Eric Ressler On Communicating Social Impact And Connecting With Philanthropy Opportunities

ERIC IS THE FOUNDER AND CREATIVE DIRECTOR AT COSMIC, A SOCIAL IMPACT CREATIVE AGENCY. COSMIC EMPOWERS SOCIAL IMPACT ORGANIZATIONS TO CATALYSE REAL WORLD CHANGE BY HELPING THEM NAIL THEIR IMPACT STORY, BUILD BRAND AWARENESS, AND INSPIRE ACTION.

Eric got his start in design from a very young age, and after leaving a design program in San Diego early to pursue freelance work, cut his teeth running a freelance business in the digital design space. After organically building a strong roster of clients, he discovered a passion for the social impact and philanthropic space.

Through working with numerous organizations across this sector, he found that often their missions and visions are strong, but their efforts are stymied by ineffective communications philosophies and practices. Now, Eric and Cosmic are on a mission to help social impact organizations across the globe navigate a rapidly changing world.

ERIc discusses How to Grow Your Social Impact in the Attention Economy Through Effective impact storytelling Communicating progress, needs, and organisational challenges.

Highlights from the interview (listen to the podcast for full details)

[Indio Myles] - Could you please share a bit about your background and what led to your work in social enterprise?

[Eric Ressler] - I have always been really inspired by creative work from a young age. I think when I was about eight or nine, I started making stop motion videos on my webcam at my house and shooting photos, doing traditional art. Then, I ultimately started doing what would be considered graphic design; basically, using computers to make my art more perfect. The thing I always struggled with doing traditional art is I didn't like having to fill the whole canvas. I didn't like the tedious nature of doing it; I didn't like that I couldn't perfect the work. As soon as I got on my computer, there was something satisfying about being able to create perfectly straight lines, curves and circular shapes; even just basic geometry. That quickly led me to design for visual communication and all different media styles, but digital was really the thread that connected everything. That led me into the world of the internet and web design. At a young age, I was also learning how to code HTML and build out websites; I really got inspired to do that for bands that I was in when we needed websites to promote our work. That grew into figuring out how I might be able to do this work professionally. I went to design school, and it didn't end up being a good fit for me. I ended up leaving pretty quickly and pursuing freelance work. That started to work pretty well, I was able to support myself pretty quickly. I was able to learn a lot and I'm an experiential learner, so I learnt by doing. Ultimately, I got to a point where I really needed to grow the business. I was getting busy with client work, and I was overwhelmed. I was turning people down and really wanted to help people.

I started to bring people on and build a team originally. I tried to build a collective and that filled pretty quickly. I ended up building a company, which was 12 years ago now. From there, Cosmic grew organically.

We based our headquarters in Santa Cruz, where we are still. We also work remotely these days and are distributed nationally as a team. We really built out the firm, doing a lot of work in Silicon Valley helping start-ups and enterprises build out their brands, digital experiences, and their marketing communication work. Alongside that, we were also doing a lot of work with folks in the social impact sector, non-profits, foundations, funders, philanthropists and social enterprises. After about seven years of doing all different work and getting used to some of the challenges and opportunities were, we realised that for our trajectory as a firm we needed to find our own niche and purpose to differentiate Cosmic. When we looked at all the different ways we could do that, we kept circling around this space we didn't even really know what to call. Ultimately, we ended up describing it as social impact sector. We started using that term before it seemed to be coming up more and more. There's a lot of different terms to describe this sector, but essentially we wanted to help organisations that existed to do good at their core. This good is not just a cause based marketing campaign, but were formed to do that above all else, including profit. That really is an abbreviated version of the story and how we got here. We have been fiercely committed to doing work in the sector and very curious about learning what works and what doesn't. There are unique challenges and opportunities within the social impact space, and we are just really asking, “what purpose or place does design have in making a positive social change in the world?”

As the founder and Creative Director of Cosmic, can you tell us a bit more about the organisation’s social purpose and activities?

