Around the world, 2025 was a year of unmistakable challenges. Cuts to foreign aid and development programs brought devastating human consequences. Wars and genocide continued, and governments used the most vulnerable at home and abroad as pawns in deadly political games. 

But amidst this darkness, we also witnessed meaningful progress. Across the social sector, partners, funders, and communities stepped up to fill gaps and adapt to uncertainty. At Camber, we found ways to meet the moment and drive impact for those most affected. 

In the spring, we launched a new strategy outlining our next chapter with a focus on field-building—a discipline aimed at breaking down siloes, cultivating shared agendas and collective action, and amplifying the impact organizations have across entire fields of practice. We also achieved B Corp recertification, executed our first Internal Equity Survey, welcomed six new colleagues, and celebrated nine promotions—including bringing our colleague and Shared Prosperity lead Marc Allen into the partnership.  

In 2025, we partnered with 27 organizations around the world on 42 projects. From women’s health innovation to climate resilience to income inequality, our work touched on some of the most important issues of our time. But don’t just take it from me. Below, we highlight work from across our sectors and the meaningful impacts each project has made. 

As a team, we found joy in personal accomplishments and milestones. We celebrated Camberians’ weddings and welcomed new Camber babies. We cheered on colleagues who became certified fitness instructors, one who earned a sommelier certification, many who ran full and half marathons, one who won a poker tournament, and several who completed new degrees. Our team also deepened their commitments to board and community service, volunteered locally, and directed $30,000 in nonprofit giving to make a difference. 

As we head into 2026, I’m holding the highs and lows with equal clarity and gratitude. The highs remind me of what we can build together, while the lows show me both why our work matters and why we must persevere. 

Read on for some of our most significant accomplishments from 2025. If you want to learn more about what we do and how we might work together, please reach out. 

With gratitude,  

Brian Leslie

Rethinking Resilience: Drawing Connections Between Climate and Health 

The Brief: Public health and climate change are inextricably linked—but too often addressed in isolation. In the fall, we partnered with Gavi and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to challenge this narrative through a novel report: Protecting Our Future: An Investment Framework for Quantifying the Climate Adaptation Benefits of Health and Immunisation Investments establishes a first-of-its-kind framework that quantifies the value of health investments for climate adaptation.  

The Solution: The report was released at COP30, the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Brazil, in November 2025. Our findings highlight the often-overlooked role that health systems play in helping communities adapt to climate change, particularly around immunization.  

The Impact: The report has sparked new conversations among multilateral development banks, donors, and country actors by bridging technical evidence with advocacy and policy potential. Stakeholders have been equipped with shared language and tools to advance long-term systems change in vulnerable communities around the world.  

Read the full report here or via AIIB’s website. Additional thanks to the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and our other collaborators for their support. 

Investing in Healthcare and Rural Economies: Strategic Planning for United Indian Health Services 

The Brief: Last year, we worked with the United Indian Health Services (UIHS) to help them chart a course for the organization’s future and determine how to make amplify their impact. UIHS is a coalition of nine American Indian tribes who focus on lifting up culture, community, health, and economic prosperity for their members—many of whom live in rural communities. 

The Solution: This was not a typical strategy project—it required careful and equitable systems thinking and expansive conversations across the region. We conducted research on comparable organizations, interviewed board members and community stakeholders, and laid out options to illustrate key trade-offs and strategic choices for UIHS. 

The Impact: After close collaboration, UIHS decided to establish a new foundation focused on investing in the healthcare workforce and care model innovation to improve tribal career opportunities in their rural communities. The result will go beyond healthcare—these investments will improve the health, economic opportunities, and quality of life for generations to come. 

Learn more about UIHS’s important work. 

Spotlighting Women’s Health Innovation: Pushing for Investments Around the World 

Photo Credit: Gates Foundation / Marlena Waldthausen

The Brief: For years, women’s health research and development (R&D) has been underinvested in and underrepresented, despite the $1 trillion opportunity that closing this gap represents. In 2023, we partnered with the Gates Foundation and National Institutes of Health to establish the Innovation Equity Forum (IEF), a group of more than 250 global experts in women’s health research and development. This diverse group is committed to advancing a more equitable, coordinated, and innovation-driven ecosystem for women’s health R&D. 

The Solution: We kicked off 2025 by publishing the 2024 Women’s Health Innovation Opportunity Map Progress Report, highlighting promising strides made in 2024 and areas for immediate action. In order to translate the data into action, we coordinated across the forum to develop actionable concepts to advance women’s health. Our efforts culminated in IEF’s global convening in October in advance of the World Health Summit in Berlin, bringing together more than 150 stakeholders to refine and align on these concepts and infuse them into the broader women’s health innovation ecosystem.  

The Impact: The Opportunity Map website, which launched in the fall, provides a new home for the IEF’s work and highlights tangible ways for stakeholders—from investors to policymakers—to drive meaningful advances in women’s health innovation over the next 15 years. These resources have strengthened awareness of critical R&D gaps across academia, philanthropy, the private sector, and policy circles. 

Learn more about the IEF and explore the Opportunity Map. 

Putting Data into Action: Informing Funding, Strategy, and Policy Development for Economic Mobility 

The Brief: Economic mobility is widely considered to be a cornerstone of American life – available to all who set their sights on it. But in reality, economic mobility has been declining steadily since the 1940s. Our Mobility Experiences initiative aims to support efforts across the country to ensure that future generations have the power to access opportunities that will advance prosperity and well-being for all.  

The Solution: In 2025, we converted our breakthrough Mobility Experiences research into action by equipping 15 place-based initiatives to apply the research in order to develop their strategies, mobilize capital, and improve their programs and services. We provided direct technical assistance to community organizations while also hosting broader public awareness events (like this one in Iowa). 

The Impact: Over time, our data reached more than 100,000+ people, helped inform several hundred million dollars in investments, and improved programs for tens of thousands of people. We supported 15 direct grantees to mobilize capital and improve programs improvement initiatives, and collaborated closely with key ecosystem actors like Harmony Labs and Fisher Strategy Partners to expand the reach and impact of our work. 

Explore the Mobility Experiences dashboard and this video unpacking the efforts. 

Scaling Up Health Campaigns: Improving Global Health & Wellbeing Through Collaboration 

Photo Credit: Federal Ministry of Health & Social Welfare, Nigeria / SWAp Office

The Brief: The Collaborative Action Strategy (CAS) on health campaign effectiveness is a first-of-its-kind commitment by the global health community to align in support of countries and their planning, implementing, evaluating, and financing of health campaigns in a more collaborative way. It is designed to bolster countries’ existing efforts while improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of campaigns for a range of public health issues. 

The Solution: In 2025, we helped the Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition put the CAS into action. We supported the implementation of CAS in two focus countries, Nigeria and Ethiopia. In Nigeria, we piloted efforts in three states to integrate malaria and neglected tropical disease campaigns into the largest measles and rubella vaccination campaign in the country’s history, which aims to reach over 100 million children. We developed a customized strategy and provided hands-on support through workshops, stakeholder engagement, and project management. Our efforts culminated in a major integrated campaign in October and the official adoption of the Nigerian CAS in December. These efforts united global, country, and local stakeholders, including the Gates Foundation, UNICEF, World Health Organization, Global Fund, CBM, and Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare and National Primary Healthcare Development Agency. We also coordinated closely with the Measles & Rubella Partnership, where Camber colleagues serve as the Project Management Unit, to coordinate across initiatives.

The Impact: Health campaigns are a critical way that countries like Nigeria tackle a range of public health issues, from measles to nutrition. For too long, these issues have been siloed. Taking a collaborative, interdisciplinary, and integrated approach through CAS is more cost effective, efficient, and less burdensome on communities and health workers than running separate, siloed campaigns. This is a particularly critical need given recent cuts to global health infrastructure. Through our work in 2025, stakeholders in Nigeria showed that future campaigns will be more integrated through early planning, shared calendars, strong collaboration, robust and integrated data systems, harmonized payment structures, and improved advocacy and communications. They have committed to advancing these objectives as they scale up this work across the country in 2026.

Learn more about the CAS and explore its resources.

The post Reflecting on 2025: A Year of Unmistakable Challenges and Deepening Impact appeared first on Camber Collective.

When we established Camber Collective more than 15 years ago, we wanted to build a social impact consultancy that put strategy into action. Over time, we came to recognize the need to think beyond individual projects and shape systems-wide change. Our resulting evolution toward field-building has helped fill critical data and evidence gaps for whole fields of practice, mobilize greater and more effective capital, and inform collective impact agendas supported by shared metrics of success.  

In recognition of this shift, I am excited to share that our colleague Marc Allen is stepping into a new role as Partner at Camber Collective. This comes after spending several years successfully leading and scaling our Shared Prosperity work in economic, civic, and democratic inclusion. 

Marc brings a wealth of knowledge and a vast network of leaders and organizations who drive change across the field. He has been instrumental in bringing our own field-building objectives to life, combining deep subject matter expertise and diverse partnerships to advance economic vitality through the lenses of income, wealth, and place. Marc is also spearheading Camber’s engagement with Public Interest Technology, a growing enabler of economic and civic inclusion.   

The impact of his work speaks for itself: more than 100,000 people reached by the groundbreaking Mobility Experiences research, several billion dollars in capital cumulatively raised or redirected toward income- and wealth-building opportunities, and a strategic footprint that spans many of the most eminent national institutions and place-based initiatives in the United States. Marc embodies the Camber ethos of converting data into an agenda, and an agenda into action.  

This promotion comes at a time of heightened uncertainty around the world. Now more than ever, we must align data, capital, programs, and communities to make a thriving future attainable for all. In the work led by Marc and other Camber colleagues, I see mounting evidence that this is possible.   

I am eager to see how our Shared Prosperity impacts — and Camber Collective as a whole — continue to evolve with Marc’s continued leadership.

With gratitude,  

Brian Leslie 

The post Marc Allen Named Partner, Expanding Shared Prosperity and Field-Building Portfolios appeared first on Camber Collective.

Introduction: Camber’s 2023 Impact Report

2023 was a year of growth, impact, and learnings at Camber. We’re excited to share this report as we look back on our work with clients and partner organizations around the world.

Our mission is to drive impact and develop talent in an economically sustainable model. In 2023, our first as a B-Corporation, we doubled the size of our organization with amazing new talent and seeded the social sector with Camber alumni taking on new roles in organizations driving equitable outcomes in health, prosperity, and climate. We worked closely with our clients and partner organizations to influence and amplify impact. This Impact Report highlights a select set of projects across our priority sectors and issues, and we welcome your feedback and input on how we can continue to improve our work and partnerships.

As we look to the future, we can all do more to drive equitable outcomes, processes, and policies. Camber is proud to launch Equitable Project Design and our Gender Equality Sector. Equitable Project Design integrates equity into every aspect of our work, from project scoping and design to methods and deliverables. Our Gender Equality Sector represents a formalization of over a decade of our work tackling the barriers to equality for women, girls, and sex and gender minorities.

Camber is a consultancy for an equitable and regenerative world. We are grateful for your partnership as we continue to grow, learn, and influence impactful programs globally and locally.

Wishing you an impactful and growth filled 2024.

Brian Leslie

CEO and Co-Founder

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Equitable Project Design Origin Story

The concept of Equitable Project Design was instigated from a puzzle: how could Camber Collective authentically elevate the voices, ideas, and power of those whom we mean to serve? A little over 10 years ago, one of our founding Partners, Hope Neighbor, worked with the Hewlett Foundation to design an effort to understand how women and families in Niger make decisions about, and access, family planning services and products. We worked with local partners, surveyed and interviewed women, providers, and local stakeholders. This first of its kind project led to a segmentation analysis and design of new programs to enable local community health workers and the Ministry of Health to better meet the needs of people and communities.

Our approaches and methods have evolved as we progressed on our equity journey. We saw an opportunity, and indeed, a necessity to instil localization and co-creation, elevating the constituents and communities most impacted as key thought partners and participants in strategy formation.

As professionals driven to advance the greater public good globally and locally across health, shared prosperity, gender equality, and climate, we wanted to push ourselves to a deeper, more authentic, and sustainable practice centering the equity promise that we had adopted as an organizing principle in 2021.

What was our role, as change-agents, or at least indirect purveyors of social impact, in integrating equity into our project delivery? What cultural relativisms were we overlooking? How could we, as the advisers and “helpers”, continue to lift up the voices and ideas of those we mean to serve in how we researched and analyzed, conceptualized and designed, and supported execution of  social impact programs?

Pondering answers to these existential considerations evolved into a series of team-wide conversations about our evolving approach to client engagements and delivery. What were our aspirations and values around racial, gender, and social equity, really? And how could we effectively assess, catalogue, normalize, incorporate, and amplify these in our project design, delivery, and dissemination? And if we succeeded at all that, how might it support both processes and outcomes that are more collaborative, trust-based, and non-extractive?

Whatever conveyances lay ahead for Camber, we determined, would be underlain by a commitment to continuing our growth and learning in anti-racist and equitable practices, and our collective agreement to address the injustice and systemic oppression deeply ingrained across societies. Our stance would need to incorporate ongoing, focused learning, and pinpoint a few key guideposts and deliverables. And as our efforts cannot succeed in isolation, we would have to identify ways to both guide and learn from our clients, project delivery partners, and community stakeholders along this journey toward elevated equity. We also knew that as consultants, we needed an organizing framework with supporting methods and tools, and we gave our framework a name: Equitable Project Design.

Refining and Defining Our Concept

Equitable Project Design (EPD) has its basis in the concept of Liberatory Project Design, a concept of the National Equity Project which seeks to apply an equity-focused lens to traditional Design Thinking principles. In contrast to the mission of product designers, social movement organizations, or community-based organizations working towards direct service goals, we embraced the opportunity to refine the lens to more closely adhere with our purview and impact theses as a strategic advisory firm.

Emanating outward, from the existentially essential level of personal bias, mindset, and growth, all the way to systemic change, our theory of impact around Equitable Project Design has five concentric spheres of activation:

As visionary as this concept is, we enshrined a realistic mindset into EPD from the start. As we said in our November, 2022 article:

As in all facets of the world and life, a 100% purity attainment goal is unrealistic. Not

all clients and contexts will align with Equitable Design principles in uniform ways,

and the journey is also iterative. To keep us anchored in our own values and vision

of social impact and systemic change, we are establishing a team playbook of

considerations across the entire project cycle that will help us execute the work with

honesty, confidence, and equitable influence.

With determination, we envision that employing this lens and approach will allow the firm to grow and evolve to a place where all team members will have the tools and competency to guide our teams and clients through issues of equity that affect their organizations, industries, and stakeholders. Ultimately, we aspire that our equity lens becomes a key aspect of our brand promise as well as a touchstone for client confidence and trust, centered on values alignment.

