When we founded ImpactReady, we had begun to see the ways in which all organisations contribute something to the world, for better or worse, whether they realise it or not. We set out to help organisations to get beyond their brand and their reputation; to deepen their own understanding of their organisation’s identity, their true purpose and their contribution to society.
We had developed our insights from working in the humanitarian world, the social enterprise space and the private sector as well as from living life as normal consumers and tax-paying citizens. It turns out our own families have probably been the greatest influence on our thinking and outlook.
The theory that started to emerge for us was that it could only be by understanding what lies at the core of our organisations, our collectives and our communities that we can begin to understand our motivations and create the impact we want to see in the world.
By forming a micro-business of our own we realised that how we operated as a partnership had to be in alignment with our own hypothesis – and that this was likely to mean letting go of and deconstructing many of the conventional ways of working that have become normalised today.
For example, ImpactReady doesn’t have a mission statement; instead we have a question. The central question all our work revolves around is what does it take to create positive impact in the world? Reaching a definite answer isn’t the objective; instead we are committed to always keeping an open mind and learning about what affects our choices, behaviours and impact, when and how; positively or negatively, internally or externally.
In that sense, to be ImpactReady is to be open, to be curious, to be creative, authentic, agile and courageous. To listen and to evolve.