Social Impact
What is social impact?
Like all areas and aspects of our society, companies experience constant cultural change. There is a necessity of reconsidering views about awareness, priorities and sustainability, not only on a personal level, but also on a corporate level. Many companies have realized that it is no longer just about sales and maximizing profits. For several years, the social component in the capitalist system has been getting increasingly important and there is a strong request for it as society is getting more diverse. (Corporate) social responsibility, (corporate) purpose, social or deep impact are terms that have found their way into society and into the discussions about corporate responsibility.
Customers and employees no longer choose their products, services and employers based solely on price, function and functionality or salary, but also on the values and beliefs of a company. As long as we work inside a capitalist world-economy, our own consumption and work should at least benefit local communities and society, if possible, by adding social value for society. There is a loud and consistent request for corporate purpose and impact coming from especially younger generations. In order to remain competitive, companies must strive for adding social value and act responsibly.
Put simply, this means that companies should help to improve the world, by helping different societies to live together. There are probably as many answers as there are companies to how this can look and how to make it work. It could be social start-ups and companies that are committed to one of the topics concerning this issue, or large, long-established corporations which are implementing the first measures towards cultural change.
We at myAbility, as a social enterprise are pursuing the goal in creating (social) impact by putting our focus specifically on the issue of disabilities, and, as the definition already describes above, together with different businesses we want to create a more inclusive, barrier-free society with equal opportunities.
In order not to work in the dark, we regularly go through critical evaluation processes to achieve the greatest possible, so-called “deep impact” on society. We are currently working on various aspects and not only with scientific institutions, such as the University of Innsbruck and the NPO-Competence Center of the WU Vienna (University of Economics and Business), but also with visionary leaders and entities, such as the impact investor Charly Kleissner, SENA, the European Forum Alpbach, the Forum Alpbach network and the female domain together.
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