Impact

How to get your impact story featured in media?

Anonymous — Fri, 19 May 2023 11:14:40 +0000

How to get your impact story featured in media?

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Impact

communication

Media relations

Impact Ecosystem

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Impact

Communication

Annual plans and New Year`s resolutions are probably behind you by now, but that shouldn`t hold you from exploring some untapped potential in boosting your impact.

Why not make 2023 the year when you get your stories in the spotlight to raise awareness and engage with your audience?

Writing a press release that catches attention, having a practical media toolkit that helps you spread news or delivering an engaging interview could give your message an extra boost, helping you to achieve your goals.

Why social innovators are not covered more in media?

The answer might be plainer than you`d expect.

Besides handling the everyday challenges and neverending to-do lists, one of the most typical reasons is the lack of confidence and knowledge of using media relations and tools correctly.

In addition, nervousness naturally kicks in when it comes to public speaking, giving an interview or even writing content.

However, with some learning and practising, you could make the leap and use the power of communication to advance your agenda.

Learning opportunities to boost your message

Using media communication tools can give you a headstart in raising your profile, reaching and activating a wider audience while increasing your impact.

Here are a couple of simple steps you can take:

Do media training for impact innovators, where you learn how to handle situations like speaking at a podcast, giving an interview, engaging with media at events or making the most out of press releases. Getting the hang of media communication is like learning ice skating - you start out a bit wobbly, but after practising, you start gliding and smiling.

Learning media and Impact Writing skills could significantly amplify your message.

Change your approach to writing and publishing your impact report, as it has so much communication potential that you don't want to miss it. Haven`t you published one yet? Maybe the time has come to start advancing your agenda by start sharing your impact in a professional manner.

Make it easy to find and use information about your work, campaign, or else about your mission. It might sound very basic, but in reality, this is the most typically missed step to unlock potential in media communication. The best way to do that is to prepare and start actively using a professional media toolkit.

It is easier than you might think to utilise opportunities in PR and other forms of media communication, including public appearances, which can be nerve-wracking.

There are various learning options, such as attending programs and sessions held by the Impact Writing Institute, where you can harvest the benefits of working with expert trainers whether you are joining as an individual or have tailor-made training at your organisation.

This is not about you getting famous but shining a light on issues that need to be addressed and enabling people to get involved.

What really matters is to get confident about speaking up and be ready to share your story in a way that engages and mobilises your audience.

Giving yourself a chance to learn and expand your horizon using media communication should definitely be on your radar for boosting your impact in 2023 and beyond.

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Open call for innovators who want to shape the future of cities

Business Spirit News reporting — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 16:30:58 +0000

Open call for innovators who want to shape the future of cities

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The Urban Future international gathering of changemakers is looking for impact entrepreneurs with projects making cities greener and more accesible.

The Urban Future event, the largest meeting for ‘City Changers’ will return as a live event in Helsingborg, Sweden, on the 1-3 June, bringing together thinkers and doers shaping the future of cities.

Organisers are calling innovators and entrepreneurs with an idea to transform cities to become more sustainable and accessible. They are looking for projects that are tackling environmental or social issues in an urban space, touching the lives of citizens and passionate about driving change.

The application is open until February 6, and 10 selected businesses will receive two complimentary conference tickets and have their travel and accommodation expenses covered.

Gerald Babel-Sutter co-founded the Urban Future global gathering in 2014 with the aim to bring together the brightest minds who strive to make their cities more sustainable and livable.

“We usually choose our topics based on the main struggles City Changers go through when driving sustainability in cities,”

said Babel-Sutter about how they decided on the focus of this year’s event.

Gerald Babel-Sutter, co-founder of Urban Future

The 2022 conference tracks combine the expertise of more than 450 leading urban shapers and will be structured around the following topics: Leadership; Changing Structures; Impact Entrepreneurs; Revitalising Neighbourhoods; Building New Districts; Skills for CityChangers.