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EPD MVP: Key Tenets of Equitable Project Design

A year and a half after our initial conversations, we can celebrate some of the many important marks we’ve made along this journey, with tangible organizational tools and resources that anchor this continued work:

• We have built curated set of equity considerations by project phase, over 130 questions and markers we can incorporate into the full project lifecycle, from scoping to delivery to closeout
• We have built and revised our internal project tools with a focused embedding of equity considerations into our work
• We have begun building a library of resources, frameworks, and learnings for all of our client serving sectors that incorporate equitable principles overall, and by sector
• Having socialized the framework and elements with the team, we are now applying EPD into our own internal ways of working: learning, celebrating, building belonging, and leadership at all levels

Having a definitional framework has provided an anchor and organizing principle to scale the implementation and impact. This trajectory was already evident in a 2022 blog post in which we said:

As we build out this values alignment in our practice and demonstrate a deeper focus on equity and sustainability, we are even finding that new partners who were skeptical of the consulting sector writ large are eager to engage with our services. We are gratified to see this development, for we do believe that, by integrating equity into our theories of influence and client work, Camber Collective can help disrupt and dismantle the collective history of racist, exclusive, extractive, and colonial practices in the humanitarian and philanthropic sectors.

This report highlights some of the project work and sector impact that we are pleased to have driven in 2023. In addition to the client work, of which just a few illustrative examples are included, we also have leveraged this framework for how we define and position our internal progress and brand promise. Some of our major considerations include:

Please peruse some of the highlights from 2023 that incorporate Equitable Project Design principles. (Full report pdf is here.) Equitable Project Design-inspired elements are bolded in the below case studies.

• Gender Equality: The Women’s Health Innovation Opportunity Map
• US Health: Including Fathers in Family Care: WA Fatherhood Council         
• US Health: Broadening Access to Crucial Health Care
• Global Health: Task Force for Global Health Campaign Effectiveness Coalition       
• Climate: Building Bridges Across Intersections         
• Shared Prosperity: Finding Prosperity for More: What Contributes to Lifetime Income?    

Priorities for Further Expansion

Building upon not only these project outcomes, but our EPD approaches that were “hiding in plain sight,” we recognize a few key deliverables that will help us scale and broaden this approach. Above, we share our in-progress “EPD MVP” (minimally viable product) universal guidelines for our projects, determining, when possible, how to incorporate key equitable practices (many of which we had been employing for quite some time) such as:

• Application of historical/colonial context
• Centering the voice of the affected, and compensating our local experts for their participation
• Applying cross-sectoral/intersectional framing
• Employing equitable sampling and data analysis
• Continually relying on storytelling and visual narrative (as you will read in this report)

This report serves both as a sample lookback to some of our progress in EPD work, but it also helps pave the way that we wish to continue evolving the practice. It is our hope that our ongoing and future work will leverage EPD to encourage innovation, equity, co-creation, and norm-shifting. We want Equitable Project outcomes to become the norm.

As our firm becomes more deeply adept at authentically and systematically embedding and delivering equitable strategies and solutions for our clients, we can collectively galvanize equitable, transformative outcomes in constituent communities our clients serve. In so doing, Camber can meaningfully contribute to redressing the systemic injustices and oppressions that are so deeply ingrained in our society. This is our Grand Vision, and we are grateful to our clients, partners, associates, friends, and even strangers with critical voice, who help us continue to advance in this direction.

The post 2023 Report: Forging Impact appeared first on Camber Collective.

… Rethinking Think Tank Impact and Influence

Introduction 

In 2018, the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives joined together in passing the Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development (BUILD) Act, which led to the creation of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (USDFC)—a new U.S. development agency that succeeded the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC). At the time, many global development experts heralded the new DFC as a huge step towards not only helping developing countries prosper, but also advancing U.S. foreign policy and security interests abroad. In a highly polarized environment, it was also a rare and meaningful example of bipartisan collaboration. When introduced in the House, the bill had 44 cosponsors split almost evenly between both major political parties (24 Republicans and 20 Democrats). 

What most people do not know, however, is the painstaking work behind-the-scenes that led to the passing of the BUILD Act, spanning almost a decade and with the contributions of many stakeholders. Enter Todd Moss and Ben Leo, current and past fellows, respectively, from the Center for Global Development (CGD), a think tank in Washington D.C. In 2011, Moss and Leo drafted a white paper entitled “Development without New Money? A Proposal for a Consolidated U.S. Development Bank,” in which the two outlined historical criticisms of OPIC and highlighted the Obama Administration’s pledge to consolidate the federal government’s export promotion agencies. The paper proposed the creation of what Moss and Leo called a U.S. Development Bank, which was an early blueprint of what eventually became the USDFC. At the time, the Obama Administration’s efforts to consolidate became mired in interagency fighting, but over the next several years, CGD and its partners kept pushing for this policy proposal at the federal level, as summarized by Emily Huie in her chapter on the experience in a forthcoming book from CGD: 

• Starting in 2011, CGD partnered with the ONE Campaign to conduct a grassroots campaign in support of the eventual BUILD Act, resulting in 1,600 visits to Congressional district offices and 1,500 phone calls to Congress. 
• Starting in 2013, Moss and Leo participated in countless meetings with congressional staffers through connections from CGD board members and partnership networks.  
• Between 2013 and 2015, Moss and Leo published additional papers that provided more detailed blueprints and legislative arguments for a combined DFC, some written in partnership with the Brookings Institute and the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).¹ 
• Between 2013 and 2017, Moss and Leo testified before Congress six times about the proposal for a new DFC to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Takeaways from this Effort

What can we take away from this extensive policy effort? Foremost, it was indeed extensive. From the time Moss and Leo first proposed a consolidated DFC to when the BUILD Act was finally passed, nearly seven and a half years had passed. Such a lengthy time horizon for policy impact is not atypical for think tanks. Secondly, Moss, Leo, and CGD did not operate in isolation. They partnered closely with Board member and the ONE Campaign to provide much-needed advocacy support, built influential relationships with key congressional staffers at the right time to capitalize on political momentum, and rallied other think tanks like CSIS and the Brookings Institution to the cause. In essence, policymaking of this scale and nature rarely happens through single-player activation. 

The example and factors above highlight the unique challenges that think tanks face in measuring impact and influence. Typically, the purpose of a think tank is to advance evidence-based policy, or to broker policy knowledge and incubate new ideas. These organizations focus their time on research and debate to generate ideas that tackle pressing problems ranging from economic inequality to climate change to global development.² The presumption, therefore, is that a successful think tank is one whose policy ideas are adopted by decisionmakers and put into action. However, the reality is rarely that simple. Policymaking is a complex process of setting agendas, passing proposals, and implementing solutions. It is a lengthy, unpredictable process with a consistently evolving set of stakeholders and Overton windows.  

In this paper, we delve into the historical context and trends affecting think tank impact, the tradeoffs that must be navigated in measuring impact, and our recommendations to reimagine impact measurement moving forward. Our recommendations are based off Camber Collective’s years of strategic support in this sector with organizations like the Center for Global Development, Urban Institute, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Freedom House, the Center for American Progress, as well as interviews with a range of think tanks, funders, and policymakers. 

Content and Trends

According to the 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Index Report, there are more than 11,175 think tanks in the world, defined broadly. These organizations operate in the “ideas industry,” a term coined by Daniel Drezner to describe a marketplace where academics, researchers, and political pundits attempt to “sell” their ideas to policymakers in the US and beyond.³ While all think tanks have some role in generating and communicating ideas, their actual placement in the policy, research, and governance ecosystems varies widely. Think tanks may fall anywhere across a variety of spectrums: research-driven vs advocacy-focused, single vs multi-issue, partisan vs non-partisan, global vs local. For example, some institutions describe themselves as “universities without students,” producing top-quality research that serves as the evidence-base for policy choices, while others emphasize advocacy using strong communications and messaging campaigns.⁴ Audience targets also vary, from elected politicians (e.g., members of Congress) to influential bureaucrats (e.g., USAID administrators) to global leaders (e.g., UN officers). Funding is another key differentiator, and think tanks can be fully autonomous and independent, quasi- or fully government funded, or associated with universities, corporations, and/or political parties.  

Regardless of their specific target audience or overall approach, think tanks play an important role in today’s world. They provide a critical bridge between policy ideas, research and practical implementation, and they  often operate as the rare actor that is able to broker what is desired and what is possible for policy change. Think tanks ability to continue to play this role, however, is growing increasingly complicated.  

Today, this diverse field faces evolving trends that pose challenges to their operating environment and raise the stakes for institutions to define and measure their impact. First, political polarization (especially in the US) has made it difficult for think tanks to be perceived as non-partisan (most think tanks operate as 501(c)(3) in the United States and must operate with independence to maintain tax status). Through interviews with key think tanks and funders, we heard that “it appears that policymakers only read reports… from think tanks with which they agree politically.”⁵ Secondly, the proliferation of organizations attempting to drive public discourse and influence policy has increased competition for funding and decisionmaker attention. This takes the form of an increasingly fractured set of competitors, as the lines between think tanks, media, investigative journalism, and consulting firms blur, and the rise of social and online media change how audiences digest information. In the words of one interviewee, “the policy landscape has shifted and interest in traditional think tank product is waning… unless you’re a policy wonk, you don’t sit and read anymore.”⁶ 

Think tank funders, traditionally a combination of philanthropies and high net worth individuals (HNWIs) as well as government agencies, have greater influence given the competition. This increases the expectations of strategic alignment and proof-of-impact, sometimes resulting in overly siloed or funder-driven research programs. Amid this polarized and competitive environment, concerns over think tank independence are on the rise. The New York Times published a series of investigations between 2014 and 2017 that highlight how the struggle for funding has led some funders and think tanks to be unduly influenced by corporate and foreign donors. For example, between 2007 and 2015, the Heritage Foundation received at least $5.8 million from a Korean weapons manufacturer whose autonomous weapons system was touted by Heritage experts.⁷ While many think tanks fully disclose donors, maintaining independence -both actual and perceived- is a priority and challenge throughout the sector. The problematic choices of a few has led some to distrust think tanks, or as one pointedly named Foreign Policy article Why Everyone Hates Think Tanks describes, “it is time we confront the truth that think tanks have a serious, and perhaps also a deserved, reputation problem.”⁸ Ultimately, it falls on both think tanks and funders to be aware of the pressures they apply on each other and to realize the undue influences that can sometimes can lead to poor decisions. Think tanks must do what they can to maintain transparency and independence, and funders, in parallel, must recognize the deep value of non-partisan research so they can resist the urge to apply unwarranted and sometimes harmful indirect influence. 

Measuring Impact and Influence

Given the environmental pressures and context in which think tanks operate, the impetus for measuring (and disclosing) impact and influence is really two-fold. Externally, being able to clearly articulate one’s activities and what effects they had on the world provides a level of transparency and accountability for think tanks to their funders, stakeholders, and society at large. Internally, creating a model for defining and measuring impact allows think tanks to be more strategic and thoughtful, resulting in better stewarding of resources. Unfortunately, doing so has been a persistent and well-documented challenge for think tanks. After all, what is the impact of an idea? 

The first challenge that many think tanks face in measuring impact and influence is related to attribution or how to connect the research, expertise, or convenings to tangible policymaking or changes in perception. Arthur C. Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute, touched upon this issue in the Harvard Business Review: “[Think tank] output is pretty straightforward: books, research articles, op-eds, media appearances, public events, and so on. These products effectively constitute our supply curve. But nobody contends that simply writing an op-ed, publishing a peer-reviewed paper, or booking a scholar on television automatically guarantees a change in how leaders think and act.”⁹ These outputs are proxy measures, and proxies by their nature have limitations. They tend to be snapshots of a confined time period, are subject to the volatility of current events, and do not always link directly to “impact.” Moreover, policymaking is just complex, as the passage of the BUILD Act demonstrated. It’s nearly impossible to measure the impact of any one output, action, or organization if the qualifier is solely defined as policy change. To start, think tanks need a logic model that clearly states how their activities and outputs connect to short-term and long-term outcomes, and ultimately, to the impacts they wish to foster. 

The second hurdle that think tanks face in measuring impact and influence revolves around infrastructure: building the capacity, technology, and processes necessary to track impact long-term. More often than not, funder reporting requirements dictate what datapoints teams track and measure, given limited capacity to dedicate towards overall impact measurement. Hence, organizations lack clarity or efficiency in evaluating impact, whether this be ad-hoc requests for impact data, divergent definitions of what “impact” actually means, or a dearth of senior leadership to propel the work forward. The level of think tank investment in self-evaluation varies from one group to another (sometimes from one internal team to another), but in general, teams struggle with either securing the funds to build meaningful capabilities or generating enough organization-wide buy-in to invest—or both. For think tanks that operate like academic institutions, a lack of “buy-in” can be a barrier to developing a culture of consistent evaluation. As one interviewee states, “There are fellows at [our think tank] who believe that their research and work are valuable in itself… that the process of measuring impact is inherently flawed, and therefore, a hard task to prioritize.”¹⁰ To address this, think tanks need to collaborate closely with their funders to not only make appropriate investments, but also collectively agree on what is most important to measure.  

Tensions and Tradeoffs

Given the issues and trends that think tanks face, there are various tradeoffs and tensions in tracking impact and influence. In our experience working with think tanks, some of the key questions and considerations are: 

1. How do you determine a research agenda?  Research agendas can be driven by policymaker demand, researcher experience, and/or funder interest. They can also be determined based on gaps in the field or an estimation of potential impact for a given project. With the proliferation of organizations, competition for both funding and public attention increases, making it difficult to decide how to choose an agenda. One interviewee reflected on this challenge, asking “If everyone is chasing after the same new shiny thing, what differentiates you? Sticking with what you do and doing it better may be more effective than doing twenty new things… You may also be stuck with things that were interesting ten years ago but may not be impactful today.”¹¹ 
   
   Building an agenda that ignores the current policy discourse is a road to irrelevance. At the same time, a research agenda too broad can also lead to pitfalls. Another individual we spoke to commented, “Most think tanks are thin on an issue-by-issue basis. There are real benefits in the long run of working on fewer issues and having larger teams.”¹² However, scholars typically have evolving interests and may wish to set a dynamic agenda that diverges from funder or even policymaker interest. Any of these approaches to determining a research agenda require tradeoffs, necessitating clarity about the choice and its consequences. 

2. What is the best way to navigate the funder landscape? Think tanks not affiliated with a university or another primary funding entity typically rely on a combination of private foundations, HNWIs, mixed-vehicle philanthropies, and U.S. government agencies for their operating capital—and for some think tanks, corporations and foreign governments as well. The need to deploy varied development strategies hampers think tanks’ abilities to make decisions without considering funding sources. They also must wrangle with complicated determinations around whether to pursue organization wide or program, issue, or project-specific funding. These decisions are difficult, yet essential, as one interviewee reflected, many “think tanks are all running after the same rich people. It makes [them] very hand to mouth.”¹³  Siloed, short-term funding may fuel programs, but it also engenders significant administrative burden and the potential for undue funder influence.
   
