Several years ago, you couldn’t miss splashy announcements from companies trumpeting new, big social impact investments and commitments.
In Aug. 2019, the Business Roundtable declared that the “purpose of the company” was to serve not just shareholders, but all stakeholders, including employees, customers, communities, and the planet. The statement sparked a new era of corporate impact, full of attention and momentum.
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Since then, the cultural winds have shifted, political power has swayed, and the economic backdrop has changed. Shareholder activists and some State Attorney Generals have pushed back on related areas like ESG and DEI, and the current presidential administration has applied pressure on companies who use language or take approaches they do not support.
But corporate impact isn’t on the retreat, it is just evolving. As we face economic uncertainty and government cost cutting—and corresponding gaps in community needs—corporate America’s role in our society is especially consequential. Hundreds of interviews and conversations with C-level executives and senior impact leaders across Fortune 500 companies indicate that corporate impact work is becoming more closely tied to businesses’ bottom lines; and that, in many ways, this evolution is positive both for companies’ interests and the role of business in helping communities to address their challenges.
Corporate impact still pays off
To be clear, corporate impact is going strong. Yes, the public pronouncements about corporate altruism have waned and many leaders have adjusted their messaging and, in some cases, strategies. Some budgets have been cut due to broader economic forces or company performance. But, corporate impact is proceeding apace and, in many ways, stronger than ever.
A mid-2025 surveyof 135 companies shows that 82% of businesses either maintained or increased their grantmaking budgets for this year, compared with 18% who reported declines in funding.This is because the fundamentals make sense: it’s good business to invest in the communities in which companies operate; employees continue to expect and demand it; customers and local governments value it. It is in business’s best interest.
A key trend is that corporate impact work is becoming more closely tied to the bottom line of the business. With less headline value, boards and c-suites are increasingly demanding to know how resourcing impact is driving business value. This means that corporate impact leaders have had to look hard at their strategies and investments and get clear about how their efforts are not just supporting communities—but advancing key business priorities. They can “prove the business case” in many ways: increased employee engagement or retention; enhanced brand reputation and customer loyalty; and more.
Increasingly, we are seeing sophisticated corporate impact leaders harness their efforts to drive business growth. This can take many forms. It might mean investing in workforce development to ensure that businesses have access to talent pools with the competencies they require in a fast changing, AI-driven future of work. It might mean thinking of their investments and in-kind donations as loss leaders—supporting communities in times of need while also demonstrating the value of their product or service—leading to more durable, revenue generating business opportunities. Or, it might mean highlighting a company’s community investments into business pitches in an appeal to government or corporate customers who value those investments, driving higher sales.
While this pressure pushes corporate impact leaders to strategize and design differently, in many ways this is a positive trend for the field and its future. If corporate impact programs can do good in community and drive demonstrable core business value, it will attract more resourcing, not less; it will fortify itself, proving more durable and less exposed as the pendulum swings and the winds blow.
Another exciting trend is that place-based impact is on the rise. Corporate impact leaders are drawing from past lessons and becoming more ambitious about the progress they seek. That is leading them to explore how to drive systems change, which requires deeper and more focused efforts. At the same time, the push to get ever more strategic and closer to core business value has corporate impact leaders focused on investing in geographies that are most strategically important (for instance, towns, cities or regions that host big factories, attractive centers of innovation, or where employees live). Both of these factors are driving more corporate leaders to take a place-based approach. Harnessing corporate influence, expertise and resources in specifically defined geographies with long-term commitment can catalyze other key players to join the effort.
In addition, as the field continues to mature, corporate impact leaders are increasingly acknowledging that they will be too limited if they go it alone – and that there is power and promise in collaboration and collective action. Corporate impact leaders have to manage CEO preferences and agendas, executive turnover, strategy and budget cycles, brand consideration—all of these present very real structural challenges to committing to multi-player partnerships. At the same time, impact leaders increasingly see that they can unlock new levels of impact by investing the time to come together and combine their respective expertise, data, reach, capabilities and resources. Collective action also offers impact leaders the benefit and safety of “power in numbers”—a chance not only to multiply their impact, but to reduce exposure. For these reasons and more, we are seeing a significant upswell in activity and expect this to be central to corporate impact’s continued evolution.
In this new season, most corporate impact leaders have made the adjustments they feel they need to proceed with confidence and conviction. As they more closely tie their efforts to core business value, drive deeper and more lasting impact in strategic geographies and harness the power and promise of partnerships, you can expect corporate impact work to continue for decades to come.
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