The way I think about our impact at Cosmic is like a ripple effect. We're not scientists, politicians, researchers, or academics looking at social change. We're designers, storytellers, communicators and developers. We are looking at how we can apply our expertise in those disciplines, to the social impact sector and help our clients create a bigger impact than they would be able to create without us. Our impact happens through making our clients more effective at the work that they're doing, which is really rewarding for us because we get to work on a lot of different causes and industries. We really see and learn from some of the most intelligent, driven, and passionate people in the world, who are doing selfless work, often behind the scenes. It's really important and impactful. Our social purpose is to figure out how we can apply our discipline and expertise to help these organisations grow and scale their impact more quickly and deeply than they could without our help.

When it comes to ‘getting it wrong’, what are common patterns you have witnessed that are letting down impact-led organisations seeking to create positive change?

There are a few different flavors that show up a lot, and I'll start with probably the most common one. The staff and the team at the organisation is really focused on doing the work, doing the boots on the ground programs or working with funders to try and raise money. Sometimes, it's a social enterprise who's selling a product or a service, and they're funded from a market based approach, but either way, the focus is on getting the work done. That's really important of course, making that impact and working towards the mission and vision of the organisation should be the focus. But oftentimes it's at the expense of some really fundamental skills and needs that an organisation has around branding, communications or marketing. When we look at the profit driven world, corporations, business and B2C brands, marketing and branding is really crucial to the success of those organisations. It's really in our experience not much different for social impact organisations; there's still a huge need to build a solid brand and foundation.

To have clear messaging, to be good at impact storytelling, to communicate your progress, needs and your challenges as an organisation is crucial. At the end of the day, you're selling a vision for a better future and to sell something, you have to be a good communicator. Many times what we see is organisations across the spectrum from very small ones to large ones that either don't understand or aren't able to build out the right level of capacity to effectively manage branding and communications. That's not true for every organisation, some organisations in this space have done really well here. There are examples of organisations that are best in class with this regard. But if you compare the amount of time, effort, and resources that they have invested in branding and communications for social impact organisations compared to most other organisations in the world, it's really not comparable. I think there's a lot of reasons for that, But at the end of the day, that's the common thread we see most often. I would say related to that is a lot of organisations in this sector are underfunded.

There are just not enough resources going to these causes at the scale that they need to be invested in order to actually make the amount of change we need with some of these issues.

What ends up happening? This is probably a little bit more common in the non-profit space, but equally challenging in a different way for social enterprises. They get stuck in essentially a starvation cycle, where they're under resourced, trying to make an impact, trying to make progress, trying to hang on to staff, to talent and partners. Because they don't have the proper amount of resources or those resources aren't allocated effectively, what ends up happening is they get stuck in this scarcity mindset where there's the perception and truth that they're always underfunded, so they make choices out of a scarcity mindset instead of a growth mindset. That's holding them back and starting to create organisational patterns and decision making that is not actually moving them forward. Those two things are pretty related; I think one feeds the other, but those are some common things that we see. I don't mean this in a critical way at all. There's a lot of structural issues, and this is why we've ended up here and this work is oftentimes really hard, difficult, and intractable. It's the kind of work that might not be profitable, might not be a good investment and might not make wall street happy, but it's really important work that needs to be done. We’re hoping we're going to see a big shift in the amount, type and structure of funding going to these organisations. A continued growth in conscious capitalism and consumers who want to support organisations that are sustainable in all definitions of the word. They also want to support organisations that treat their own employees well, because that's really what's going to take this sector as a whole to become more effective and actually make the change that we're trying to make.

What advice would you give to purpose-led founders seeking to cut through the noise with strong and effective storytelling and branding?

