Rachel Whitworth speaks about measuring, communicating, and showcasing impact cultivated through the good business of social entrepreneurship. Rachel is the founder of the House of Eden Studio, a marketing and consulting agency supporting social enterprises, nonprofits, and businesses doing good. She is also a catalyst behind Hello Good World, a way for social enterprises to efficiently measure their impact, to magnify the social impact created by these social enterprises. Based in Australia, the initiative provides marketing services to purpose-led, impact-led organizations, mainly small businesses, so that their business and message can thrive.
Working with social enterprises gave Rachel insights on how the social enterprise community can relate better to each other and the public. She reveals that the more we can help each other in the social enterprise community, the more we are elevating and educating all of the consumers around us. She describes the role of being a business owner, trying to stay on top of all the business, and adopting better business practices. There is generally a lack of time, money, resources, or skills, so Rachel really began learning to identify the problem for herself. She says she found the problem revolves around education and building trust.
Two aspects social enterprises fall behind on are marketing strategies to gain customers and using historical data to show impact. Hello Good World is a three-tiered solution connected to a small certification to validate how social entrepreneurs are working towards the social enterprise model. At one tier, the platform provides levels that give a familiar concept of a bronze, silver or gold level to make the communication easy to follow. Rachel explains how showcasing the social impact brands in this way actually gives the consumer the power and the understanding to really make the conscious buying decision that they truly want.
Currently, Rachel maintains a full-time job, House of Eden Studio, and the newly launched Hello Good World. She expresses how she feels like to balance all three positions with all three initiatives. Her experience can really give insight on building a team, and having mentors. Being connected to a supportive system kept Rachel on track with her mission and core values as a social entrepreneur.
Under the layers of promoting social enterprise, Rachel is also advocating for specific concerns, like sustainability. From her observations, she thinks there is a misconception with the average consumer that sustainability means buying products that are recycled, and you pop it in the recycling bin or the compostable bin afterwards. Her view dives much deeper, connecting sustainability to who made the products, how the people are treated, and what resources are available to that community of people.
The conversation goes into the practical tips of how House of Eden manages to empower social enterprises in their projects. Rachel speaks on providing tools to increase confidence and having transparent conversations. Rachel gives examples of specific projects to show that starting social impact doesn’t need to be perfect.
If you would like to learn more, you can visit: House of Eden Studio, Hello Good World, or find her on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube.