Brittany Hill Matching Cause with Corporations

Brittany Hill leads Catalist, a company designed to make sense of the purpose movement. She talks with Adam about the strategy she and her team employ with brands to apply purpose where it makes sense, and when to opt out. Transcript: Adam Pierno: All right. Welcome back to another episode of The Strategy Inside Everything. This show is going to be different. I think I say that every time, Jesus, but it is going to be different because we're taking a look at a new facet of strategy and some new dimension of what we're doing from a strategy perspective and from the idea of purpose. Today I have a guest, the CEO and co-founder of Catalist, Brittany Hill. How are you, Brittany?Brittany Hill: Hi, I'm good. Thank you for having me.Adam: She's dialing in from beautiful Texas. I never get to Austin but I would love to spend some time there. How is it there today?Brittany: It's actually very beautiful. Yes, we love it here in Austin. The secret's out, though, a lot of people move in here.Adam: I know. I know it's crowded. Phoenix is the same way. There's something like 300 people move in here a day. Tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are with Catalist and then I think in your case, we're going to have to explain to people what Catalist is, so people have a sense of where this discussion is going to go?Brittany: Sure. No problem. My entire career I've spent in the social impact space. I've sat in the Corporate Social Responsibility seat at various companies, entertainment foundations, and have produced various events that had social impact slants, and also set in the nonprofit seats and understand the nuances of specifically raising money from the corporate sector as a nonprofit professional. Then for the past decade-plus, have built and sold various social good consultancies that really specialized in building strategies for both the nonprofit and the for-profit side on how to work better together.I have really enjoyed working with blue-chip nonprofits, the UNICEF's, the American Hearts, the March of Dimes and World Visions of the world, and also Fortune 1000 companies.Throughout that, I really learned that there were two main challenges that we kept hearing from both our nonprofit and our corporate clients. It was really around building fruitful partnerships with each other, finding the right partners. I'm sure we'll dive into it, but the purpose is such a big part of a brands landscape and an ocular, especially in today's environment. That a brand stands for something and is no longer the exception, but the expectation.We knew that finding the right partners on both sides of the aisle was a big, big issue that we didn't feel like human capital alone was doing a really good job of solving. Also then measuring the effectiveness of those partnerships, both on the community but on the respective bottom lines. Essentially, just really answer both of your questions. That's who I am and how I've got to the place where we are.But, really why we created Catalist was to build a software platform that borrows from these online dating applications of the world to help broker really smart data-driven and methodical relationships between the public and private sectors, and then really measure what they're doing to make sure that they're valuable investments, that they resonate with key stakeholders, and that they're doing what they are intended to do in terms of supporting our communities at large.Adam: I love it. We connected when I read your-- something you had posted on LinkedIn, got shared with me. I saw how intertwined the who you are and what you're doing are. I thought, "Well, this is this is really interesting. I want to know more." Thank you for that context of how you got started. Let's start with the people listening to this show are brand strategist. They're thinking about how to change the perception of a brand or how to improve the perception of a brand, and we wrestle a lot with brand purpose.