Leading with Impact!

This is just a reflection post on impact sector and related business projects.

Very few people I meet these days lead with impact anymore. The business case has taken over the conversation and often before anyone has asked what problem is actually being solved or for whom. It is not hard to see why funders want returns, timelines are short, scale gets rewarded faster than depth does.

I don't think that is wrong, exactly. Business sustainability matters. A social enterprise that can't sustain itself can't sustain its impact either. But the sequencing matters more than we admit. When you genuinely understand the impact about who it reaches, what it changes, what it costs people if it doesn't work then the business model gets better. Not despite the impact focus, but because of it.

And before any of that, before the pitch decks and the theory of change slides, let us not forget there is the socio-cultural-economic context. Who are these people. What does their day actually look like. What has and hasn't worked before, and why. Skip that groundwork and even a well-funded, well-intentioned project can miss entirely.

After years working across clean energy, community health and market-entry projects, I made it a point to be there myself...not just send a team or consultants. Not because oversight demanded it but because the truth of what is working and what isn't rarely survives translation through a report. You feel the gap between plan and reality only when you are standing in it.

Coming back to execution after some time away, this is still the lens I am working from. Impact first isn't the idealistic choice. It is usually the smarter business one too.

Sharing a memory from the on ground work in the rurals and tribals of India.
#ImpactFirst #SocialImpact #ImpactInvesting #GroundTruth #CommunityDevelopment #SustainableDevelopment #SDGs #SocialEnterprise #RuralDevelopment #ESG #GrassrootsImpact #PurposeDrivenBusiness #IndoDutch #Netherlands