There is not a dearth of social impact leaders and entrepreneurs doing impactful work to build a more sustainable and equitable society for Hong Kong. However, many often face the challenge of communicating their work and impact to people outside of the social impact sector. The result is fewer opportunities for effective collaboration and less access to funding, all of which are essential to help social impact organizations and businesses build capacity to grow and scale.
At Foundation for Shared Impact (FSI), we are well aware of this bottleneck as a social impact organization ourselves, with our work focused on supporting other high-impact organizations like us.
That explains why we work with our corporate partners to co-host Impact Jams. By facilitating broad cross-sector collaboration, we enable our corporate partners to channel their philanthropic resources to the social impact leaders and entrepreneurs who need them most.
Enabling Social Impact Leaders and Entrepreneurs to Communicate with Corporates and Funders
On 17 November, we co-hosted a business clinic with Linklaters to equip ethnically diverse entrepreneurs and social impact leaders with the knowledge and skills to pitch for success.
Kicking off the workshop was Adnan Riaz, FSI’s Community Business Support Assistant. “At FSI, we’re building communities and platforms to foster meaningful collaborations. And these Impact Jam sessions are where we bring together our network of social impact organizations, entrepreneurs, and youths, and we invite professionals from the private sector to jam with us and create impact,” said Adnan. “In this workshop, you will learn to build your pitch bank, then you can use those inventories to create outputs tailored to the purpose, occasion, or audience. We’ve structured it this way to ensure you’re clear about what you’re pitching for. We’ve also prioritized the outputs that matter most to you, our social entrepreneurs, to help you focus on the most relevant aspects during the breakout discussions.”
From our community of social impact leaders and entrepreneurs, we invited eight organizations with a need to enhance their pitching endeavours to attend the business clinic:
- Africa Center Hong Kong: Looking to create pitching materials for corporates and funders, and learn how to pitch to different audiences via different channels.
- Community Business: In search of assistance for the creation of an information deck and formulation of a concise verbal pitch.
- TALK Hong Kong: Looking to refine an investor pitch deck and begin fundraising efforts with the knowledge and skills to create strong funding applications.
- Variety – The Children’s Charity of Hong Kong: Seeking assistance with a verbal pitch, an information deck, and the development of engaging keywords and catchphrases to be used for crafting a funding application.
- EmpowerU: Looking to improve their communication skills for connecting with a range of different stakeholders, and formulating boilerplate language to introduce their business.
- Arts for Good Foundation: In search of assistance in refining their verbal pitch, identifying resonating keywords and catchphrases, and crafting social media and website copies as part of their marketing campaign.
- WISE – Women In Sports Empowered: In search of ways to optimize how they communicate their organization’s mission, vision, values, beliefs, and Theory of Change (ToC) to enhance their pitch in both formal and informal settings.
- Mujhe Rang De Designs: Looking to develop a pitch deck and the confidence to deliver a verbal pitch, and enhance content marketing strategy.
The impact leaders and entrepreneurs were each paired with Linklaters partners during the consultation session. For Hong Kong-born Pakistani Mujahida Malik, who founded Mujhe Rang De Designs with a desire to facilitate mutual cultural appreciation between local Chinese and Pakistanis, the Linklaters partners advised her to start from the two cultures’ commonalities in order to foster connection.
For Africa Center Hong Kong, who is on a mission to Rebrand Blackness and promote intercultural exchange, the partners recommended more publication of photos and videos of its events and beneficiaries on its website to showcase its work to potential clients.
For TALK Hong Kong, which often faces hurdles in explaining its work in supporting survivors of child sexual abuse, the Linklaters partners recommended specifying the organization’s deliverables and how funding will be used to enhance its programs.
Impact Jam: Corporate Talent Engagement and Impact Creation
The business clinic with Linklaters proved to be a great success.
“With the assistance and advice of the volunteers, we were able to create a framework for basic business planning that will help me not only plan but communicate why we need funding,” said Taura Edgar, Founder and Director of TALK Hong Kong.
“Our business is already doing amazing work, we just need to package it better,” said Getty Gwenzi, Executive Director at Africa Centre Hong Kong. “I really enjoyed hearing the different ways we can focus our marketing, especially for corporate clients, and how we can improve our website. I was also motivated to look at our cultural experiences from a different perspective and inspired by the advice we received today.”
Said Sumichhya Gurung, Program Manager of EmpowerU: “My biggest takeaway was hearing from our volunteers what corporates want to hear and know immediately in our elevator pitch. They gave us a lot of insight and suggestions on how we can rephrase our words to convey the same message. Our volunteers Carl and Jelita were amazing!”
As always, this Impact Jam was a rewarding experience for both those who offered help and those on the receiving end. Said Jelita Pandjaitan, a Linklaters partner: “It was great to feel we could be helpful in supporting EmpowerU to tell their fantastic story and how they can help more. We were able to provide a structure that we think corporates would find accessible and appealing.”
Our heartfelt gratitude to the social impact leaders and entrepreneurs, Linklaters partners, and FSI Impact Lab interns who made this successful Impact Jam possible.
If you are interested in co-hosting Impact Jams with FSI to engage and develop your employees, achieve your ESG and CSR goals, and empower under-resourced communities, get in touch with us at info@shared-impact.com!