   As we heard, “If you’re selling your research there is always the question of objectivity. Is the buyer really going to pay for something that comes out against them?” Think tanks and philanthropy alike should focus on long-term, unrestricted, or flexible funding, but it runs counter to the current project-specific and short-term grantmaking strategies of many foundations. Further, if the funding framework were to change, success is not a given.  

3. Is success defined in terms of policy change or policy outcomes? Balancing the idea of impact as policy change (evidence-based policy suggestion is passed or implemented) versus impact as policy outcomes (the extent to which a given policy had the desired effect) creates tension. Funders may express interest in the actual outcomes–for example, does a given think tank’s research about education ultimately lead to better educational outcomes for a target population? Indeed, given the variability of policy outcomes and the difficulty of assigning any causal attribution between outcomes and a think tank’s work, defining success in terms of policy outcomes can be impossible. All the same, it is dangerous to ignore policy outcomes. Doing so risks disconnecting the work from the mission and neglecting all the ways in which lives are actually affected, especially already-marginalized communities. Think tanks and their funders should make conscious decisions about the tradeoffs in defining success and create a logic model that most thoroughly captures the impact being made. Funders must also recognize that changing the conversation, or the facts that constitute the basis of developing policy, can also be a form of policy impact independent of outcomes in a given population.  

Recommendations

Despite the challenges and tensions, measuring impact and influence is still of vital importance for think tanks, not only because of external accountability and internal alignment, but also to compel think tanks to evolve and meet grassroots demands. Coming out of a world-defining pandemic and a new era of intolerance for racial injustice, think tanks need to build the infrastructure necessary to consistently evaluate their work and become better stewards of influence for all stakeholders, particularly impacted communities. This is not possible without measuring impact and influence. The era of think tank research speaking for itself is over.  

As Emma Vadehra, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, states: “As the broader policy ecosystem adjusts to a post-2020 world, think tanks that aim to provide the intellectual backbone to policy movements—through research, data analysis, and evidence-based recommendation—need to change their approach as well.”¹⁴ In essence, the very measurement of think tank impact and influence needs to be reimagined, steering away from counting productivity outputs and obligatory funder reporting to meaningful evaluation and learning with a clearly defined theory of influence. Think tanks can achieve this through a series of strategic shifts: 

1. Moving from policy agenda to theories of influence (TOI). Before setting policy agendas, program teams need to first define a theory of impact or influence towards achieving their missions. The TOI should then be used to define what to do and not do in terms of research, policy, and advocacy. This includes a logic model that outlines how inputs (e.g., staff time, resources), activities (e.g., conduct a pilot study, host a public forum), and outputs (e.g., published journal article, congressional testimony) lead to outcomes (e.g., issue salience, policy approval) and ultimate impact goals. Another core component of a TOI is clarity around who the audience is and why–a TOI should be driven by who needs to be influenced and which communities are being impacted, as well as why they are important. TOIs also have value at both the organization and program level, as they provide a structured narrative to describe the what, how, and why of the work. It is a central framework for any organization that wants to better define and understand impact.  

2. Moving from “bean-counting” to impact narration. Many think tanks fixate on the easily quantifiable outputs of a TOI when all parts of the logic model from inputs to impact are important in telling the full narrative of impact. Instead of focusing on fluctuations in outputs or activities to articulate productivity or effectiveness, organizations should use narratives to humanize the data and capture the full arc of their impact. This can be in the form of short vignettes or full case studies, as long as the stories recognize the complexity of policy influence, the contributions of various stakeholders, the lengthy time horizons for impact, and the results on impacted communities. Sarah Lucas, formerly of the Hewlett Foundation, a major funder in the industry, echoes this: “My view is that moving beyond numbers — and talking instead about how they are positioned, what they decide to work on, and who they work with — can help think tanks overcome their angst about impact.”¹⁵ These vignettes can also be developed and shared during key moments on a long-term pathway to impact, as organizations do not need to wait until policy change to share their learning journeys. 

3. Moving from funder reporting to evaluation and learning. The best TOI or impact framework is meaningless unless the organization buys into impact measurement for internal growth. Too often, program teams and fellows feel obligated to report impact for funding purposes only, but tracking impact is as much for developing team strategy, tracking progress, and learning from past successes and failures. Building this infrastructure will require collaboration between think tanks and their funders, prioritizing investments in senior leadership, technology, and staff capacity to measure impact and influence. The end goal is a learning organization that can adapt to the challenging environment in which think tanks operate. Furthermore, if this learning can happen transparently, it creates an opportunity for the public to contribute to the growth of think tanks as policy “expertise” becomes more collective and communal. 

Conclusion

In 2021, as Todd Moss and Ben Leo reflected upon their years-long efforts to pass the BUILD Act, they landed upon some clear takeaways. For starters, building relationships with key congressional staffers, grassroots lobbying groups, and other stakeholders in the development community was vital. Moss and Leo’s experience in government, as well as CGD’s board relationships, contributed to such relationships. Furthermore, the initial policy proposal for a DFC had arguments that appealed to both Republicans and Democrats. Proponents could adjust the benefits depending on who the audience was, and that flexibility was powerful. While no one at CGD contends that Moss and Leo contributed solely to the BUILD Act, many in the development community do credit their leadership and persistence in seeing it through. Many also recognize that the fight is not over—in its second year of operation, the USDFC has yet to make large-scale investments in low and middle-income countries, and CGD scholars continue to shine a light on these challenges. On reflection, there is a clear narrative with through lines and learnings that CGD and the global development community can apply to future advocacy efforts. With a clear theory of change, the right infrastructure investments and partnerships, and long-term commitment, all think tanks can and should measure their impact to better themselves and the communities they seek to affect.   

---

Notes

¹ George Ingram, Dan Runde, Homi Kara, Ben Leo, “Strengthening U.S. Government Development Finance Institutions.” Brookings Institute, 2013. 

² John de Boer and Rohinton Medhora, “What Are Think Tanks Good For?” United Nations University Center for Policy Research, 2015. 

³ Daniel Drezner, “The Ideas Industry: How Pessimists, Partisans, and Plutocrats Are Transforming the Marketplace of Ideas,” Oxford University Press, 2017. 

⁴ Alek Chance, “Think Tanks in the United States: Activities, Agendas, and Influence,” ICAS, 2016. 

⁵ Camber Collective project interviews/survey 

⁶ Camber Collective project interviews/survey 

⁷ Eli Clifton and Ben Freeman, “Restoring Trust in the Think Tank Sector,” Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, 2021. 

⁸ Matthew Rojansky and Jeremy Shapiro, “Why Everyone Hates Think Tanks,” Foreign Policy Magazine, 2021. 

⁹ Arthur Brooks, “AEI’s President on Measuring the Impact of Ideas,” Harvard Business Review, 2018. 

¹⁰ Camber Collective project interviews 

¹¹ Camber Collective project interviews/survey 

¹² Camber Collective project interviews/survey 

¹³ Camber Collective project interviews/survey 

¹⁴ Emma Vadehra, “We Need to Reimagine the Modern Think Tank,” SSIR, 2021

¹⁵ Sarah Lucas, “6 ways think tanks can overcome angst about impact,” Hewlett Foundation, 2017. 

Thanks to Amanda Glassman and the Center for Global Development for their contributions to this article.

The post What’s the Value of an Idea? appeared first on Camber Collective.

As one can intuit from the principles above, we found in our internal and external analysis that our current model for leadership and management lacked clarity in decision-making and budgets, members of our Management Team were all doing a little bit of everything, and despite best intentions for this not to be the case, we were both inefficiently managing by consensus while too many decisions were concentrated and centralized with the Managing Partners. We also found that we were under-investing in organization infrastructure and finance and operational capacity as well as in professional development for leadership and our team, which was limiting our potential impact and the pathways for leadership growth.  

