How Black Lives Matter has empowered businesses to do good

Fiona Ras-Jones launched Hebden Bridge-based Make Impact at the start of the year after spending her time at social enterprises, the public sector and charities.

Ms Ras-Jones told The Yorkshire Post that the Black Lives Matter movement has “encouraged companies to do more learning” and question their own practices.

She said: “The Black Lives Matter movement empowered a lot of companies to take action. It’s really made them question their practices and learn.

“It’s forced the hands of some companies to look more deeply at their practices and learn by bringing in professionals and expertise. To work with their employees and customers to find ways in which they can make a difference. There’s a real expectation that companies do something now, ethically. I feel like that’s just going to grow.”

The pandemic has also focused a lot of people’s attention when it comes to ethical business practice.

While businesses are willing to examine how they can do more social good, Ms Ras-Jones believes that there is much more that corporates can do.

“There’s a lot of good intentions out there and a lot of companies that want to be taking action but I think that there’s a lot more that can be done,” she said.

One of the factors holding businesses back is not knowing how they can affect positive social change.

The other is a concern that it might take them away from the day-to-day work of the business.

“Those two factors seem to be the main things that are holding companies back and stopping them from taking action,” Ms Ras-Jones said. “I’m trying to find ways to make that easier.”

Make Impact is holding an event at the Leeds Digital Festival to not only help firms understand how to affect social change but also why it may make good business sense in the long run.

Amy Williams, founder of ethical advertising platform Good Loop, will be speaking at the event.

She co-founded Good Loop in 2016 after turning her hand from advertising at Ogilvy to volunteering at a soup kitchen in Argentina. Ms Williams has since become an ‘advertising for good’ pioneer.

Ms Ras-Jones believes there is a misconception that doing social good must come at the cost of profit.

But she points to the statistic that shows Unilever’s purpose-led Sustainable Living Brands are growing 69 per cent faster than the rest of the business and delivering 75 per cent of its growth.

It also makes businesses more attractive to investors who are now more inclined to putting money into firms that do social good.

Ms Ras-Jones said: “Investors are looking for funds that have environmental, social and governance factored in. If a company is looking for investment, and they do good in these ways, they are potentially more likely to attract good investment and growth as well.”

It also helps with innovation, the founder of Make Impact said. Ms Ras-Jones added: “You’ve got this study from the EY Beacon Institute, which shows that 53 per cent of companies with a strong sense of purpose said that their organisation was successful with innovation and transformation efforts, compared with only 19 per cent of companies who didn’t.”

However, firms must act authentically and understand their customers otherwise it could backfire.

“With doing business for good, it’s a journey,” Ms Ras-Jones said. “It’s not something that you can just do in one day.”

Virtual event to engage customers

The virtual event, called How to Engage Customers with Purpose, will take place on October 2 between 1pm and 2pm.

Fiona Ras-Jones said: “The main aim of it is to help companies who are interested in how they can make their company a force for good but maybe are experiencing that issue in terms of how to do it, helping demonstrate there is that correlation between doing good and engaging customers to build trust, loyalty and access those new markets.”

Tickets can be booked at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/how-to-engage-customers-with-purpose-tickets-118303702559?aff=ebdssbeac

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James Mitchinson