HOW DOES HANDPRINT IDENTIFY IMPACT PARTNERS?

At Handprint, we connect businesses with the causes people value.  Imagine a world where you can plant a tree instantly with each new sale, or pull a kilo of plastic from the sea with each fresh subscription. Whether you’re striving and thriving in e-commerce, advertising, banking, or healthcare, Handprint and its wide range of impact partners make this possible.

Moreover, with Handprint, you can infuse regeneration within your operations, customer experience, and culture. On the Platform, you’ll find a wide range of high-quality causes to empower – from reforestation to clean water; from coral reefs to social justice. In bringing together these impact partners within a network, a common question we receive here at Handprint is “how do we find and verify our partners?”

HOW DO WE IDENTIFY OUR IMPACT PARTNERS?

At the beginning (circa 2019), we began with the immediate networks of our founders, Ryan and Simon, two PhDs in sustainable development working mostly in ocean restoration and regenerative mangroves. From here, we expanded our portfolio via referrals – so today we’re honored to support amazing teams on three continents working in climate action, ocean health, social justice, habitat conservation, and women’s empowerment.

WHAT DOES HANDPRINT LOOK FOR IN NEW IMPACT PARTNERS?

Undoubtedly, our key criteria with our impact partners have always been capacity and credibility. These values form the bedrock of our onboarding processes, grounded in three core requirements:

First, we need good capacity in the core team. This means at least  3-5 officers leading the fieldwork, with a clear organizational model for decision making and reporting, all tied together with regular, audited financials.

Second, we need a strong track record. This means 3-5 years of operations at minimum, and in many cases – over a decade of internationally recognized impact work.

Third, we require a clear, trackable unit of impact. Like a single baby mangrove – planted in a clearly-defined estuary – or a single sanitary kit – delivered to a woman in need – this unit of impact  allows us to fund, track, and report on impacts at a high level of transparency and take a key step to “open the black box” of impact funding.

HOW DOES HANDPRINT SET PRICES?

Handprint lists all sorts of regenerative projects, from reforestation to social justice programs. In each condition, our team works closely with partners to set the sponsorship price of a single unit of impact. We begin with the  work in the field, where a partner might plant 2500 saplings in a hectare of land, or spend 75 dollars on counseling and training for a woman escaping exploitation.

From here, we consult with prospective sponsors to find out how people might wish to support the project. Usually, sponsors gravitate to smaller units, like two dollars towards a woman’s recovery, or a dollar-fifty to plant and protect one baby mangrove.

Our next job is to advertise a project at this price point, to pull together all the funds raised each month, and to track our fund deliveries against the land areas and impact reports that the partner uses to define and communicate progress on their mission.

HOW DOES HANDPRINT COMPLETE “DUE DILIGENCE” ON IMPACT PARTNERS?

Each time we onboard a new impact partner, we work through an extensive checklist of disclosures. This includes their business registrations, audited financials, and controlling leadership. This includes disclosures for politically exposed persons, reference checks on top management, and confirmation checks on their bank accounts.

Here is the diagram that shows the onboarding process of our impact partners.

CAN CLIENTS SUGGEST AN IMPACT PARTNER?

Absolutely, and this process is fastest when the new, suggested partner already meets our central onboarding criteria. As noted above, these include strong capacity in the core team. This means, 3-5 officers leading the fieldwork, 3-5 years of operations with audited financials. As well as. a clear, easy-to-observe **unit of impact**, that allows us to fund, track and report on impacts transparently. Our friends can Refer a partner here.

A CLOSING NOTE ON CAPACITY BUILDING

Connecting partners to a global network is only the beginning. In addition to this, Handprint helps build partner capacity to better align with businesses, serve communities, and weather periods of stress. We build capacity in three steps:

Firstly, we engage junior officers by nurturing cultures that advance the next generation of leaders. We build partners’ RESILIENCE with stronger roots and teams that can bounce back from the occasional crisis or shock.

Secondly, we help partners build RELEVANCE with tools for communicating realities in the field. Similar to the local socio-economic mix, we prevail values and the nature of the local physical environment. Additionally we prevail the key challenges and needs of local families.

And last, we help partners build RESPONSIVENESS and EFFECTIVENESS. We bring tools, like SuperPlanter, that encourage active field reporting with local change makers, and platform features for sharing governance reports. Making reporting easy helps partners invest in accountability and transparency. And with Handprint, partners have an easier time converting these investments into fresh resources for their mission.

Bringing people together creates solutions to big problems. On the whole, here at Handprint, we are on a mission to turn sustainability into competitive advantage. In doing so we catalyze a system shift that slingshots us forward into a regenerative economy.

If you would like to become a responsible business without costing the planet, visit Handprint to learn more.