Closing the need gap to open opportunity for all
Challenge
How do we build a clear, guiding, purpose into the core business strategy of a leading nonprofit?
Context
Good360 is the sixth largest nonprofit in the US and has helped source and place over $10B of donated goods in order to do good every day.
Yet, they lacked a unifying purpose for their work. A rallying cry that could place each donated pair of sneakers, each mattress, and each American Girl doll in the larger context of its impact on a life.
It was time for Good360 to move from “what” to “why.” To shift from corporate partnerships, logistical excellence and focusing on a national nonprofit network, to the impact on business, society and on each individual life they touch.
Action
We conducted an audit of government and third party reports that painted a picture of a world of disparity, met by a movement for accountability. People expect organizations to account for their impact, and with both excess and inequality surging, the time is ripe for a leader to bridge the two.
We used this foundation to define why Good360 exists: To close the need gap to open opportunity for all.
This purpose comes to life across messaging tailored to the specific needs of the partners, but always laddering up to the common purpose.
To really embed this purpose into the business strategy, the thinking needs to be more than words on a page. The question then became: How do we orient our business strategy around closing the need gap to open opportunity for all?
But to bridge that gap, Good360 needed to find commonality between some of the world’s largest corporations and a network of small, local nonprofit organizations that can distribute donated goods. With its resources, relationships, and infrastructure, Good360 is bridging the gap between those who have plenty and those who don’t enough to get by.
A series of surveys, co-creation sessions, and deep-dive interviews gave us insight into six design principles to guide the implementation of the purpose across the organization. Building on these principles, we were able to establish clear and actionable ways to embed the idea of closing the need gap into the business.