From Mission to Impact
2020 Social Impact Report
A Letter From Our Founder
Dear Friends,
At the close of each year, our team reflects quietly on what we will carry forward: what we have learned, whom we have met, and what we have contributed along the way. 2020’s look-back was, no surprise, quite different. As we reflected on the complexities and challenges of running a small business while parenting through a pandemic, a divisive election, and a national reckoning with racism, we thought deeply about the privileges in place that led us to close the year still with our business intact.
As a woman-owned and women-led firm, we are acutely aware that 2.5 million women lost their jobs or left the workforce during the pandemic due to systemic inequalities, archaic and sexist workplace standards, the lack of a robust social safety net, and a lack of investment in caregiving. By the last month of 2020, 38% of women-owned businesses were unable to pay rent. We do not take these numbers for granted.
Rather, we use them to fuel our focus on impact: To do what we can, with what we have, every single day, to help people and organizations realize their full potential.
The events of 2020 provided a daily reminder of how much our little time here matters. So, in the chaos, complexity, and sadness of last year, we sought out opportunities for transformative change: we focused on collaborating with our community to channel negative energy into positive social impact, we created campaigns and coalitions that advanced more equitable policies, and we found opportunities to speak truth to power, with love—while disrupting broken systems and identifying better ways of working.
As Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her 2018 documentary Notorious RBG, “Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.” Every step we took in 2020 alongside our partners and clients, was a reminder that this is what we work for. Yes, change takes time, but the steps we took in 2020—and the steps that we’ll continue to take in the years to come—are moving us intentionally toward a more just, equitable society. But we must keep the momentum of this movement going, and we must keep pressing forward, together.
I hope what you’ll find in this year’s social impact report is an even deeper commitment to pressing forward—through our values, with shared accountability, and toward long-term systems change. We may be a small business, but together with you, our impact is great.
With gratitude,
Carrie Fox (she/her)
Founder and CEO
Mission Partners, Benefit LLC
Public Benefit Statement
As a Certified B Corporation™, we exist to produce a positive effect for communities and their residents by creating more informed, effective, and connected mission-driven leaders. By doing so, we challenge long-held assumptions, elevate fresh thinking, and uncover the hidden potential of people that together, lead to a more just and equitable future for all.
Governance
Pathways to Business Ownership
We formalized pathways to business ownership and expanded opportunities for profit sharing for full and part-time employees.
Leadership of People of Color
We increased participation and leadership of people of color within our organizational structure.
Race Equity Action Plan
We developed and released a Race Equity Action Plan to hold our leadership publicly accountable to our J.E.D.I. (justice, equity, diversity, inclusion) commitments to our business, our clients, and our world.
A Commitment to Better Business
We maintained our status as a Benefit LLC and advocated for a better business structure throughout the U.S. and Canada.
New Paid Holidays
We formalized Juneteenth, Election Day, and 9/11 as paid holidays and days of service.
Company Policies Audit
We conducted a complete audit of company policies and procedures to actively challenge policies and systems that perpetuate oppression, discrimination and inequities.
Workforce
Values-Aligned Vendors
66% of our significant suppliers are local and/or are owned by women, individuals who identify as LGBTQ+, and people of color.
Paid Wellness Days + Flex Time
All employees were provided with paid wellness days, in addition to standard 32 paid leave days, to help balance other commitments during COVID-19.
Commitment to Fair Pay
All employees were compensated at or above the living wage of $20/hour in Montgomery County, and the $16.54/hour living wage of the U.S.
Offsetting the Effects of COVID-19 in our Workplace
We provided additional support to team to offset the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Equitable Distribution of Profits
We maintained a pay ratio of 5:1 between our highest and lowest paid employee.
Supporting a Remote Workforce
We redirected more than $2K of flexible transportation benefit to a work from home benefit to supplement team home office needs during a mandatory period of remote work, offsetting 15K miles of commuting.