It'd be helpful to start with a concept that's really core to our perspective and point of view in doing this work, and that's a concept called the Attention Economy. This isn't something we invented, but it's something we believe really strongly in and that is. Through the advent of the internet and social media, our digital culture information is becoming essentially free and flowing for most of the world. There's still a lot of folks who don't have access to the internet and information, but a large majority of us do at this point and that's growing every year. Information is free, but the problem or double-edged sword of that is our attention has become more scarce, fragmented and difficult to attain. What that means for social impact organisations who are already to a degree at a disadvantage when compared to the ability of a brand like Apple or Nike, to capture people's attention with really large advertising budgets and a team of world class creatives and designers powering their work. It's becoming increasingly difficult to capture the attention of people who might be a supporter, founder, donor, or partner, because we've become so noisy as a culture and we're so overwhelmed and fragmented with our attention. What ends up happening is that humans as we're overloaded with information start to become really pragmatic, if not brutal around who we actually pay attention to and who we ignore. Either consciously or subconsciously, we tend to pay attention to the things that are the most interesting, engaging and tantalising. A lot of that has to do with how it's presented and designed. Then, a lot of it has to do with how the story is told, framed and how it affects our lives. We'd like to think about as a social impact organisation or a leader at one of these organisations, what are the opportunities to actually break through all of that noise and play in the attention economy? If you don't think about it that way, then you're at a disadvantage.

We're all in it whether or not we want to accept it or understand how it works. It's the reality of where we are and it's only going to get worse. We need to figure out how we can craft strategies and utilise these tools skilfully. Maybe, they can even change these tools to become more skilfully integrated into our culture and lives. There's a strong argument for that, because there are a lot of unintended consequences from some of these channels and platforms. That's really how I think about this and how we structure our work. We need to find ways to craft compelling stories, communications, strong brands and digital experiences, so that we do stack up against those other tantalising distractions around selling products and all the other things that are happening in our social feeds and our email inboxes.

What do you believe are the key challenges (and opportunities) emerging for social impact organisations?

I think there's a lot of opportunities. There's been a fairly seismic shift in the culture, understanding and awareness around the scope, scale and importance of some of these issues. I think the pandemic has given the entire world in one degree or another the opportunity to really reflect around what's most important to us and what we care about, and to do a large cultural reset. I think there's been a huge renaissance to speak of people who really want to find their own purpose in work and life through their community.

social impact organisations have something that other organisations will never have, and that is an authentic built-in purpose to their work in their DNA.

Not a cause marketing campaign, not something that they have to figure out how to position to fit the latest cultural trend, but something really authentic and key to what it is that they're doing and why they exist in the first place. We're all looking for community and connection as human beings. If you can invite people into a community and provide that connection in a meaningful way, whether that's the general population for a grassroots organisation or a key group of influencers or decision makers, that's a huge opportunity all these other organisations will never be able to match. Everything that they're doing is really marketing at the end of the day. It's not about actually creating change. There are some exceptions to that, but a lot of these campaigns you see coming out from large corporations are really just trying to tap into people's yearning for purpose. But people can see through that. A lot of times it's actually led to backlash against those organisations, because people are calling them out on not being authentic.

The superpower of the social impact organisation is that your mission is authentic and it always will be.

It's really clear that if you communicate that in a way which is authentic and compelling, and you use some of the same strategies and invest in doing your branding, communications and digital experiences well, then that combination can really help organisations break out of that starvation cycle and scale their impact and attract a larger community of supporters.

What is the relationship between social impact organisations and philanthropists, and why is this connection important?

There are a couple different ways this connection shows up. I think the first example would be talking generally about non-profits or organisations that are funded primarily through gifts and grants. There's a lot of organisations where their funding comes either solely or primarily through government grants, institutional foundations and philanthropies, or even large net worth individuals who are writing really large gifts. In that case, the relationship it should be is a partnership, but it's not always that way. Sometimes it feels like these social impact organisations are at the mercy of the funder because the money's flowing in that direction. But really, for it to be successful for both parties, it should be a partnership. It should be approached more as a partnership, where one party is providing resources, connection and attention, and the other party (being the non-profit) can take those resources, connections and turn them into impact because of their expertise and capacity as an organisation to actually do the work.

A lot of times philanthropists and funders are writing checks, but they need to be doing more than just writing checks. good ones are empowering their organisations.

