ESG Champions & EDI Voices
Do you want to increase employee engagement and behaviour change as part of your ESG and/or EDI strategy?
Would you like to empower employee champions to contribute their ideas and voices, and help spread the message?
But as a solo or small team, do you struggle with the time and resources to find and support colleagues to share their ideas and become champions?
The ESG Champions & EDI Voices programmes are design to do just this!
Both programmes include 1) employee engagement campaigns to enrol participants, 2) followed by incubation programmes to develop and effectively communicate their idea, story or message, and 3) culminating in either campaign specific or ongoing employee engagement activities and content.
Delivering both tangible outcomes and practical skills – your champions will not only help increase colleague awareness and engagement, but can also input new ideas, insight and assets to your ESG and EDI strategy and reports.
CASE STUDY
Kent Community Foundation: Green ‘Everyday’ Champions
Kent Community Foundation (KCF) (philanthropic grant funder) wanted to promote their new environmental strategy, while also inspiring the charitable sector they support to consider actions they could take to reduce their climate impact (including the option to apply for their new environmental grants).
To do this they commissions LVB Creative to co-host an engagement campaign, coaching programme, and knowledge sharing event – to showcase examples of charities and groups already integrating sustainability into their community work. The aim was to find ‘everyday’ green champions; those taking action which was inspiring but also accessible to the majority of charities.
We began by launching a video engagement campaign; videos produced by LVB Creative and distributed via KCF’s existing channels. The videos were educationally focused to help small charities and groups understand the benefit to them, and to help them feel confident enough to apply.
From the applications a group of 14 were selected to take part in a 6 session communication coaching programme over 3 months period. Participants learnt how to extract the knowledge, insight and value from their existing experience and good work, and present it in the form of a compelling idea to inspire others. They also received coaching to turn this idea into a short talk.
These talks were delivered and filmed at KCF’s ‘Green Impact Forum’. These talks served as inspiration and conversation starters for attendees to join discussions; exploring ideas and actions for how they could incorporate sustainability within their existing charitable work.
The event received very positive attendee feedback, and KCF received interest from other regional community foundations about supporting and inspiring their sustainability strategies. KCF used insight collected from group discussions to inform their strategy’s next steps, and used the videos of the talks as part of their ongoing promotion and engagement of their new environmental grants. The green champion participants also used the videos to further promote their own good work, with many commenting how it gave them increased confidence to ‘put themselves out there’, and how they’d used the video and skills as part of their next grant application.
More info via; https://kentcf.org.uk/news/articles/kcf-green-impact-forum-fostering-positive-engagement-for-action-2024-04-16
Ashden Climate Chance Charity: Engaging the public in climate stories
Ashden (climate change charity) wanted to train and empower their marketing and PR team with increased skills and confidence when speaking in promotional and press opportunities, with a general public audience.
Although the whole team were passionate about environmental issues, they wanted to improve their storytelling and public accessibility when communicate big, important but often scary information to a layman general public audience.
To address these concerns LVB Creative delivered a coaching programme designed to help them simplify their message into a short talks, stories and messages (captured on video) about a project or idea they were passionate about. The programme incorporated lots of peer feedback to help them understand how their message was received – ensuring it was jargon free, accessible, but also made a clear compelling argument for action.
The group gained significantly in confidence – including a number who said they previous they would NEVER have been confident enough to speak on camera – so made great progress in being able to film themselves on video by the end. The mixed group of newer, younger team members combined with more senior members also provided a great insight and opportunity for them to learn from each other about different approaches and opinions.
For more info about Ashden’s climate change work, visit: https://ashden.org/
Social Enterprise Kent & East Kent College: NEET Student Stories
A collaborative project, facilitated by Social Enterprise Kent (training provider) for East Kent College (further education) for their NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) students to share their stories.
The participants were all part of a ‘Forest School’ programme; for students who had been excluded from or struggled with mainstream education. The aim was to empower them to share the challenges, and subsequent lessons, they’d learn from their past experiences and participation on the Forest School programme.
Working in an outdoor environment, the group were supported and coaching in exploring their personal stories. Working with peers to articulate their experiences – first in pairs and then with the wider group, they slowly gained in confidence and began expressing themselves. At the end of the day many of the students confidently and powerfully shared their stories with the wider group and teachers; some as talks, others as a guided interviews.
The teachers and organisers were all blown away with what the students achieved; sharing with such clarify and self reflection some very challenging topics, while also illustrating their passion for change and to use their experiences to help others.