Our Story: A New Business Model for a Socially-Conscious Business World
From the idea that a business can exist to benefit its community and that employees want more from careers than paychecks, sprung Impact Makers. We are a non-stock, competitive social venture led by senior consulting executives, dedicated and prepared to do things differently. Impact Makers competes head-to-head for contracts in the highly competitive professional services consulting world, and wins its fair share based on superior competence and performance.
There is one critical difference: Impact Makers’ “profits,” by corporate charter, go directly to its nonprofit community partners. Labeled “social entrepreneurship” or “public-private partnership” in academic, business and political circles worldwide, the idea is not new, but real-life implementations are rare indeed. Impact Makers is pioneering the application of this concept through an innovative new business model.
Business Week magazine named Impact Makers the second most promising social venture in the United States in 2009. The ranking recognized the nation’s top social entrepreneurs who are growing a business while also bringing about societal change.
B Corporation
Impact Makers is proud to be a founding B Corporation. B Corporations™ are a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Corps meet comprehensive and transparent social, environmental and accountability standards. For more information, visit www.bcorporation.net.
Our Services: Management and IT Consulting for Healthcare and Government
Impact Makers provides management and information technology consulting services to commercial, governmental and healthcare clients nationally. In particular, we have core competencies, a solid services foundation, and a breadth of experience in the following areas:
- Program/Project Management, including Agile, Lean and Kanban methodologies
- Business Process Improvement/Reengineering
- Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V)
- Strategic Business and Information Systems Planning
- IT Governance
- Business Impact Analysis and Risk Assessment
- Health Information Exchanges and Electronic Medical Records
- Healthcare/Medical Management Strategy and Implementation
The company was founded in 2006 in Richmond, Virginia and is certified as a small business with the Virginia Department of Minority Business Enterprise and the Maryland Small Business Reserve Program. With the Federal government, we are registered with Central Contractor Registration (CCR) and Online Representations and Certifications Application (ORCA).
Our Clients: Benefit from the Triple Bottom Line
Our clients not only achieve their business goals via the work of a team of experienced consultants but also contribute directly to the welfare of their
community through Impact Makers’ donation of profits to our nonprofit partners. It is a Win-Win-Win-Win proposition!
Customers get premium consulting and first rate project delivery to satisfy critical business needs. While at the same time, they participate in social consciousness, both in a direct financial contribution to Impact Makers’ partners and by supporting the Impact Makers’ business model.
- Impact Makers professionals get to do something they really care about while earning top wages for their valuable experience, skills and training. In addition to financial contributions, employees are given time each week to devote to direct, hands-on work with our nonprofit partners. The resulting increased job satisfaction enables Impact Makers to attract top candidates and to retain its employees longer than others in an industry where human capital and employee retention are of utmost value.
- The nonprofit partners get a recurring, sustainable income that frees precious resources previously consumed by fundraising and re-focuses them directly on services to the community.
- Society gets a working model of business success blended with social responsibility. When business, societal and individual needs converge, a powerful model emerges to challenge the way things are commonly done.
Our Community Partners: Impact to Date
Our current community partners are Rx Partnership, which provides free prescription medications to Virginia’s eligible uninsured, and Children’s Health Involving Parents (CHIP) of Greater Richmond, which provides health and prevention support to children and promotes school readiness. Our first partner was Safe Harbor, a domestic violence program and shelter.
Impact Makers supports our community partners in the following ways.
- From 2006 to 2008, we donated $41,000 to Safe Harbor, as well as more than 200 hours of consulting services. This enabled the addition of a Spanish-speaking case worker to support victims of domestic violence in the Richmond region.
- Since 2008, we have donated more than $45,000 to Rx Partnership and more than 300 hours of services. This support allowed Rx Partnership to provide free prescriptions to more than 1,600 uninsured patients, valued at over $1.5 million.
- In 2010, we added a second partner: CHIP of Greater Richmond. We make a monthly donation and lease extra office space from CHIP, in addition to giving ongoing pro bono consulting. This helps CHIP with their mission of supporting health education for families with children below the poverty level.
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