We evaluated multiple structure options and permutations, and as we often advise our clients, we recognized that while structure is important, the values, culture, role definition, decision-rights model, and individual people in each role will drive success and impact.  

Restructuring Our Business Units

At the beginning of 2023 we shifted to a business unit structure for Camber, and created a number of new leadership roles and pathways. Camber will operate with 5 business units (BUs): 

• Executive Office, which is accountable for the overall vision and management of the organization, and will steward of our mission, values, and external communications 
• US Consulting, which is accountable for the impact and economic performance of our US client portfolio 
• Global Consulting, which is accountable for the impact and economic performance of our Global client portfolio
• People, which is accountable for developing Camber’s talent and our internal Belonging work 
• Finance and Operations, which is accountable for building the enabling infrastructure that allows the Camber team to do its best work 

Brian will split his time serving as CEO and US Consulting Managing Director. Brian will work closely with Rozella Kennedy, our Director of Impact and Equity, who will now sit in our Executive Office.  

Ted will split his time serving as CFO/COO and Global Consulting Managing Director. Ted will work closely with Eileen Harrity, our Director of Finance and Operations.  

Sakina Zaidi, whom we are excited to announce has been promoted to Partner/Owner at Camber, will serve as the organization’s first ever Chief People Officer (CPO). Sakina has demonstrated incredible leadership and impact over the last few years. We are thrilled to welcome her to the ownership group, and our clients and team will benefit from her focus on talent development and Belonging in the CPO role. The role was designed to be different than similarly titled roles at other organizations in that it is NOT a Human Resources role.  

Each of these BUs will work closely and collaboratively with important new functional, sectoral, and geographic roles that will shape how we serve our clients and create impact, and how we enable belonging and connection throughout our organization. 

Bethanie Thomas will serve as our Global Functions Leader, and she will be accountable for codifying our world class functional methods and tools and service innovation. Bethanie will serve in this role part-time, and will continue to work with clients to create impact in gender equality and global health. 

Camber will have Sector Leaders for each of the 5 sectors in which we focus. Jessica Vandermark and Ben Jenson will co-lead Global Health, Matt Holman will lead US Health, Dr. Chidiebere E.X. Ikejemba will lead Climate & Environment, Marc Allen, whom we are excited to announce has been promoted to Director, will lead Shared Prosperity, and Ted will serve as interim lead for Democracy & Governance while we search for a Director to lead this work in 2023. Each of our Sector Leaders will serve in their roles part-time and will continue to lead client engagements and field-building efforts and eminence.  

We are also thrilled to announce that Kate Thorson has been promoted to Director, and Kim Langenhahn has joined Camber as a Director. Kate will continue to lead a cross-cutting portfolio of work in health equity and gender equity within global and US contexts. Kim will work closely with Matt to grow our US Health portfolio and impact. 

Both Rozie and Sakina will work closely with newly created Office Lead roles, who will be responsible for local Belonging and connection in our geographic hubs. These leaders are Sarah Burgess (Washington, D.C.), Abdel Agadazi (Paris, France), Bethany Wylie (Seattle, WA), and Joseph Zhang (SF Bay Area, CA). These leaders will continue to serve clients day-to-day. 

The changes and change management of the new roles and structure are significant, and we are giving our leaders and team grace and time to adapt, and we will continue to ask for feedback and ways to improve how we work. We also recognize that our new roles will mean a shift in our working relationship – our incredible friendship and shared vision for Camber will endure, and we are excited to learn and grow and serve our team, our clients and partners in different capacities in 2023. We are also buoyed by the incredible leadership and talent we have at Camber, by the organization’s values and our commitment to Equity and Belonging, and by the incredible partners and clients with whom we work across the globe. We are grateful for a 2022 filled with countless good days and we are filled with hope, optimism, and determination for an impactful and joy filled 2023.  

Best, 

Brian and Ted 

Brian Leslie, Co-Founder, CEO, and US Managing Director. Brian is a Co-Founder and CEO of Camber Collective and manages Camber’s US Consulting practice. He works closely with Camber’s leadership to define the organization’s vision and strategic direction and is responsible for Camber’s impact, equity and belonging, and communications in partnership with the Chief People Officer and Director of Impact & Equity. Brian has over 20 years of experience in strategy consulting, advising  foundations, individual philanthropists and nonprofits on strategy, organization design, partnerships and operating models. Brian has experience working on a range of social sector issues and geographies, and brings specific expertise working with clients with clients that focus on policy, advocacy, and communications as their primary lever for impact. Prior to Camber, Brian worked at Deloitte Consulting, where he advised clients on corporate strategy and mergers and acquisitions across multiple industries, as well as at Stockamp & Associates (now Huron Consulting) where he advised large health care organizations on finance and operations. Brian earned an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley and received an undergraduate degree in Economics with honors from Pomona College. Brian is based in Seattle, and spends his free time running, playing soccer, skiing, and enjoying adventures with his wife Anna, who teaches Physiology and Biomedical Science as a local High School, two teenage boys, and his two dogs, Roscoe and Chicken.

Ted Schneider is Camber Collective’s COO and CFO, focusing on managing the firm’s performance and operations, and advises clients on aligning organizational strategy, organization, and business model towards optimal impact. Prior to Camber, Ted worked at Deloitte Consulting, where he advised clients on corporate strategy across many industry sectors. Ted was recognized as one of the Puget Sound Business Journal’s “Top 40 Under 40” in 2012. Ted earned an MBA from the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan with Highest Honors and received an undergraduate degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech. Ted loves playing tennis, skiing with friends and family and encouraging his two teenage boys to use both the left and right halves of their developing brains.

The post Camber’s New Governance Structure appeared first on Camber Collective.

Around the world, over 5,000 Certified B Corporations in over 70 countries receive this designation, demonstrating they have met the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, transparency, and accountability to all their stakeholders. While many corporations state a commitment and actions to ESG (environmental, sustainable, governance) best-practices and positive social impact, B Corps are legally required to consider the impact of their decisions on all stakeholders: customers, workers, communities, and the environment.

While there are B Corps represented across more than 150 industries worldwide, there are but a handful of strategic advisory firms in the mix. Camber Collective is elated to have become a certified B Corporation at the end of 2022, receiving a score of 100.9 points on the B Impact Assessment, a rigorous measurement of a company’s overall impact on its workers, community, customers, and environment. (The minimum performance score required to meet the requirement is 80.)

I recently talked with our co-founders Brian Leslie and Ted Schneider about what Camber Collective hopes to both gain and model by being a Benefit Corporation. This article has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: The B Corps has been around since 2007 and many of us recognize their “circle-with-the-letter-B-inside’ as a seal of approval. Not everyone knows what’s behind the logo though—a commitment to using the power of business to solve our most pressing global challenges. B Corps certification provides an immensely powerful way for corporations to build credibility, trust, and added value in the marketplace. Is this why you sought to pursue B Corps certification for Camber Collective?

A: One of the primary motivators for our pursuit of certification was to show our commitment to social impact. Camber, as a strategy consulting organization, strives to address today’s most urgent challenges, systemically, sustainably, and equitably. Our values aligned strongly with the principles of B Corps, and we saw many further benefits to becoming affiliated.

We would not only have proof, as it were, that we are committed to positive social impact goals, but we would also be accountable, in a transparent and public fashion, to measure and sustain that commitment.

