In 2025, people working in the sphere of equity, environment, and social impact face new and evolving challenges. Many ideas that they assumed were common sense – such as the need to advance sustainability, equity, and inclusion and to create inclusive workplaces – are subjects of intense political debate. All their efforts face new scrutiny.
What should members of this community do? Can they continue to work to advance their social values, to work for a more just and inclusive world? Do they scale back, refine, or expand their efforts?
In a webinar on April 16, Inclusivity Insight CEO Wyle Baoween met with Keith Ippel, CEO and co-founder of Spring, a global community of innovators and investors who connect to “create a sustainable, healthy, and equitable world.”
The webinar conversation circled around five things that leaders in the social equity and impact community are doing to navigate these fast-changing and difficult times. These five points are essential learning for anyone involved in trying to advance social and environmental good in the face of current high-visibility pushback.
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They Welcome Challenge
Experienced leaders welcome challenge as an opportunity for learning and growth. They recognize that businesses and organizations are complex and tremendously difficult to run, involving many significant decisions and trade-offs. WIth this in mind, social impact leaders do not assume that they are always right. When they are challenged, they ask questions, invite dialogue, and act with humility. The dialogue generates the relationships that will help their work to be effective long-term.
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They Are Consistent
“You don’t lead by being loud,” said Baoween. “You lead by being consistent.” Public statements and social media posts are less important than how we act everyday. If social impact leaders can continue to be consistent, then others in different circles – government, universities, business, non-profit organizations – can emerge from this current storm with the confidence, tools, and knowledge to continue to advance this work.
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They Stay Connected
Experienced social impact leaders connect with one another. The ability to share stories, experience, contexts, wisdom, lessons learned allows us to know that we are not alone in doing the work, that we can find support. People are anxious and stressed, so it is important to stay connected, to know that there is a community of people committed to advancing this work.
Connection is also critical for responding in fast-changing times. Ippel said he thinks of pushback as an obstacle, like a rock in a river. “Our goal now is to be water,” he said. When somebody hits a rock, they can share stories about how they move around it, over it. This is the importance of connection: sharing and constantly co-developing the capacity for movement and adaptability.
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They Focus on the Work (…Not Necessarily the Words)
In 2025, many in the social impact community are continuing to advance their goals. Ippel reported that he has seen as much capital invested in social impacts in the past nine months as the nine months prior. Impact capital is currently the fastest growing pool of capital globally.
That said, investors and others involved in social impact are often using different language. They avoid hot button phrases, terms connected with hyper-polarized political debate.
That’s OK, says Ippel. Language evolves over time, words fall out of favour. What is important is doing the work, and sharing stories with one another so that everyone knows it’s still happening. “Let’s care about the impact,” he said.
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They Take the Long View
“This is not the first time that humanity has backtracked on progress,” Ippel said, “and we need to get to a place of emergence on the other side.” Being a strong leader in the social impact sphere means finding ways to look beyond reactive daily politics to maintain a vision for social and environmental good. In this context, many social impact leaders are asking themselves “How can we benefit from this cycle of events?” to shed a more positive light on current circumstances and focus on longer term goals.
Moving Forward with Social Equity and Impact
The loudest voices are often a minority view, Ippel reminded the group. When you stay connected with broader social networks of customers, clients, and communities, you see that most people care about making the world more sustainable, equitable, and inclusive. This knowledge is motivating for social impact leaders, who are finding ways to learn from one another, be consistent, and keep moving forward with work that is important for both our communities and business outcomes over the long term.
This article is based on the webinar ”Social Impact in 2025: Double Down or Pivot” hosted by Inclusivity in April 2025. For more information, please contact [email protected].
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