How the stories you tell can have a real impact 

Understand how you are meeting your impact goals

While metrics can be fairly straightforward for companies like Hydro Flask, which can quantify single-use plastics saved, or Trashie, which shows individual customer stats on how much water and other materials they have saved by recycling, social enterprises that offer more esoteric products can find it difficult to measure their impact. Take documentary film production, for example. Producer Sarah Olson, who developed Knock Down the House, a film that follows relatively unknown women leaders in their quest to gain seats in the US House of Representatives, says you need to understand your goal. Do you want to build awareness or galvanize the next steps?

Olson shared how she measures her impact, including crowd responses at Q&A events. For Knock Down the House, which debuted in 2019, she says she still receives emails from university students. “It’s got a long tail on it; it isn’t just a topic for today, but a topic for generations a decade in,” she added. There’s also inspiration. “We would go to screenings and have young women crying, saying: ‘I saw your film, it struck a chord, and I decided to run for city council or county commissioner.’ Many of them won their seats.”

While impact might be difficult to measure in financials, obviously good monetary returns –tickets purchased and film licenses acquired, for example – demonstrate a wider audience reach. At the same time, action campaigns can be associated with such films. One notable point of impact, Olson reported, was that when Netflix bought the film at the Sundance Film Festival, it was also one of the first times a streamer came on board and agreed to fund the impact campaign. That campaign also helped inspire many other unknowns in the political sphere to run for local office.

Similarly, writer-director-producer Ted Braun said one key metric for his film Darfur Now was how it lobbied key decision-makers, including the UN Security Council, to add Darfur to their agendas.

Your key demographics may care more about your values than you think

In the creative industries, identifying your core demographic can be more difficult than for a product like a board game or beauty product. But don’t make the mistake of generalizing. Your audience might include people of many demographics but think carefully about who you are seeking to move and motivate. Hinerfeld shared that this is particularly true for the film industry, where movies that used to be considered “sure bets” now often don’t pass the litmus test with young people or diverse populations. A recent study suggested that even accounting for critical acclaim, big-budget films lacking in diversity make $27m less on their opening weekends (and potentially $130m less in total) than more inclusive films. Moreover, a 2022 Edelman report stated that 59% of Gen Z buyers surveyed said they would stop buying a brand if they did not trust the company. More than eight in 10 surveyed said they buy based on their beliefs and values. The opportunity to capitalize on building connections between your brand, product, and/or service and deeper social value is growing and important to stay profitable.

Don’t just focus on the central story

Making an impact in creative industries doesn’t mean all the impact comes from creative work. Focus on the behind-the-scenes threads to create truly inclusive opportunities and impact.

Creative industries are highly competitive spaces where it’s difficult to translate ideas and passion to sustainable income and career longevity. Entrepreneurship is about innovation and problem-solving with a product or service, but in creating such new spaces, we often overlook the creation of pipelines. Social impact is not just won through a movie, an artwork, or a song, for example, but by providing those without access to privileged spaces the chance to be trained and hired.

Take Group Effort Initiative (GEI), which partners with more than 250 companies in North America to create diverse and inclusive workforce pipelines for the entertainment industry. “There are a lot of DE&I issues in Hollywood, from trans people not getting proper bathroom access to people of color being underpaid,” said Sumi Parekh, director of GEI. “Heads of studios are straight, white men who don’t really understand.”

At GEI, staff focus on providing underrepresented populations with training and exposure to Hollywood productions. But to truly have an impact, Parekh says partners need to support more than just entry-level hiring of underrepresented individuals. “We’d love to see them do more for those communities: teach them how to network with executives, help them get promotions, and provide tools and resources to bolster their success at higher levels.”