Focused Futures: Unpacking the Power of Social Impact Storytelling

Welcome to Focused Futures, a digital Q&A series where we sit down with industry leaders from diverse sectors to explore what they see coming into focus in their fields over the next 2-5 years.

Focused Futures is more than just speculative, hype-driven interviews; it's a window into the future of business, technology, culture, and beyond. We dive deep into the insights of those at the forefront of change, offering you a unique perspective on the trends and innovations that will shape our world in the near future.

Our conversations are designed to be both informative and accessible. Whether you're a business leader, an innovator, or simply curious about what comes next, Focused Futures is your guide to the ideas and developments that will define tomorrow.

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This Week's Feature: The Impact of Social Impact 

In this episode of Focused Futures, we're excited to welcome Joshua Reiman, who leads social impact storytelling at Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), one of the largest utilities in the United States. Previously, Josh led programs for the Institute of International Education in Ethiopia and oversaw media production in Yemen and Afghanistan for Equal Access International. Josh also worked at SFFILM, growing its strategic partners portfolio 400 percent, resulting in expanded support for 500+ emerging filmmakers through partnerships with leading Hollywood, media, and technology companies, such as Adobe, Apple, CNN, Dolby, Google, HBO, Netflix, New York Times, Samsung, and WarnerMedia. Through his insights, Josh sheds light on the importance, effectiveness, and future of this incredibly powerful focus that today’s brands, companies, and governments embrace.

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Q: As someone who’s been a leading voice and expert in social impact storytelling for years, maybe start with the basics of defining what is social impact from your perspective? 

Social impact to me is essentially the literal definition of the words: the impact your work has on society. When it comes to “social impact storytelling” we are trying to show through story what difference the work we do, or the grants we make, in the communities we serve, has made in people’s lives. We believe that “impact” is usually best told not from PG&E’s perspective, but through the voices of people directly affected by our work.

Q: It seems this is an area more and more companies and brands are leaning into today, what are the drivers behind this? 

We have all become smarter and more attuned to the media environment we live in. Audiences know an advertisement when they see or hear it and that usually activates an instinct to tune out. There are also so many tools that allow us to either skip ads or put our attention elsewhere. Companies are catching on though. Audiences respond to authenticity and importantly, want to care about who and what they are watching. Having a company speak directly to its audience about its products or services is not a recipe for authenticity. 

Companies are learning different ways to create and share stories that resonate with their customers. Ultimately, this is an exercise in values communication. Companies seek out characters and stories that reflect their values, who can share an experience that is true to them and which the company feels will resonate with their target audience. Importantly, that story then needs to have a logical connection to the brand. Integrating the brand in a way that doesn’t distract from the story but instead, compliments and advances the story, is where the art of this work comes into play.

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Q: In a lot of circles, social impact is still very new for companies, what are some of the key mistakes made when executing this work, and in turn are there some foundational pieces that need to be in place prior to starting?  

Far too often companies believe all they need to do is talk about their good deeds, share how much money they are giving to charities, how much their employees volunteer, etc. There is certainly a place for those statistics, don’t get me wrong. We provide these metrics in our own annual impact report. However, they are not sufficient in demonstrating your company is deeply invested in positively impacting the communities your work touches. They meet the bare minimum expectation of most people. Plus, stories about philanthropy itself are super boring.

Instead, to show you genuinely care about the social impact of your business, companies must go deeper to show they understand their customers and empathize with the very real issues their customers are dealing with in their lives. You need to give your customers platforms to voice their lived experience and demonstrate you are listening and responding accordingly. 

There is a story I like to tell from my time in India helping build a corporate social responsibility practice for the Confederation of Indian Industry. At the time the Indian economy was booming after years of government control. New developers were clearing land and destroying local farms to build malls everywhere. When local communities would protest and get upset, the developers would essentially say, “Don’t worry, we are going to give you jobs at the mall that are easier than farming and will pay you way more.” The thing of course is that none of these people wanted to work at a mall. They wanted to live in their community, farm the land that had been in their family for generations, and get paid fairly for it. No one was listening or really caring about what they had to say though.