I think with venture capitalists, a lot of the times their return is on impact instead of finances. When it comes to social enterprises, it's a little bit different because social enterprises typically have (I think by definition) a market-based approach to funding, at least partially. They're funding their organisation by selling a product, service or a suite of both things. Patagonia are one of the more commonly referenced ones, but they still have an authentic commitment to social impact. It's not a social responsibility initiative, it is core to how they make decisions at the highest level of leadership in terms of how they run the organisation and the choices they make. Those organisations sometimes get funding through venture capitalists or impact investors to help them scale. We've worked with some impact investors before and one of the common problems is there's this concept of the missing middle in the funding cycle. It's pretty easy, but it can be much more possible for an organisation to get some seed money, to get a proof of concept out there and to start building momentum. It can even be easy for an organisation that's got to prove a model to get funding to help them scale. There's this missing middle in between the two where they've got a proven concept, but they haven't really been able to fully operationalise and get that funding can be difficult. That's a case where a venture capitalist or more likely an impact investor might come in to help provide some of that risk capital to help that organisation really scale and reach its full potential. There's a lot of different intricate relationships between the funding and impact side. The organisation's actually doing the work the way that we like to talk about it, and I think that is changing a lot. There's a lot of folks out there challenging some of the ways that this sector has been structured for a long time. I think there's a really good reason for that. A lot of times the organisations that are being funded might not always be selected in a way that is right. There's a lot of implicit bias and frankly even sometimes racist roots to how some of these organisations have been formed, especially when talking about colonial wealth and how we need to essentially decolonise this sector. A lot of philanthropists in the past, and even in the present have come to grow their wealth in ways that have exploited people. Maybe they're even funding solutions to problems that their companies helped create. There's a lot to dig into here; I don't mean to criticise all philanthropists. There's a lot of people in the space who are authentically doing really good work and have earned their money fairly. There is also a little bit of an unhealthy dynamic that can form. I think we need to watch out as a sector, and we need to hold folks accountable who have exploited people and are trying to essentially write checks to feel better about the fact that's happened.

What inspiring projects or initiatives have you come across recently which are creating a positive social change?

With regards to an organisation that's really inspiring, we're working with an organization right now called STEM From Dance. They're currently based out New York area, but they're expanding their programs really ambitiously and are doing such good work. They're great people that I would love to give a quick shout out. Their program is really unique in that. They're trying to help girls who traditionally might not have opportunities or resources to get into STEM careers. They're doing it through a really unique and creative way of combining dance. technology and allowing young girls, mostly black and brown girls to combine those two modalities into one. The founder Yamilée was really inspired to do this from her personal experiences. Being accepted into a program at MIT and looking around and realising she was one of the only black women at this organisation or in her class and wanting to change that. Also, she tapped into her roots as a dancer and the feeling that she got dancing, that creative flow and expression, and she wanted give other girls the opportunity to have that same feeling through STEM based activities and a career path that would help sustain them and provide success in the future. It's a really cool combination and unique approach. They're just really good people making a good impact. I would highly recommend folks check them out.

To finish off, what books or resources would you recommend to our listeners?

This might be a good time actually to mention that we publish a lot of insights, resources and guides on our website that are free for anyone to use and check out. If you're curious about how as a social impact leader you can take some of these philosophies and apply these bigger concepts. What does that actually look like? We get pretty tactical. Sometimes, we get a little bit esoteric at times and write some trend and opinion pieces, but there's a lot of content there. That's free and easily accessible. We also published a manifesto that outlines our perspective and point of view on this work. We start with the Attention Economy, so if you're interested in that bigger picture thinking about how you might do this work and frame it in the context of culture at large, that's a great thing to check out. It’s a digital experience ands also an audio book, it's on most of the podcast apps. You can just search for The Revolution Is Digital and it'll come up. There's a picture of a world as the cover. There's a lot of great content to dig into and we would love to invite people to check it out and hopefully find some value.