The fourth annual Thought Leader’s Luncheon, hosted by the Easter Seals of Southeast Wisconsin on Thursday, featured keynote speaker Jason Saul, an author and leading expert on measuring social change and driving social innovation.
The event, focused on the concept behind Saul’s latest book, “The End of Fundraising: Raise More Money by Selling Your Impact,” brought together members of both Greater Milwaukee’s nonprofit and for-profit sectors to learn how to better measure their impacts on their community and ultimately live out their missions more effectively.
“The Thought Leader’s Luncheon and the people we bring in are our contribution to challenge the community to think of how we give money, what we value, and to make the for-profit sector and the nonprofit sector or people who care for them think about our sector in a more meaningful way,” said Bob Glowacki, chief executive officer of Easter Seals of Southeast Wisconsin, which serves adults, teens and children with disabilities.
Saul, co-founder and chief executive officer of Mission Measurement, a Chicago-based social strategy firm created in 2005, has worked with corporations, nonprofits like Easter Seals, the public sector and foundations to restructure their approach to evaluating their social impact.
“I wanted to get paid to change the world frankly, so that’s why I wanted to create a company where we could get paid to solve social problems,” Saul said.
In his latest book, he both asks and answers the question, “How can we move from asking for donations to selling our impact?”
“I believe it’s time for us to empower ourselves to not just beg for charity but to sell our impact,” Saul said during his speech.
According to Saul, there is a real market for social change and nonprofits must reinvent the business model of philanthropy.
While nonprofits are already creating social change, they need to be able to communicate their social value more clearly in order to sell their impact and they must also sell their impact to people other than donors, Saul said.
His presentation emphasized that nonprofits’ missions are economically vital, and their fundraising initiatives can be more effective when market-driven.
“I think Jason’s message especially about corporate social responsibility and markets really speaks to our for-profit partners in language that they understand that matters to them,” Glowacki said.
According to Glowacki, Saul’s approach to measuring social impact is needed in Milwaukee’s nonprofit community in light of the city’s significant poverty levels.
“We really need to find the answers that Jason’s talking about,” Glowacki said. “Otherwise, we’re just going to continue to struggle as a city.”
BizTimes Media served as a sponsor of the event.
