Sustainable Social Impact and Business Growth

Over the last decade, the focus on social impact and sustainability has evolved exponentially, with ESG goals and mandatories mounting up in both for-profit and non-for-profit sectors.

Given the inherent complexity of entrenched environmental and social issues, turning this ambition into impact and opportunity is no easy task. Meaningful progress requires engaging in discussions with diverse stakeholders, a systemic understanding of interconnected contexts, and a changemaker’s mindset.

Crafting a future centered on social impact and sustainability requires collaborative, out-of-the-box thinking, but the potential rewards are great.

Event - Practical Strategies for Sustainability, Social Impact and Business Growth

This briefing was designed for C-Suite executives who want to leverage practical strategies and actionable insights into driving and connecting social impact with business and revenue growth. Our panelists shared organisational insights, paradoxes, and lessons for managing complexity. They've achieved lasting social impact through real-world case studies.

Key Takeouts - Moving from insights to practice.

In an era defined by a 'polycrisis' of interconnected challenges, the insights from leaders at ReachOut, Eucalyptus, Port of Newcastle, and MCi Carbon illuminate a path forward for sustainable impact:

Lesson 1: Invest in infrastructure for experimentation.

In practice: use design sprints, prototyping and pilots to accelerate learnings, linking activity to a social impact framework to measure success.

Lesson 2: Challenge assumptions with an outsider’s perspective.

In practice: engage with a range of diverse perspectives outside of your sector, starting with desired outcomes and working backward to explore alternative approaches.

Lesson 3: Let go of control for cross-sector collaboration.

In practice: use shared goals to coordinate efforts, while creating enough flexibility for collaborators to learn and adapt their approach.

Lesson 4: Hold back your story until it’s ready to ignite.

In practice: focus your efforts on creating significant progress before galvanizing others, craft your narrative to make technical concepts understandable and relatable.

Sustainable Impact "Sense-Maker" Workshop

As part of event, we launched our Sustainable Impact “Sense-Maker” Workshop". Delve into the inner workings of your organisation to identify opportunities where you can drive sustainable social impact and achieve business growth.

Who: Includes up to 10 participants from across your organisation or from within a specific team - anyone who is interested in uncovering opportunities or solving a current or future business challenge.

What: An interactive and structured working session to analyse and explore the depth and breadth of your organisation/team's opportunity to embrace and evolve your strategy or plans to drive sustainable social impact that also delivers revenue growth.

Deliverables: 3x Senior Consultants from our Innovation, Technology and Communications teams for half day workshop. Same day C-Suite level write-up and recommendations.

Cost: $5,400 (inc 25% Event Registrant Discount – Typically $7,200).

The workshop helps to identify small changes that can have big effects.

The History Matters Collective –
Leaders in social impact and sustainability

History Matters pairs communications consultancy with deep ESG, innovation and transformation expertise, to empower brands to unlock and communicate their mission and purpose.

Partnering with a panel of industry-leaders across sustainability, DEI, Aboriginal affairs and innovation, this approach uncovers organisational opportunities, risks and gaps, and transforms these insights into creative communications strategies, backed by organisational action, to drive positive impact and build reputation.

Deepend Gr( )up brings together expertise across Innovation, Technology, and Communications to create lasting impact

Complex change requires deeply integrated responses, within organisations and across different domains of expertise. Without this coordinated approach, there is a risk of overlooking innovative solutions, or settling for conventional methods that limit impact. Deepend Gr( )up overcomes this challenge by uniquely combining divergent ways of thinking, doing, and knowing to overcome siloed perspectives and illuminate blind spots.

We are a Strategic Design Consultancy offering the leaders of organisations new and exciting ways to unlock the potential of their businesses. We use strategic design practices that deliver value through speed and agility.

Case Study – ReachOut PeerChat

The mental health and wellbeing of young people is a major public health concern, with almost 40% of 16 to 24 year olds affected. However, over a million of these young people are not seeking professional support and are reporting numerous systemic barriers.

Because of this urgent need for early intervention, youth-centred services, we worked hand in hand with the ReachOut strategic design team to discover what mental health support for young people should look like to address their needs.

Together, we augmented an existing program of work to support the research, evaluation, design and build of the PeerChat communication support service as part of ReachOut’s new business strategy - creating a more relevant, accessible, non-clinical and personal mental health support service for young people. In the first six months, over 1,000 chats showed a 73% improvement in wellbeing and received an 8.2 out of 10 service rating.

Case Study – Royal Flying Doctor Service

The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) is one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive aeromedical organisations, covering the vast Australian Outback.

The RFDS invested in an on-site Visitor Experience adjacent to its headquarters in Dubbo. The tourist attraction employs dozens of local residents and is projected to attract more than 40,000 visitors per year. With tourism playing an increasingly vital role in funding the RFDS’ medical efforts, the RFDS decided it was time to develop a state-of-the-art Experience Centre website.

Deepend played a critical role in providing guidance and technical expertise towards making the RFDS site a success. This challenging project showcases some of Deepend’s greatest strengths in flexible development and positive change by design.