Best resources for purpose driven professionals

Being a super star leader, employee and colleague requires a combination of factors including continuous learning. I’ve compiled my go-to list for being in the know – from what you should be reading to who you should be following and everything in between.

Get Smarter:

• Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) – http://ssir.org/
• Harvard Business Review– https://hbr.org
• Boston College Centre for Corporate Citizenship– http://ccc.bc.edu
• Aspen Institute: http://www.aspeninstitute.org/
• Bridgespan– http://www.bridgespan.org/Home.aspx

Thought Leaders to Follow on Twitter 

Click on their names to follow these social impact thought leaders.

• Aaron Hurst– @PurposeEconomy author. CEO of @Imperative. Speaker & writer. Founder of @TaprootFound
• Bea Boccalandro – Job purposing advisor, speaker, writer & researcher. Job purposing lifts employee engagement, performance & wellbeing by increasing the societal impact of jobs.
• Beth Kanter -Beth Kanter is the author of Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, one of the longest running and most popular blogs for nonprofits.  Beth has over 30 years working in the nonprofit sector in technology, training, capacity building, evaluation, fundraising, and marketing.
• Brad Zarnett – Brad is the Founder of the Toronto Sustainability Speaker Series 
• Carol Cone: Self dubbed “the Mother of Cause Marketing” Cone is an intrapraneur (and entrepreneur) at heart. She created one of the leading cause communications agencies and led the Social Purpose and Business practice within Edelman and now is on to her latest entrepreneurial venture with ON PURPOSE. Make sure you read her latest thinking here.
• Coro Strandberg–  President of Strandberg Consulting. Coro is a Canadian trail-blazer in values-based business practices and market sustainability.
• Dan Pallotta -In the last five years alone, Dan has given over 275 talks on philanthropy and innovation. Dan’s iconic TED 2013 Talk has been viewed more than 3.8 million times  It is one of the 100 most-viewed TED Talks of all time. See his website here: http://www.danpallotta.com
• Derrick Feldman : President of Achieve | Researcher | Author of Social Movements for Good | Producer of MCON (http://mcon.events )

• Don Tapscott is an Adjunct professor and describes himself as a media theorist. He is also an author of a number of books most recently- the Blockchain Revolution.
• Ellen Weinreb–  Managing Director, Weinreb Group, Executive Search placing sustainability professionals.
• Jacqueline Novogratz – Founder/CEO of @acumen to find solutions to poverty & build dignity. Author of The Blue Sweater.
• Joel Makower  Founder of Green Biz,award-winning journalist, co-author THE NEW GRAND STRATEGY, global speaker on sustainable business, cleantech,
• Paul Klein – Is the Founder & CEO of @Impaktcorp and founder of @HireUpYouth.  Paul helps corporations and NGOs profit from innovative social change.
• Phill Haid– Is the co-founder and & CEO of PUBLIC, a social impact Agency & Accelerator. Columnist for Fast Company and the Financial Post.
• Susan McPherson:  Susan McPherson is a cause marketer, CSR expert and entrepreneur. Her most recent initiative is her communications consultancy McPherson Strategies (see portfolio here).
• Full list of Impact Thought Leaders on twitter curated by me (Amanda Minuk a founder of Bmeaningful)

Purpose Oriented Thought Leaders Outside of Social Impact

• Seth Godin – http://sethgodin.typepad.com
• Richard Branson– http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson
• Adam Grant– https://www.linkedin.com/in/adammgrant?trk=pulse-det-athr_prof-art_hdr
• Roger Martin– http://rogerlmartin.com

News Publications:

• Triple Pundit- http://www.triplepundit.com
• FastCompany – CoExist– http://www.fastcoexist.com
• Chronicle of Philanthropy- https://philanthropy.com
• The Nonprofit TImes- http://www.thenonprofittimes.com
• CSRwire – http://www.csrwire.com
• 3bl – https://3blmedia.com
• Green Biz – http://GreenBiz.com 
• Sustainable Brands- http://www.sustainablebrands.com/
• Toronto Sustainability Speaker Series- http://tsss.ca/
• Corporate Knights- http://www.corporateknights.com 

Looking for something to do on the side?

• NEW: Intrapraneurship: League of Intrapraneurs 
• Probono Work: Taproot Foundation
• Skills Based Volunteering –  Catchafire ,
•  Endeavour Volunteer Consulting
• NEW: MovingWorlds Experteering   (skills based volunteering and fellowship)

Latest Research:

• NEW: Statistics every social impact professional needs to have
• NEW: 2016 Cone Millennial Engagement Study 
• NEW: 2016 Cone Communications Employee Engagement Study 
• NEW: Edelman Trust Barometer 2016  
• NEW: unilever international study 2016
• NEW: LinkedIN 2016 Study Purpose at Work– https://cdn.imperative.com/media/public/Global_Purpose_Index_2016.pdf 
• NEW: Deloitte Millennial Study 2016- https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html
• Millennials and Impact http://www.themillennialimpact.com
• 2015 Index on Purpose Oriented Workers – https://www.imperative.com/index
• Nielsen Research- Doing Well by Doing Good- http://www.nielsen.com/content/dam/nielsenglobal/apac/docs/reports/2014/Nielsen-Global-Corporate-Social-Responsibility-Report-June-2014.pdf
• Deloitte Millennial Study- 2015 http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html
• Insider’s Guide to Finding Meaningful Work and Attracting Top Talent 

Professional Associations:

• Association of Fundraising Professionals – http://www.afpnet.org
• Certified Fundraising Executive (CFRE)  – http://www.cfre.org

Books to Read

Green Giants : Green Giants examines nine companies that are merging social responsibility with wild profitability — and reveals the factors responsible for their success.

The Purpose Economy  : In 2014 Aaron Hurst, Ashoka fellow and founder of Imperative and Taproot Foundation, published The Purpose Economy, the book that catalyzed the purpose revolution.

 Social Movements for Good: A guidebook for driving change by taking advantage of the social “currency” that makes movements go viral.

Organizations and Foundations Doing Important Work: 

• Net Impact– https://netimpact.org 
• Echoing Green – http://www.echoinggreen.org
• Case Foundation- http://casefoundation.org
• Skoll Foundation – http://skoll.org
• Ashoka- https://www.ashoka.org/
• Acumen– http://acumen.org
• Imperative– https://www.imperative.com/#/individual
• NEW: Google.org – http://google.org/
• NEW: B Corporation- https://www.bcorporation.net
• NEW: Hult Prize– hultprize.org
• McConnell Foundation– http://www.mcconnellfoundation.ca/en 
• Ontario Trillium Foundation– http://www.otf.ca/ 

Canadian Love:

Social Entrepreneurship

• School for Social Entrepreneurs- https://www.the-sse.ca
• SoJo– http://mysojo.co
• Centre for Social Innovation– http://socialinnovation.ca

Social Purpose, CSR, Sustainability

• Social Capital Partners– http://socialcapitalpartners.ca

Nonprofit

• NEW: The Philanthropist– www.thephilanthropist.ca (community sourced)
• NEW: Charitably Speaking – http://charitablyspeaking.com/ (Community Sourced)

Some Insightful Canadians to Follow on Twitter:

• Allyson Hewitt https://twitter.com/AllysonHewitt
• Andrea Cohen Barrack https://twitter.com/AndreaCBarrack
• Heather Mak https://twitter.com/heatherkmak
• Paul Nazareth– https://twitter.com/UinvitedU

Am I missing anything? Please add to the list in the comments below.

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Updated as of December 12nd, 2017