Impact Redefined

Create opportunities for your nonprofit or social enterprise with partnerships and social media

In Impact Redefined: Transforming Partnerships, Social Moments, and Personal Connections to Drive Change, social entrepreneur and advisor Nick Lynch delivers an insightful exploration of how to use a variety of social opportunities to your advantage. Easy-to-understand, this book is for folks who desire positive change and are looking for strategies to create long-lasting impact via partnerships, real-life opportunities, and social media. You’ll discover the importance of self-branding, nurturing healthy collaborations and connections, championing empathy, and multiplying impact through relationships.

In the book, you’ll find:

• Methods for developing social moments to foster connection and build community
• Tips for building and maintaining successful partnerships and collaborations with influencers and other people
• Ways to nurture human connections to form a wider network that benefits your social organization

A can’t-miss roadmap to maximizing your impact on your community and the wider world around you, Impact Redefined is an essential resource for social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and other philanthropically minded professionals.

Acknowledgments xi

About the Author xiii

Introduction 1

The Power of a Wish 1

When Personal and Professional Collide 4

The Emergence of Three Key Elements 6

Element 1: Social 8

Element 2: Partnerships 17

Element 3: Human 20

Navigating the Future 25

Part I Social 27

Chapter 1 Storytelling and Socializing 31

Impactful Storytelling 33

The Medium Is the Message 38

Creating Social Moments 40

Chapter 2 Community and Connection 55

The Seed of Connection: Storytelling 55

The Three Ts of Impact: Time, Talent, and Treasure 57

Part II Partnerships 63

The Three Pillars of Partnerships 63

Cultivating Authenticity in Partnerships 66

Chapter 3 How Should Partnerships Look? 69

Corporate Partners 70

Influencer Partners 71

Synergistic Cause-Based Partners 74

Building Sustainable, Mutually Beneficial, and Impactful Partnerships 74

Chapter 4 Whom Should You Partner Up With? 81

Speaking the Partnership Language 81

Partner Discernment 83

Chapter 5 Partnering with Influencers 87

How Do Influencers Help? 88

Different Kinds of Influencers 89

Choosing the Right Influencer 91

Chapter 6 How to Grow Partnerships 95

The Three Ts of Partnership 96

Help Others So They Want to Help You 100

It’s About Using Each Party’s Strengths 101

Pitching Your Partnership 102

Prioritize the Right People 103

Cultivate— Don’t Compete 105

Know When to Step Away 106

Part III Human 109

Chapter 7 Creating and Nurturing Connections 111

How Can I Create Connections? 113

Being Authentic Means Being Vulnerable 119

Nurture Your Connections 120

Chapter 8 Championing Empathy 123

The Power of Empathy 123

Understanding Empathy 125

Becoming a More Empathetic Person 131

Welcoming More Empathy in Your Office 133

Ask the Right Questions 138

Create a Culture of Understanding and Appreciation 139

Chapter 9 Using Social Moments, Partnerships, and Human Elements Collectively 143

Leveraging Social Moments for Partnership Building 145

Developing Empathy-Focused Partnerships 155

Empathy as the Inspiration for Social Moments 158

Hypothetical Scenarios 161

Chapter 10 Final Thoughts 181

The Imperative of Integration 181

The Changing Landscape of Social Impact 182

Index 185

As a childhood cancer survivor and former Make-A-Wish Kid, NICK LYNCH is passionate about social impact, nonprofit organizations, and their important missions. He is a successful entrepreneur and consultant specializing in media and advertising technology who has landed coverage in print and broadcast outlets worldwide, including TechCrunch, Yahoo, MediaPost, ClickZ, Adotas, Beet.TV, and Forbes.

Impact Redefined: Transforming Partnerships, Social Moments, and Personal Connections to Drive Change is a comprehensive guide to the future of social impact, new ways to amplify impact, and the best tools to harness these new approaches and grow your influence every day. The book delivers strategies to create long-lasting impact and positive change in the modern world through partnerships, real-life opportunities, and social media.

Written in easy-to-understand language, readers will gain insight into utilizing a variety of social opportunities to their advantage. Amongst other topics discussed are utilizing influencer marketing for good, nurturing healthy collaborations and connections, championing empathy, and multiplying impact through relationships.

Moving beyond the basics, Impact Redefined: Transforming Partnerships, Social Moments, and Personal Connections to Drive Change delves into the important intricacies of connections, including how you partner up, who you partner up with, how you keep up these crucial relationships, and types of partnerships (and how those types of partnerships are changing), along with the expectations of these partnerships and leveraging community, amplifying storytelling, and measuring joint impact in partnerships.

Social entrepreneur and advisor Nick Lynch explores social media as a part of the Social Element, why there is so much more than just a social media presence, such as creating social connections outside of social media, and how infusing real and digital social elements to build, reinforce, and empower your community is a key and vitally important part of the evolution of how and where you tell your story.

For social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and other philanthropically minded professionals, Impact Redefined: Transforming Partnerships, Social Moments, and Personal Connections to Drive Change is a can’t-miss roadmap to maximizing social impact in your community and the wider world around you.

Praise for IMPACT REDEFINED

“Impact Redefined by Nick Lynch offers a powerful blueprint for leveraging personal connections and strategic partnerships to drive social change. Through his journey as a cancer survivor and social innovator, Lynch provides practical insights for those aiming to make a tangible difference in the world. This book is a compelling mix of personal narrative and actionable strategy, ideal for anyone committed to creating meaningful impact.”
— NATHAN CHAPPELL, Co-founder of Fundraising.AI and author of Generosity Crisis, the Case for Radical Connection to Solve Humanity’s Greatest Challenges

“Nick is one of the most heart-wired, attuned + innovative minds pouring into the social impact sector today. In Impact Redefined, he shares a blueprint for harnessing the superpower of media, influence and cause to massively scale impact. This book will not just help you future-proof your mission, but help you build more momentum + engagement starting today.”
—JON McCOY, Co-Founder and CEO, We Are For Good

Maximize your social impact through a three-element philosophy for change

Written by social entrepreneur and thought leader Nick Lynch, Impact Redefined: Transforming Partnerships, Social Moments, and Personal Connections to Drive Change imparts a three-pillar philosophy to navigate the future of social impact through social, partnership, and human connections, addressing the core question of how to maximize impact by focusing on elements for change that have the most importance. The right mix of these three specific elements are the ingredients to being impactful, regardless of mission, organization size, region, or focus.

The book explores the many modern facets of scaling impact, including influencer marketing for good, nurturing healthy collaborations and connections, championing empathy, and multiplying impact through relationships, along with how all of these elements interconnect and build on one another. Social entrepreneur Nick Lynch covers new ways to amplify impact, as well as the best tools to harness these new approaches and methods to drive lasting change.

Impact Redefined: Transforming Partnerships, Social Moments, and Personal Connections to Drive Change is an essential read for social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and other philanthropically minded professionals looking to reach a wider audience and make a bigger social impact with the help of modern tools and techniques.