Community
Beyond “Box Checking” in Building Diverse Teams
We informed a best-in-class hiring rubric to reduce bias and ensure a level playing field for clients expanding their teams.
Matching Gifts + Charitable Donations
$10K+ donated to nonprofits, including dollars donated through our charitable match program.
Extending Our Impact Through
Time + Talent
Granted $150K+ in pro-bono to our clients and community partners, in addition to 850 volunteer hours of personal time.
Joined Civic Alliance
We formalized our commitment as 100% in for democracy by signing on to the Civic Alliance and encouraging company-wide participating in the election process.
COVID-Response Strategy for Struggling Organizations
Instituted a COVID response strategy for client projects, which included significantly discounted rates on strategic planning services, and pro-bono visioneering sessions for nonprofit organizations.
Get Out The Vote
We hosted a company and community-wide Get Out The Vote effort in support of Reclaim Our Vote.
Our 2020 Impact in Action
At Mission Partners, we believe business is a force for good. We approach every client experience as an opportunity for transformative impact. Despite the challenges of doing business in 2020, we were pleased to partner with 28 foundations, associations, coalitions and nonprofit organizations, collectively representing more than 200,000 people. Here’s a quick look at our collective impact from the 2020 year.
Leaning Into a New Future for Science Centers
Like most museums and hands-on learning facilities, the Association of Science and Technology Centers members were feeling the effects of COVID-19 closures in 2020, at critical intersections for how to move their place-based missions forward. The Association of Science and Technology Centers engaged Mission Partners to lead a Design Thinking session with CEOs from 30 member institutions to jumpstart creative thinking about how to prepare and innovate for future success within the industry. Following the session, Mission Partners presented the key themes from discussions for continued conversation, which the CEOs have been advancing with each other to share ideas and learnings.
Elevating the Issue of Health Equity
In 2020, after 60 years of community impact, CHC: Creating Healthier Communities (CHC) was ready for a brand refresh. Its name no longer conveyed its commitment to community, or its belief that health is more than healthcare. Mission Partners guided CHC through this powerful rebrand process, in which we took stock of the words and images that best convey CHC’s impact, value, and role in creating heathier and more equitable communities. As CEO Tom Bognanno noted in the announcement: “This new name and brand better reflect our vision of a world in which every person in every community has an opportunity to realize their greatest potential.”
A New Approach to Grantmaking, Centering Resilience
As discussions on political violence were gaining attention in the United States, the Democracy Fund’s Just and Inclusive Society Project, in collaboration with New America and Over Zero, released an issue brief in late 2019 which offered insights into this specific type of violence. Through a multi-tiered release strategy and key message framework, Mission Partners worked with Democracy Fund in 2020 to publicly release the issue brief and position the paper’s authors as thought leaders among key philanthropic and social sector groups. To disseminate the paper into the desired circles, Mission Partners secured a speaking opportunity for one of the authors at the Stanford Social Innovation Review and coordinated placement within the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The release of the paper led to overwhelmingly positive reactions for Democracy Fund, and Mission Partners continues to support with further opportunities surrounding the paper.
Resources for Journalists on the Front Lines
In the lead up to one of the most divisive presidential elections in U.S. history, Election SOS emerged as a valuable resource for journalists and newsrooms to cover political violence and keep reporters safe. With limited time, and a desire for maximum impact, Mission Partners swiftly developed and deployed a digital ad campaign to reach busy journalists, driving them right to the resources that mattered most in the moment. Web traffic from campaign advertising resulted in the highest source of overall traffic on the Election SOS website and display ads saw over one million impressions, all of which helped put Election SOS resources onto the radar of journalists.
A $100M Campaign to Invest in People First
At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Family Independence Initiative, in partnership with Stand Together, quickly responded by deploying $100 million through Family Independence Initiative’s UpTogether technology platform to over 200,000 households across the U.S. as part of the #GiveTogetherNow campaign. Through the development of a COVID-19 Impact Report, Mission Partners collaborated with Family Independence Initiative to amplify their effective approach to tackling poverty, especially during COVID-19, with the Make Poverty Escapable campaign. The COVID-19 Impact Report has more than 4,500 unique views and allowed Family Independence Initiative to leverage new partnerships, new funding sources, and share their approach with key audiences.