Storytelling work provides vehicles to elevate non-company voices, people who are more likely to resonate with your customers, versus a company spokesperson or CEO. Foundational to this practice is the genuine intention of your company to have a positive social impact. It also requires the humility to let non-company voices get amplified, which can feel counterintuitive to many companies. If your motivation is to simply improve customers’ perception of you, you will fail because customers will see right through you and see it for what it is, a public relations campaign. Your desire to have a social impact must be integrated into everything you do as a company. 

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Q: In your opinion, are there key shifts or cultural moments that you can point to throughout our history that propelled brands towards investing and building out a social impact presence? Have companies for the most part sustained these efforts or do they dissipate over time?   

Companies have had foundations and charitable giving and employee volunteer programs that support local communities for a long time. The more recent shift has been to what is considered in many circles a “triple-bottom-line” approach to business, a term largely credited to John Elkington in the 1990s, but advanced in different ways by many others since then. I’d recommend reading Mark Kramer and Michael Porter’s seminal Harvard Business Review article, Creating Shared Value from 1999 and How to Change the World by David Bornstein, which really shined a light on social entrepreneurship in the early 2000s. The United Nations’ Millenium Development Goals also had the effect of focusing private sector stakeholders on what they could do to support social issues beyond their own profitability. Then in 2019, the Business Roundtable, a group of over 200 CEOs of major American companies, made news by shifting their long held definition of the purpose of a corporation away from principally existing to serve their shareholders, to a purpose to serve “all of our stakeholders,” including “supporting the communities in which we work.”

Certainly, this purpose is not shared uniformly across the business community. More companies talk about sustainability and being good corporate citizens than before, but like anything, those terms can also ring hollow if they are not backed up by community-oriented actions and business practices that are understood to be truly foundational to their company. What I do think is more common today though is a deeper appreciation for the intelligence of the consumer. This is partly why we have seen the whole world of “influencer” marketing take off. I might not buy something because a company tells me to, but if someone else who I relate to or have affinity for validates the product or service for me, I might reconsider it. If I watch a story created by a brand that I find compelling and that advances a values system that resonates with me, I am more likely to have affinity for that company and by extension, what they do or sell.

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Q: What are some of the best examples you’ve seen out there for social impact work as of late and why? 

It has been fascinating to watch the evolution of the art of brand storytelling over the last decade. Kenzo’s Kenzo World piece, directed by Spike Jonze, while maybe not exactly a “social impact” story was the first longer form, non-traditional brand story that really blew my mind and opened my eyes to what is possible. Even/Odd has done so much incredible brand storytelling work over the years, but their series with Square, Black Owned, and then Exit 12, have always been creative inspirations for me. Airbnb produced a feature length documentary, Gay Chorus Deep South, a really ambitious project from a company with little to no long form storytelling experience, which was short listed for the Oscars. WeTransfer’s The Long Goodbye, with Riz Ahmed, ultimately did win the Oscar for live action documentary short. That film still haunts me and is a hard, but important watch. All of these stories make sense to be told by the brand telling them, and ultimately, they are not about the brand, but about real people, and that’s why they are powerful. 

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Q: Is there any interesting data or stats in general that you can share on how social impact work benefits a company or brand in the big picture? 

There are many studies, including the annual Edelman Trust Barometer, that reflect the general decline in Americans’ trust of leaders and institutions. That’s an important signal to let other voices validate what you are doing as a company, rather than simply trying to sell yourself, or your products or services, more effectively. 

Regarding measurement, it is important companies are thoughtful and specific about what they are measuring and how they are doing it. Too often companies default to wanting their stories to be simply seen by as many people as possible, like it is a movie or television show. Brand stories usually should be understood as being intended for specific target audiences or customers, not anyone with a screen available to them. The more targeted you are, and the more you can articulate what impact you want your story to have, the easier it is to measure whether it is moving the needle for your company or not. 

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Q: In your opinion are you seeing an increase in companies building out this discipline? Are there certain industries that gravitate towards this type of work more than others?  

You see companies trying to differentiate themselves through the way their products or services create a positive social impact across industries. I think how it is received is certainly mixed. Whether the work of REI, PG&E or Meta create a positive social impact will always differ depending on who you are talking to, whether at the company or among our customers.

