Research
Business for Impact and our faculty advisors conduct research and publish books, articles, case studies, reports and more. Highlights include:
Good Business: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World
Bill Novelli, founder and professor of the practice, published Good Business: The Talk, Fight, Win Way to Change the World. Good Business is an inspiring and practical look at how to make a social difference regardless of what sector or business you’re in, and wherever you are in your career. This book shows that companies can be a powerful force for good. It challenges us all to change the world for the better and is a blueprint for tackling today’s critical issues. Readers will come away with the message that anyone who wants to make a positive impact on the world can do it. Novelli shows how:
- To bake social impact into a company’s mission
- To lead the way in changing organizational culture
- To apply your own passion and values in the job, wherever you are
- Doing well by doing good creates value for all stakeholders
- To bring businesses, civil society, and government together to create lasting change
Bill has appeared on programs such as Fortune, Life and Sight magazine, Authority Magazine, and more. Learn more about Bill and Good Business here.
BOOK PUBLICATION
How Change Happens: Why Some Social Movements Succeed While Others Don’t, authored by Leslie R. Crutchfield; Foreword by Bill Novelli (Wiley/2018).
With the support of founding partner Bank of America, Business for Impact Executive Director Leslie Crutchfield and a research team of 21 students, staff, and faculty published How Change Happens: Why Some Movements Succeed While Others Don’t to critical acclaim and enthusiastic reception across the United States and audiences worldwide.
How Change Happens has been instrumental in helping organizations craft social movements and design social impact programs that get results. Leslie Crutchfield has appeared on programs such as FOX, NPR, PBS, and C-SPAN, offering expert commentary on social movements and has contributed columns on social movements to FORTUNE, The Hill, The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and more.
PRIVATE SECTOR ENGAGEMENT AND SOCIAL INVESTMENT IN THE NIGER DELTA: A CASE STUDY
Business for Impact supports the Chevron-funded Niger Delta Partnership Initiative (NDPI) Foundation with research, analysis, case study development, and public convening events. After a ten-year investment of $100 million in the fragile Niger Delta region, NDPI engaged Business for Impact and its partner, Frontier Design Group LLC, to review research and program documents and conduct key informant qualitative interviews to generate insights about program impact and lessons learned. A variety of partner and project engagements were reviewed, including efforts to stabilize the region, improve economic development, and build local capacity to implement sustainable initiatives. We produced a 65-page case study summarizing the findings, analysis and recommendations to inform future programming. “Private Sector Engagement and Social Investment in the Niger Delta,” Published by Business for Impact at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with financial support from the Niger Delta Partnership Initiative Foundation (NDPI). (March 2020).
STATE OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISE AND ECONOMIC MOBILITY: A REPORT
Business for Impact has assembled a world-class team to embark on a groundbreaking project, “Social Enterprise and Economic Mobility in the U.S. Report.” This project encompasses a first-ever comprehensive look at the state of social enterprise in the United States in the context of economic mobility. Research and interviews are wrapping up and the final report will be complete in the summer of 2020 and will launch with a special event to commemorate the research in fall 2020.
THE PANDEMIC’S PERFECT STORM: A REPORT
One in four young adults report that the pandemic will have a lasting negative impact on them financially, while one in three millennial parents feel financial strain and project long-term repercussions. These are troubling new findings from a national survey of 2,280 young adults, ages 18-39, conducted by Georgetown University Business for Impact’s AgingWell Hub, an initiative of the McDonough School of Business. This report was developed in partnership with Bank of America and Transamerica and designed and conducted by Edge Research, a women-owned marketing research firm based in the Washington DC area with a diverse mix of clients in the non-profit and consumer sectors.
Read the full report.
A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE LINK IN THE FASHION INDUSTRY VALUE CHAIN: A REPORT
In 2013, Kate Spade & Company, a U.S. based retailer, partnered with Abahizi Dushyigikirane Ltd. (ADC) to develop a business opportunity that empowered marginalized women and improved improvised communities in Rwanda. Located in the Rwandan village of Masoro, ADC produces a line of handbags for Kate Spade & Company. Marketed under the on purpose label, the collection is distributed through the firm’s specialty stores and on its website. Through their work, ADC identified a pathway to sustainability that includes talent, scale, procurement abilities, capital, and systems that allows them to prosper as a for-profit supplier to fashion brands.
Kate Spade & Company worked directly with Georgetown University McDonough School of Business faculty members Catherine Tinsley, Pietra Rivoli, and Edward Soule to provide research and observation of the social enterprise supplier model and sustain the triple bottom line – people, planet, and profit.
BOOK CHAPTER
“Responsible Sourcing,” in Environmentally Responsible Supply Chains: Opportunities and Challenges, coauthored by Georgetown McDonough School of Business Faculty member Vishal V. Agrawal and Deishin Lee (2015).