A $1B Bid to Save Affordable Rental Housing
During the early stages of the housing crisis brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), Stewards of Affordable Housing for the Future (SAHF), and the National Affordable Housing Trust (NAHT), engaged Mission Partners to support in the announcement of a new joint venture between the three organizations. Mission Partners guided the partners through developing key messages to introduce the joint venture, with an emphasis on ensuring a more equitable recovery through the ongoing eviction crisis. Mission Partners then worked with the partners on a coordinated announcement and rollout strategy. Garnering buzz for the announcement through press and social media, Mission Partners also laid the groundwork for continued partnership success with a coordinated toolkit of designed marketing materials. Read this Bloomberg article to learn more about the joint venture.
Local News as a Lifeline to a Healthy Democracy
Local news has been collapsing in recent years, and the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated the challenges facing the industry. With news deserts growing, Americans are losing trusted, reliable news that serves their communities. Mission Partners stepped in to help build the Rebuild Local News coalition, managing the coalition, developing messaging, placing op-eds, and creating collateral for lobbyists to reach Congress members. Rebuild Local News now represents 3,000+ locally-owned and nonprofit newsrooms and is comprised of organizations advocating for community journalism.
“Being a B Corp™ and learning to fully live our values means being willing to go there—wherever our employees, our communities, and our planet requires, and to see those actions through, fully.”
Carrie Fox, CEO + Founder
Pressing Forward.
While 2020 presented no shortage of challenges, it also presented endless opportunities to channel our questions, our anger, our sometimes-hopelessness and sometimes-hopefulness into creative energy. In 2020 we are exceedingly proud of what we did with our clients, just as we are proud of what we did as a team.
Our first published book became a go-to resource for kids and their families to practice empathy and kindness.
In the early days of the pandemic, Mission Partners founder and CEO Carrie Fox released her first book, Adventures in Kindness: 52 Adventures for Building a Better World, co-developed with her daughter, Sophia, and illustrated by her sister-in-love, Nichole Wong Forti. Adventures in Kindness served as a positive distraction for thousands of kids and their families during quarantine and continues to drive positive change in communities around the world.
We reimagined our in-person Mission Forward community meals and conversations to connect people at critical moments.
With stay at home and lockdown orders in place, we re-imagined all of our planned in-person events and channeled our energies into a series of honest, hopeful and real conversations with our community.
We re-launched our podcast to elevate essential voices and perspectives on equity and inclusion.
We partnered with the good folks at TruStory FM to bring important and thoughtful conversations to a podcast-listening audience, with the release of our Mission Forward podcast.
We launched an open source Equity Practice Guide to further our collective learning commitments.
We developed and continue to maintain an open-source Equity Practice Guide to support our team and our community along our respective equity-building and anti-racism journeys.
We launched an in-house publishing division.
Mission Partners Press will expand services to independent authors in 2021.
“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
About Mission Partners
As a woman-owned strategic communications firm and Certified B Corporation™, our expertise lies in guiding organizations to realize their greatest moments of impact. Our clients, while diverse in nature, share a key common trait: a commitment to advance issues and causes that result in a more just and equitable future for all.
We provide strategic planning and communications services for these purpose-driven organizations, often during critical moments of organizational change, that help to ensure they are authentic in their words, equitable in their strategies, and intentional about their impact.
Since our founding, we’ve counseled hundreds of foundations, nonprofit organizations, and social impact organizations as well as the partners who fund and support their work. We’ve helped organizations refine their strategies, increase their impact and amplify their stories. We track and measure progress every step of the way. And we significantly invest our own dollars and time back into the clients we represent, because we know that everything we do to share and strengthen a powerful idea will move us toward a better world.