One of the highlights of the agenda will be the transformation story of the host city, Helsingborg and how they managed to fundamentally change their operation within ten years to become a top-class hub for innovation.

“We immediately liked the fact that Helsingborg was so open with what it had tried and what worked and what didn’t,” Gerald continues.

“Helsingborg has understood that to reach their goals, they need to experiment and make mistakes along the way. In Sweden’s first municipal innovation hub Hbg Works, any idea to improve the City can be tested. A no-strings-attached vision fund invites residents to join in and realise their city development dreams.”

The Urban Future event takes place in different countries each year, offering a place for urban impact innovators to connect and exchange ideas.

Headline image: Urban Future

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Award is open for sustainable and inclusive European startups

Anonymous — Tue, 04 May 2021 11:52:42 +0000

Award is open for sustainable and inclusive European startups

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Applications for the Impact Shakers Awards are open to European startups and scaleups that positively impact society and the environment.

For the first time, more than 40 impact ecosystem players from all over Europe, including incubators, accelerators, investors and networking organisations, are rallying behind the same cause.

Impact Shaker, organisers of the Impact Shakers Awards, wanted to create a space where impact-driven startups can grow stronger and scale their business idea to bridge the gap between social, environmental impact and profit.

Startups and scaleups from all over Europe can apply until May 7th for the awards inspired by the doughnut economics model that maps human prosperity according to a social foundation and an ecological ceiling.

Yonca Braeckman, CEO of Impact Shakers and co-founder of the Impact Shakers Awards

An international expert jury will pick winners in twelve categories: Energy, Water, Food, Health, Education, Income & Work, Peace & Justice, Political Voice, Social Equity, Gender Equality, Housing & Networks.

Yonca Braeckman, CEO of Impact Shakers lead organiser and co-founder of the awards, said:

“Impact should be a logical part of every business model.

With Impact Shakers, we want to bring about a systemic shift that fosters more diverse entrepreneurship and success.

In 2019, 200 of the CEOs of the top Fortune 500 issued a statement declaring that delivering shareholder value was no longer the chief focus and that value needed to extend to the employees, suppliers and environment.”

The public can also cast their vote over a month-long period, and winners will be announced on June 21st during an online Awards Show.

“One advantage of the awards show is the spotlight it shines on businesses that work in harmony with society and the environment.

By recognising inclusive and sustainable businesses, people can better visualise meaningful alternatives to profit-only enterprises that overuse resources and undervalue segments of the population.

It’s not that profit isn’t important, but it is no longer the only important factor,” says Braeckman.

On top of the Awards, there will be additional supports to help selected startups embrace their idea.

The winners in each category will get to participate in a unique Masterclass to help them 'Raise Alternative Funding', and as part of the program they will get to interact with the top founders in their region and learn from experts as well as peers.

The Impact Shakers Awards are open to European startups and scaleups that positively impact society and the environment; Image: Impact Shakers

At the same time, other prizes include impact service design offered by Quest, tickets to the EVPA (European Venture Philanthropy Association) Annual Conference, UpEffect scholarship for crowdfunding, free upgrade on the SeedTribe platform to o be exposed to a global network of over 250,000 investors from around the world, and more.

Braeckman adds: “We’re launching a warm call for accelerators, investors and all those who care about sustainability, social impact and inclusivity, to encourage startups to apply and be a part of an impactful positive future.”

The Impact Shakers, who is the driving force behind the awards, tackles complex societal challenges through inclusive entrepreneurship and aims to expand opportunities and capacity further to grow.

Together with partners, they created the Impact Shakers Lab to create experimental entrepreneurship programmes.

Here they work with underserved communities and explore new educational methods to help more diverse audiences start using entrepreneurship as a problem-solving method.

They will be launching their own micro-investment fund and accelerator later in 2021.

“We believe in people — especially when they have succeeded against all odds.

If you can get through tough times, break through barriers, then you can also build a company.

Resilience and problem-solving capabilities are ideal breeding grounds for entrepreneurship.