Q: Yes, because certification has to be renewed every three years. So, certification creates a built-in requirement, making sure that we walk the talk.

A: Another element of being a B Corp is there is a measure of transparency insofar as B Labs publishes a summary version of every B Corp’s Impact Report, so that the public can see how the company compares to other businesses in their industry or sector across a variety of social impact measures.

How to Walk the Talk

Q: This is an interesting point. There are not a lot of consultancy firms in the B Corps cohort I imagine; there must be some evident advantages in the market for us in gaining this certification.

A: There are a lot of advisory organizations and consultancy firms that say they are values-driven, and while they might measure one or two elements of social benefit and progress, the B Corps certification process is quite rigorous. A B Corp must demonstrate excellence in areas, such as management practices, that can sometimes be opaque when corporations report on themselves, and entirely control the narrative of what they wish to divulge!

The certification process helped shine a light on some of the ways we had already differentiated ourselves – for example, we introduced a transparent and equitable compensation model 7 years ago. We now possess a framework for how we manage the firm in a way that keeps us above a certain threshold. So, it’s not just words, it’s a level of assurance and demonstration that we have to execute, measure, and maintain.

Many firms use the words that B Corps includes in its mission: building an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative world, but if you are a B Corps, you are required to show it, on an ongoing basis. There is nothing in that statement that is misaligned with our own values or the way we try to operate and grow our firm.

Tax Code Does Not Equate Virtue, or Lack Thereof

Q: Let’s stay with the self-governance topic for a minute more. Camber is a social impact advisory firm that works for equitable and sustainable outcomes. At the same time we are an LLC, and not a nonprofit corporation, which is the legal entity people generally associate with altruism, positive impact, and social good. Foundations are not-for-profits, for example. How does our identity as a for-profit firm create both opportunities and misconceptions, and does being a B Corps help mitigate this dissonance?

A: We sometimes hear what almost approaches a purity test in the social impact space, wherein nonprofit equals good, and for profit equals harmful, extractive, and bad. One of the great strengths about the Benefit Corporation certification is that it models a third way out of that binary.

These are companies that not only perceive themselves as enacting positive outcomes in the business world, they are given the opportunity—and the mandate—to demonstrate that, through both hard data and ways of working.

Q: I like that framing of it as an opportunity. Sometimes there is a knee-jerk assumption that if you are a for-profit company, your goal is to make the most return on investment, full stop. If anything good for society comes out of your venture, that’s secondary. But it seems like B Corps provides industry a way to model that defining and tracking positive impact is not that hard. In this moment of climate emergency, consumers, investors, and employees alike are all asking for companies to demonstrate they are good.

Some might not have knowledge or access to the tools to know how to best accomplish this; so the examples and resources B Corps provides through its outreach and brand actually have trickle down benefit even to companies who do not or cannot at present pursue certification. There are over 75,000 businesses actively using B Lab’s B Impact Assessment and benefit corporation governance structure, and many more who are incorporating B Corp Talking Points into their theory of change and business model.

A: That’s true. It is a good entity, for both direct and indirect impact in the business world.

Q: Yes, and now that they are more global, the potential for world-changing is even bigger. OK, I see that values alignment and accountability were key drivers in the decision to pursue the certification. I imagine there are also significant upsides in terms of the brand and market differentiation.

A: Yes, and this assertion extends the notion of pushing past the nonprofit/good, for-profit/bad binary we were just discussing.

We believe that being a B Corps is wonderful for Camber in terms of, again, not just saying, but proving that as a consulting firm and an advisory firm, we bring a profound set of social impact values and activations to our practice. And in our sector, that is a market differentiator.

We didn’t join B Corps expressly to attract more clients, but we sense becoming part of this cohort will over time connect us more readily with the kinds of agencies and entities we want to work with and assist, and it will provide opportunities for learning and exposure to positive impact best practices to improve Camber’s practices.

One facet of this, with broader lens, one with which you are very engaged, is the complexity around navigating internal equity and belonging. The B Corps has a growing body of work around SDG tracking, and increasingly so when it comes to DEI, racial equity, and anti-racism. They are growing their awareness, communities of practice, and bodies of work around these concepts, and indeed, we expect to not only to learn from these cohorts, but to be able to contribute to the discussions as well.

Q: And not just regionally or nationally… B Corps is a growing transnational entity, which I imagine will open networking and community-building opportunities for us as a global firm.

A: Most definitely. We are not approaching certification from a hardcore business development lens of: “let’s go find new clients,” but more from a viewpoint of, “how can we build an even more robust network with familiarity and trust,” which can lead to collaborations,  brand visibility, influence, and certainly referrals too.

To put a finer point on it, many B Corporations are consumer brands, which we are not. But we know that people not only want to buy from companies whose demonstrated values match their own, but they want to partner with them, hire them, and work for them. All of these facts provide tremendous opportunity for Camber.

Q: Yes, indeed, this looks like a very impressive community of peers to interact with—as they say, a community of “high performing peers.” I have seen many indicators around B Corps on the aggregate that show we are entering into “good company”: To pull from their fact sheet, compared to ordinary businesses, B Corps are:

• 9% more diverse
• 33% more likely to have gender-inclusion trainings
• 48% more likely to have LGBTQ-inclusion trainings
• 45% more likely to have Diversity and Inclusion training (on people of color)
• 49% more likely to employ managers from traditionally underrepresented groups in comparison to ordinary businesses (in the U.S.)
• 41% more likely to have conducted a pay equity analysis by gender, race/ethnicity, or other demographic factors and, if necessary, implemented equal compensation improvement plans or policies to manage and improve workforce diversity and inclusivity in comparison to ordinary business (which 43% of B Corps do)

Opportunities for Impact

These are impressive DEI levers. I also found impressive data around ESG impact. Compared to ordinary businesses, on the global level, B Corps:

• Protected 200,000 hectares of land, offset 16 million tons of carbon, saved 225 million liters of water, and diverted 207 thousand metric tons of waste in 2020
• Outperform on natural-resources conservation by 15%
• Are 2.8x more likely to use 100% low-impact renewable energy 9% of B Corps in developed markets have offset 100% of their GHG emissions, and are 2.5 times more likely to be carbon neutral
• Are 1.1 times more likely to donate more than 1% of their revenue to charity
• Are 28% more likely to have hosted or organized company service days in the last year and 71% more likely to offer paid time off for community service
• Are 75% more likely to hire workers from chronically underemployed populations
• Are 150% more likely to have supplier policies that encourage purchasing from local suppliers
• Screen suppliers based on use of positive social and environmental practices 210% more often 
• 32% of B Corps have a policy to give preferences to use suppliers that are owned by underrepresented groups (400% more likely than ordinary businesses)
• Are 1.9 times more likely to provide training/resources to improve the social or environmental performance of its suppliers, either through the company itself, or through a third party in comparison (23% of B Corps achieve this standard)

A: These data indicate congruence in practice with our theses around Just Transition and equity. And even though many of these measures don’t apply to our business model (we don’t manufacture products or sell consumer goods, for example), the shared thought leadership is very exciting, as is the alignment with the goals of our clients and partners.

Influence and Be Influenced

Q: Since we have been on our own ESG journey, specifically around racial equity, I would imagine we see many opportunities to influence companies in our circle as well, through some of what we are learning and experiencing as we grow as an advisory firm. What opportunities to learn and teach excite you?

A: There are so many opportunities to learn and upskill within the B Corps ecosystem. We were attracted by the depth of technology, talent, and expertise accessible within the B Corps community. And there is something really terrific about being in cohorts that have already figured out a lot of the issues around growth, scale, etc. that we are facing as a firm.

