gap is skills-based volunteering. That is why Accenture collaborated with Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI), a Hong Kong-registered charity that works with and supports a community of under-resourced social impact leaders and entrepreneurs, to engage in an in-depth consultation on storytelling.
In-depth Consultation for Impact Leaders and Entrepreneurs
At the “Accenture x FSI: Accent on the Impact – Storytelling Workshop” held on 18 March, some social impact leaders and entrepreneurs from the FSI Community were able to gain essential storytelling skills and knowledge at the workshop conducted by Accenture’s team of seasoned consultants: Benjamin Chu, Accenture Strategy & Consulting, May May Wong, Accenture Song, Lead Trainer, and Robert Hah, Accenture Strategy & Consulting, MD Sponsor.
But that was only the beginning of the learning journey for the social impact leaders and entrepreneurs representing Gowld Art Centre, Music Children Foundation, Chatteris Educational Foundation, Project Ethnic Minority Empowerment (PEME), The Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), Sisnu Sisters, FINYE HK, and Seekr.
Approximately a month later, from 17 April to 25 May, 12 Accenture consultants were paired with individuals from the six organizations for a six-week engagement, where each of the professionals provided more than seven hours of one-on-one bespoke consultations to each organization. Leveraging their own expertise, the consultants helped the leaders and entrepreneurs to create pitch decks, analyze their target audiences, identify pain points, draft marketing and event engagement plans, and utilize donor feedback to identify engagement channels to attract more donations.
In the case of FINYE HK, where little information was available for the consultants to help create marketing materials for events, the team harnessed Generative AI technology to come up with sensible and professionally-written content. The consultants also admitted that they were able to learn more about the challenges faced by Nepalese entrepreneurs in Hong Kong through the engagement.
“The FINYE team had a lot of great ideas for their marketing initiatives but their resource constraints mean that we had to think of content generation methods that can save time and be easily replicated,” said Sherman Leung, a Management Consulting Analyst at Accenture, who eventually provided more hours of consulting to FINYE than he initially planned to. “From the engagement, I got to learn more about the challenges faced by Nepalese entrepreneurs, and it enabled me to have the Intellectual curiosity to understand the context: the nature of my client’s business and its scale etc. I was also able to take initiative for the entire project, which I normally wouldn’t have the chance to as a first-year analyst.”
A Win-Win for All
The engagement was a success. All the social impact organizations and companies said that it positively contributed to their long-term growth in terms of marketing, PR and communications, strategic planning, capacity building, and financial planning. They received helpful and practical advice from the consultants, and were able to access the knowledge and expertise that they otherwise couldn’t have.
At a transitional stage to incorporate itself as an NGO, PEME incorporated the consultants’ feedback to revamp its pitch deck and it also benefited from the NGO-specific templates shared by the Accenture team. Said Aiman Nadeem, Vice President of PEME: “It was the first time for us to get professional support on storytelling and social media content strategy. The consultants helped us see the missing aspects in our own plans, and we learned the importance of getting external feedback for our work and planning process.”
In the meantime, ILM took the consultants’ recommendations to organize focus group interviews to understand what motivates the donors. Said Muhammad Adnan, Co-founder of ILM: “The Accenture consultants gave us specific breakdown of how to run the interviews, what the focus of the questions should be, how to reach members of the focus group etc. They have helped us build a model that can be reused to understand our other audiences in the future.”
But social impact leaders and entrepreneurs are not the only beneficiaries of this six-week consultation. “This engagement with FSI allows us to reach out to a completely different community that we have not engaged with before,” said Benjamin Chu. “It was great to be able to expand our horizons and make use of our experience and try to put it in the context of different niche areas.”
“Accenture’s engagement with FSI is special in that it gives our consultants the opportunity to work on the frontline and directly engage with social impact organizations and support them with our own skills,” said May May Wong. “Working with under-resourced organizations that don’t have the budget for sophisticated tech solutions or the processes to build out business strategies, we were able to utilize and practise agile workflows and our soft skills, which we typically put less emphasis on in our other client engagements.”
Accelerating Social Impact Through Corporate Skills-based Volunteering
For Accenture, the engagement with FSI’s community of social impact leaders and entrepreneurs has brought new perspectives. “To be connected with under-resourced communities in Hong Kong and using our skills to help them really adds meaning to the engagement,” said May May. “And working with people from different backgrounds with different mindsets, helps us to think and see things in different ways by embracing the differences.”
The success of the engagement owes largely to the preparation done by the Accenture consultants. “Because the six organizations we worked with represent communities that we have not engaged with before, May May and I had to spend more time to learn more about them and onboard them,” said Benjamin, who added his thoughts on an essential skill for skilled volunteers. “It is important to be an active listener. We present ourselves as professionals, but we may not be able to offer effective consultations if we don’t listen to what our clients have to say and sync with their own pace of development.”
“A good way to start is to reflect on the skills you have. Essentially, what is your USP (unique selling proposition)?” said May May, an active skills-based volunteer. “Skills-based volunteering is a low-risk engagement where everyone learns together, and it offers individuals a great opportunity to learn outside of the official structure. The knowledge and skills I learned through volunteering engagements, I can engage them back to my work at Accenture.”
And finally, some tips for skills-based volunteers from Aiman at PEME and Adnan at ILM: share templates and resources specific to the circumstances of the entrepreneurs and organizations you are working with, and apply sensitivity to their socioeconomic and cultural contexts. “As members of the ethnically diverse communities in Hong Kong, we have a very different experience in the startup ecosystem,” said Adnan. “Some of us have self-esteem and mental health issues, and it would be helpful if corporate volunteers can apply more empathy when providing feedback and recommendations.”
Are you interested in skills-based volunteering too? At FSI, we offer corporate and individual skills-based volunteering opportunities with various levels of engagement through our Community Connections and Community Business Support Programs. Whether you are looking for one-off corporate volunteering or long-term skills-based volunteering to achieve ESG and CSR goals or personal growth, get in touch with us at communityconnections@shared-impact.com or cbs@shared-impact.com to learn more!