We work to bring out the potential from all walks of life and to incorporate inclusion in every detail,” explains Braeckman.

Headline image: Impact Shakers Awards

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Impact in the making: online matchmaking event for green tech stakeholders

Anonymous — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 10:42:29 +0000

Impact in the making: online matchmaking event for green tech stakeholders

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Innovators can join the Impact Connect online matchmaking event to find partners, funding and network, while learning from inspiring changemakers.

To allow value-driven innovators to connect and explore opportunities to collaborate, organisers of the Impact Festival created the Impact Connect online matchmaking day that takes place on the 23rd of April.

Over 150 Green Tech Start-Ups, 200 Corporates and 100 Venture Capitalists have registered, and innovators can still claim their free tickets to join the online event.

Using a comprehensive digital platform enables delegates to interact and find the most valuable connections through a personalised recommendation system.

Besides, there will be keynote speeches delivered by inspirational trailblazers from the impact community, including Torsten Schreiber, climate change activist and serial social entrepreneur, Founder of Africa Green Tec.

Torsten Schreiber, founder of Africa Green Tec, will share insights at the Impact Connect event. Image: Africa Green Tec

Alongside other speakers, Schreiber will share insights about his famous venture, Africa Green Tec, which has developed a holistic solution that makes it possible to supply entire villages in rural regions of Africa with electricity and sustainable technologies.

“We strive to connect the most innovative green-tech start-ups and scale-ups with corporates to accelerate the sustainable transformation in business.

Besides, we match these start-ups with venture capital investors to help innovators grow and establish themselves faster,” explains Fabian Demuth, lead organiser of the event and co-founder of the Impact Festival, about their goals.

"The Impact Festival has quickly become one of the largest platforms for sustainable technologies and innovations in the B2B sector and with the Impact Connect day we wanted to expand the opportunities available for innovators."

Fabian Demuth, co-founder of the Impact Festival

The closing session of the matchmaking day will be presenting the pitches of students who participated in the Impact Challenge programme earlier this year to develop their green innovation ideas further.

The program's main goal was to help young people from around the world to develop ideas into products that help society and contribute to achieving the SDGs.

Teams were supported by innovation experts brought to them by the Impact Festival and other partners, such as the Tech Quartier cross-industry innovation platform.

Designing the Impact Festival and digital platform that brings together the key players who can potentially change the course of business as usual for the better became the mission of Moritz Schwarz and Fabian Demuth, two German innovators.

They co-founded the Impact Festival to connect stakeholders, offer educational content and facilitate collaborations in order to make change happen after getting back to Germany from an eye-opening trip in Asia.

Despite the pandemic, they kicked off their business in 2020, partnered up with the Main Incubator for joint implementation, and started building the project they believed could influence leaders and decision-makers to adopt sustainability into their strategy.

Moritz Schwarz , co-founder of the Impact Festival

Moritz Schwarz adds:

“We see limitless opportunities for impact-driven enterprises as soon as destroying the environment becomes expensive while re-generating it becomes a viable business model.

It all starts with questioning what we really need, what creates value for society and the environment and what makes economic sense.

Businesses that can answer this will become the most sustainable, resilient and thriving in the future.

We already see a start of this change where emitting Co2 becomes more expensive.

Next up is the cost of biodiversity destruction and accounting for other social, environmental factors.”

The 2021 edition of the Impact Festival will take place in Frankfurt on the 16-17 September.

The event will present exciting and innovative technologies, a colourful and international gathering of the Green Tech players from different industries, with many visionaries and motivated changemakers.

“We are focusing on bringing the right content to the right audience and promote the most impactful innovations.

We are not an event agency but a corporate investor that strives to find start-ups that help businesses with sustainable and digital transformation,” says Demuth.

The eight focus areas of the event are derived from the EU Green Deal since businesses need to watch out for the outcomes of this Europe-wide initiative and adapt their operations accordingly.

Organisers also integrated the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a more specific goal to look for the indicators where business can contribute and benefit.

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