These include nuts and bolts topics like managing distributed teams, working across time zones—and even things one doesn’t necessarily correlate to strategic consulting, but which do touch upon some of our work with health care and product distribution, such as global supply chains. Additionally, our climate and environmental work is very focused on Just Transition and influencing the private sector to be better environmental and sustainable citizens. So, we see many ways to be in circles of influence and develop our own theories and practices more deeply.

Camber is now connected within a network, which provides some opportunity for building relationships with organizations that are also on a pathway to positive impact. Both when it comes to climate, or when it comes to equity and anti-racism, and even issues like how do we manage travel: client visits and workshop delivery while also trying to grapple with our own carbon footprints?

Such discussions and solutions are so essential, and existentially important. It’s encouraging to feel we aren’t going this alone, but are part of a global group of enlightened companies and entities all navigating similar challenges and driving towards the same kinds of positive solutions.

Q: Yes, B Labs has some 15 or 20 years in this game, and have a profound track record of driving positive social change. It’s unique.

The Power of Many

A: And furthermore, the opportunity to network is tremendous. We pride ourselves in being functional experts, but we are not deep content experts in every single are, nor in every single geography. There will be lots of opportunities for Camber to continue building networks of organizations and firms doing best-in-class work around everything from sustainability, to how they manage across geographies, to the efficiency tools and methods they use, just to name a few.

Take one of the most visible examples, Patagonia. They set the standard for ESG and social impact as a B Corp, and now they have shifted their model to be employee-owned. Seeing what they do gives all of us a vision for how we can become better, and evolve, and grow with what our models and realities evolve into.

I think the influence and learning and osmosis of being in these very enlightened corporate thinking spaces is going to be enormously impactful for Camber.

Q: And while we won’t be sitting in weekly meetings with hundreds of B Corps companies, there are formal and informal spheres of interaction and influence we will engage with. What other ideas or opportunities do you see in this aligned space that can help us positively influence our new peer circles in the B Corps?

A: Well, the B Corp itself is ever-adapting, and learning, and growing. And so we are all in a way on a similar path of evolution. Racial equity for example is becoming a bigger part of what they’re trying to do. In fact, when we first started in on the assessment process, their racial equity component was just starting to emerge.

I think we, and other firms that are paying close attention to these levels, will have a lot to bring to the table. And congruently, we as Camber will find ways to elevate important aspects of this shared work to our peers in the advisory space, and nonprofit, government agencies, and foundations we work with, over time.

Q: This is all a great deal of upside. Why isn’t every corporation with a good mission statement a B Corps?!

The post Camber Collective is a B-Corporation appeared first on Camber Collective.

Introduction and Context

Over the last 12 years we’ve been fortunate to work with incredible colleagues and clients to drive impact and grow Camber Collective into the firm it is today. We always believed that launching a consulting firm during the ‘Great Recession’ took optimism, courage, and luck. However, as white founders, we have come to understand how much we benefitted from whiteness and systems of racial inequity throughout our lives. While these systems were designed to be invisible to us, they played a critical role in our ability to start and grow this organization. We also recognize that Camber has contributed to the systemic inequities that are present in the social sector as well as the consulting industry. We carry significant privilege because of the resources, power, and influence of the clients and partners we serve. We are striving to both be better and do better through our own equity learning and action, to ensure we are better able to understand and correct for the role that systems play in restricting access to power and resources.

In early 2019 Camber launched the first diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) effort in our firm’s history. The effort was inspired and led by a small group of BIPOC team members who pushed the firm to think differently about our values, our culture and our role in the social impact consulting sector. In 2020 we fundamentally changed our DEI work to center racial equity. There is a clear through line from the legacy of racial oppression and historical extraction of labor and lands to the inequities and disparate outcomes that Camber seeks to address. Understanding these systems, and our role in them, can be difficult and uncomfortable. Our belief is that if we do not center racial equity in this work, we would center our own comfort and find ways to focus on other, less challenging aspects of equity.  We also believe that if we can build the internal muscle and approaches to address racial inequality, it will allow us to effectively address other systems of inequity.

Over the last year we’ve seen a growing movement for racial justice in the United States, sparked by ongoing police brutality and the high-profile murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, as well as the health and economic disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 pandemic. We were compelled to support this movement last year, through our voice, through additional resources committed to racial justice organizations, and support for our team members who marched and protested. But we are in this work for the long haul, to examine our own complicity, and work towards transformation or our organization and the systems within which we most closely work.

Over the last 12 months, in partnership with our Equity Working Group, we have worked with Dr. Heather Hackman of Hackman Consulting Group and Lindsay Hill of Sojourner Advising to facilitate a learning journey for our team and firm. While we still have a long way to go in our learning, to achieve our equity goals internally, and to create more just and equitable societies around the world, we wanted to provide a snapshot of what we have learned thus far and where we are going next.

Our key learnings

• This is a journey with no end. Transforming our organization will require ongoing structural change, evolution of our culture, internal systems and processes, and a commitment to ongoing learning and listening. As with any long journey, we are defining goals and milestones for ourselves, and periodically checking in on where we need to do more, and where we have made progress. We will continue to align this work with our Camber Values, which provide a north star when this work is challenging or when there is uncertainty on our path.
• This work requires deep personal commitment, confronting uncomfortable truths, and the ability to engage in difficult conversations. Progress comes from individual discovery and emotional vulnerability based first in emotions and feelings. As a former colleague on a nonprofit board once said, “some people will bring lived experience to this work, some will intellectualize it, but everyone has to feel it”. Our conversations with the team over the last year have been challenging, and we’ve grown in our capacity to authentically and emotionally engage in this work.
• The draw of business as usual is strong and requires intentionality to pull out of the grooves. The status quo of our society has been constructed to create and maintain inequities in outcomes across wealth, well-being, and belonging. As white leaders of an organization, comfort with the status quo has been learned and entrenched throughout our lives. Imagining new ways of doing things that disrupts business as usual is critical to achieve equity; disruption feels risky, and yet finding new and more equitable ways to do things leads to better outcomes for everyone.
• Pursuing a racial equity agenda internally means that respecting the backgrounds and demographics of our team is important but insufficient. As individuals, and as a firm, we are beginning to understand the day-to-day experiences of our BIPOC team members. We must continue to invest in a culture of belonging, where our people can bring their full authentic selves, and each person’s unique set of lived experiences and perspectives contributes to our organizational mission and our client engagements.
• We have to focus first on evolving ourselves and then on transforming Camber. Our team is driven by the desire to create impact and drive equity in partnership with our clients. Our starting point is a commitment to ongoing individual learning and action, while integrating learnings into our collective practices, norms, and behaviors at Camber. That will in turn enable us to effectively influence the systemic changes needed to create more equitable and just societies with our clients.

Our commitments going forward

We will continue to invest Camber resources, including budget and staff time, in our racial equity work. After our current learning phase, we will develop an equity roadmap to guide our ongoing work, including our commitments to:

• Transform Camber’s structures, policies, practices and culture to be an anti-racist organization
• Diversify Camber’s management team and ownership structure
• Integrate racial equity into our Camber theories of influence and our work with clients in pursuit of equity in health, climate, prosperity and democracy
• Continue to listen and learn so that we can better understand and dismantle the systems and structures that inhibit racial equity

One way we will continue to be accountable to this work is to provide updates on this work in this space on at least an annual basis. We also know that many of our clients, partners, and peers are undertaking this important work in parallel. We welcome your thought partnership, feedback and learnings – the work of dismantling systems of oppression will not be accomplished in silos but rather in coordination and collaboration.

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