The outdoors industry for a long time now has been the vanguard in brand storytelling, although technology companies, such as Adobe and WhatsApp, are investing more in the space. We are trying to show a new way for utility companies to show up and engage with their communities. The more you can simply encourage your audience to do more of a thing, whether that is to hike, use less energy, or connect with your friends on the other side of the world, the easier it is to define what social impact means to you. 

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Q: In your opinion, are future generations getting more engaged or becoming overwhelmed when it comes to social impact and the stories breaking through? I can imagine there’s an art and science to providing a balance of education, hope and action? 

Good stories can always break through the noise. That’s why storytelling has been around longer than any other form. Two important things to consider here. 

One. Labels, new terms, and jargon, catch phrases, come and go. That’s why no one should be content to simply talk about their work in the phraseology of “sustainability”, “triple bottom line” or “social impact.” Stories grounded in honesty, transparency, and empathy will always speak to people. No two are the same as well. So as long as you continue to do the hard work of reflecting on why you do what you do as a company, and being curious and listening to the people who your company touches, you will find incredible stories to share with your audience.

Two. People respond to hope-based stories. They want to be a part of the solution to a problem they care about. They want to see a path forward to a better future. Part of the magic of social impact storytelling is you can help show your audience a pathway to make a difference and improve the world in ways that are meaningful to each person who watched your story. At PG&E Stories, we try to make it easy for people to join us and make a difference. Everyone who watches your story and is moved to get involved will have different interests and capacities to do so. Therefore, with each story, we provide multiple ways for people to donate, volunteer, organize, or partner with us to advance the causes our stories are about.

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Q: What are the big challenges currently in the social impact storytelling world? What are the future challenges that lay ahead that we’re not even thinking about just yet as brands, governments, or companies?  

Challenges are opportunities, so I generally think of these as untapped opportunities. 

First, too many companies are still thinking about measuring the “success” of their brand storytelling content through likes, clicks, and views. That may be the right approach for some, but more often than not I think it is reflective of people leaning on the data that is easily available to them.

Instead, a more strategic approach involves thinking about what success looks like for a given story and how you might measure it. Do you want to increase volunteerism or mentorship among your employees? Do you want build awareness about an issue in your community with local leaders and stakeholders? Do you want more of your customers to donate to a nonprofit? Do you want people to understand your brand values better? Also, are you looking for a causal relationship between your story and your audience’s actions, or is a correlative relationship sufficient, as you may have multiple communication efforts at work at the same time?

Second, the challenge for brand storytelling is to win over a skeptical viewing audience, and that your stories are authentically told, and not simply a PR effort. But that said, there was a time when we would have thought it really weird to watch a dramatic feature film from Amazon. They produce enough content now that, even if we know they want us to become Prime members and spend more time on their website, most of us will still engage with their content and can separate it from their business objectives. That content may even grow our affinity a little for the company.  

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Q: Where is the future of social impact headed as it pertains to companies and brands? Do you see new areas growing and different forms of execution? 

I hope the future of social impact is that of more businesses recognizing that they are more likely to grow and be profitable if the communities their company touches are also doing well. There is a fairly natural feedback loop that occurs between customers and businesses. From climate change and political polarization to violence and exclusion, our world has some pretty serious challenges right now that are impacting people’s day to day lives in very real ways. I believe the business community can be a constructive part of healing some of those divisions by showing the humanity of people in the communities we serve. 

Increasingly, we see that you need to be able to engage your audiences with content in multiple forms. So I believe the smart strategy going forward will be to have a story you can share with people in a 15-second teaser for Instagram and TikTok, 60-second trailer for LinkedIn, and 5-10 min short film for Facebook and YouTube, along with behind the scenes footage throughout to give people the feeling of access and again, connecting on a human level with your audience. 

Also, as companies build larger portfolios of stories, they should also start to think of these stories as their intellectual property. IP is invaluable. Your stories then, usually with other partners, then have the potential to become the foundation for longer form films, television shows or series, and podcasts. Once you start to consider the ability to option your IP, your brand stories can become a revenue generator, in addition to a medium that illustrates what you care about as a business. 

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