Coaching for Social Impact

One of the things that I love about being in the profession of coaching, is generally how very kind, generous and compassionate coaches usually are. My overriding experience is that coaches are simply really good people! One of the ways some of these characteristics show up is in the many different projects and initiatives that coaches participate in on a pro bono or reduced fee basis. I can honestly say that, in my professional world,  I have never come across so much volunteering and giving back as I have within the coaching community.

Here I’ll be sharing and acknowledging some of the ways this is undertaken and offer some ideas and inspiration to those of you who would like to know more about how you can make a significant difference with even just a little of your time and coaching skills.

The International Coaching Federation’s (ICF) vision is a “world where coaching is integral to transforming societies”. ICF puts a lot of attention and energy into this vision and a couple of examples are:

• All ICF credentialed coaches are permitted (and encouraged) to allocate a percentage of their logged client hours for pro bono coaching engagements.
• The ICF Foundation is one of six family organisations within the ICF ecosystem with a mission to “accelerate and amplify social system change through coaching”. The Foundation has multiple initiatives and projects that are actively working to fulfil this mission and in close alignment with the United Nations 17 Global Goals which focus on a thriving society and flourishing of nature and represent the most ambitious effort in human history.
• ICF Foundation has other social impact projects such as the Special Projects and Coaching for Social Impact.
• ICF local chapters also have their own social impact initiatives that members can be involved with as well as supporting the ICF Foundation’s “Ignite”.

An example of a social impact project that the UK ICF Chapter is currently supporting is The Microloan Foundation’s Coachathon. I have the great pleasure and honour to be speaking at this event on 8^th November! You can make a contribution to this wonderful initiative by either offering your services as a coach and/or purchasing a ticket to attend one of the Master Classes on offer that day.

If getting involved in social impact through coaching projects is of interest to you, here are some more ideas to share with you:

Coaching and Sustainability – take a look at this video of one of our alumni Kate Adams who coaches sustainability conscious leaders and works for the Forward Institute which focusses on building a movement for responsible leadership.

Coaching for Social Impact – here is a podcast that I recently had the pleasure to be involved in with the Academy of Executive Coaching (AOEC) having a wonderful conversation with George Warren from AOEC and Ana Paula Nacif around how coaches can drive systemic change.

At Coach Advancement, we support coaching for social impact via our Coaching With Conscience (CWC) initiative. CWC was initially created in 2020 in response the Covid-19 pandemic when we mobilised a group of our alumni community who offered pro bono coaching services to front line key workers during this challenging time. Since then, this wonderful initiative has evolved and grown and we now regularly partner with charities such as Mind and the British Paralympic Association offering staff access to coaching from well trained coaches for very accessible fees. We are very excited and proud of this “win-win-win” model where the individuals benefit from a great coaching opportunity, their organisations benefit from the support that is created for their employees, and the coaches benefit as they get to engage in meaningful work and log client hours towards their credential applications and renewals (some of which is counted as ‘paid’ when an reduced, yet accessible fee is exchanged). At Coach Advancement, we also win as we get to work closely with and support some amazing charities and initiatives as well as offer something valuable to our coaching community as part of our exclusive alumni benefit package.

We’d love to hear from you to acknowledge your social impact contributions and do let us know if there are charities or foundations that would benefit from this offering as we are keen to keep expanding our reach and create as many ripples through coaching as we can!