Imagine not having to explain to people your mission to balance impact and profit. It's powerful and energising to work with people who get what you're doing and why . Sara Osterholzer co-founded the Good Business Club, an alternative business network fostering "collaboration connection and confidence for small, good business owners and freelancers who want to make a difference, as well as a living. " She's on a mission to reach 2021 budding impact entrepreneurs this year so they can start...

Saif Bhoja is founder of Huriah Hemp CIC, a youth-led organisation selling hemp and organic cotton products to businesses and consumers. It uses the sales to drive its social mission, empowering young people's creativity and self-esteem.Social action...

Marcella Tarable is the co founder of Food for Thought, an initiative which invites people from agencies to donate their skills to help a social enterprise or charity, in exchange for a nice lunch.Marcella says she wanted to found ways to "redeem her...

Video is like a match which starts the fire to cook a meal, says Ravinol Chambers. He's worked with numerous social enterprises, social investors and partners such as TedX London,  making stories which cross boundaries since 2009.Ravinol's debut...

Amy Eleftheriades has worked with children, young people and vulnerable adults in social care, health and education for over twenty years.A qualified teacher, Amy founded and runs Alpha Inclusion and Communication, which works with neurodivergent young...

Tiny changes in how you use technology can make a profound impact on your carbon footprint.By thinking about the entire life cycle of a product, from raw materials to what happens when it really can't serve its original purpose, social and...

Cath Harris runs One World Women, a social enterprise connecting experienced business women with ambitious female entrepreneurs from developing countries.Cath experienced burnout after growing her first business which she sold in 2016. On a holiday to...

Embedding social impact into your supply chain is much wider than just 'buying from social enterprises.' It's possible to unlock enormous and complementary social, environmental and economic impacts  through social procurement and Heidi describes how,...

Tina Chen is the founder and chief tea officer at HumaniTea which sells ready-to-drink cold tea latte drinks made with natural and ethically-sourced ingredients.HumaniTea is a social enterprise and commits 5% of profits to support wellbeing and...

We've run through the five stages of the LEAN social impact approach in earlier episodes. Three themes are common to every stage: being impact-led, communication, and embedding impact.A social enterprise with an impact-led strategy is led by the impact...

There's a lot of anger about asking questions or fear of being 'cancelled' nowadays. Yet how are you going to educate an 11 or 15 year old about their human rights if they can't or don't ask searching questions?Sandy AbdelRahman is the co-founder of...

Stage five of the LEAN social impact approach is LEARN. Heidi explains how this is when your organisation makes improvements, based on data, to maximise your impact.Heidi uses another real-life example, this time a community hub. Segmenting and being...

Genia Mineeva is a former journalist who moved from covering politics and international affairs to communicating impact and campaigning.She went on to launch BEEN London after getting angry about waste which doesn’t get recycled.In this episode Genia...

The fourth stage of the LEAN social impact approach is 'Analyse.' Heidi explains how effective analysis enabled a housing association with range of projects to capture better data, understand more about what worked best, and make changes to improve...

Abbie Morris is co-founder and CEO of Compare Ethics, a platform which connects conscious shoppers with brands which are ethical and sustainable, rather than brands pretending to be.She launched Compare Ethics because of her own lack of trust at many...

When are your prime opportunities to capture data? In part three of The Impact Diaries, Heidi Fisher describes her approach to measuring your impact – the central stage of the LEAN social impact approach.If you've planned effectively then measuring your...

It's disappointing if an important cause is let down by a poor product. Bryn Frere-Smith's coffee contributes to addressing terrible issues – but he’s emphatic it must taste amazing too.Bryn is founder of Blue Bear Coffee which uses its profits and...

Stage two of the LEAN social impact approach is planning. If you miss this stage you risk measuring the wrong things in the wrong way, a mistake many social enterprises make.Heidi explains how an organisation which works with young people with Special...

Denise Brown launched 4 Young Minds in October 2018. Over several years as a youth worker for The Princes Trust she had witnessed just how much young people struggle with mental health and well-being, no matter what their background.How does social...

What would your ultimate goal be if you were trying to maximise your impact? Would it be different to your current goal?In The Impact Diaries Heidi gives real-life examples of the five stage LEAN social impact approach in action.Its first stage is...

Manny Ebokosia is a multi-genre and multilingual recording artist, songwriter, and the founder of music business social enterprise, True Cadence.You can't push a natural born leader into working for someone else, he says. So True Cadence provides...

It's a disgusting and expensive mess. Fly tipping is the illegal dumping of rubbish and a costly scourge. Local authorities dealt with over a million incidents of fly tipping in England alone last year.But Elliott Lancaster is on a clean-up mission....

"Our values are to help the world run better and improve people's lives," says Frank Omare, a senior director within the global value advisory team at SAP. He works with customers to help them understand how technology can solve critical business...

"The trouble with being successful is you're in demand." When Jonny Kinross took the helm as CEO of Grassmarket Community Project, the Edinburgh-based social enterprise worked with around 70 people each year. Now that figure is around 500.With a...

Angela Clements is Chief Executive of Fair for You Enterprise Community Interest Company, an ethical alternative to high cost weekly payment and "rent to own" stores.Fair for You is a lending company, wholly owned by a charity, providing small loans for...