My Impact Report
It’s impact report season. 📢
One of the requirements for being a public benefit corporation is publishing an annual benefit report – that’s the formal name for the document, though many refer to them as impact reports.
This impact report details the results of your company to create a public benefit, and typically this needs to occur within 180 days of a company’s fiscal year-end. Most companies are on a calendar fiscal year, so this means the filing gong sounds at the end of April.
Gong….
So, here’s my 2025 impact report for Oliver Russell, an Idaho benefit corporation. And since I’m once again as when I entered the entrepreneurial world decades ago – a one-man band – the impact created via Oliver Russell isn’t what it once was when we had tens of employees and resources to make the impact door really swing.
But the commitment's still there, the resolve as steady as ever, if not even stronger as I feel compelled by the urgency of my life stage.
I have three primary, revenue-generating business segments through which I seek to create impact: brand consulting, this newsletter, and a coworking space – Inspiration Alley.
And the primary impacts fall into the categories of donations, volunteering, and in-kind gifts.
Focusing Impact Through The SDGs
I continue to focus my impact on three areas of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
- 5 Gender Equality
- 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 13 Climate Action
I've quantified most of my impact, which you'll see shortly, measurement being a hallmark Certified B Corps and members of 1% for the Planet.
Other impacts are harder to measure. For instance, at my community coworking space in downtown Boise: How to you measure the value of having a place where a homeless person can come in and use the restroom when they really need it?
Here's what I measured.
Donations
$500 – 1% for the Planet
$1,200 – B Lab
$500 – Idaho Community Foundation
$300 – City of Good
In-Kind Gifts
Providing free and reduced-rate meeting and event space valued at $4,412.50 to the following nonprofit partners:
- City of Good
- Idaho Community Foundation
- Idaho for Good (B Corps and purpose-oriented organizations)
- Radio Boise
- Idaho Women in Architecture, Engineering, and Construction
- One Stone School
Volunteering
I volunteered 112.50 hours for the following organizations:
- City of Good
- Stanford University Tech & Impact Center
Or, looked at another way, that’s nearly three work weeks of volunteering.
Consulting Clients
I offer a 20% discount on my services for purpose-driven clients. In 2025 this included:
- Rebranding for a new research center at Stanford University, the Technology and Impact Center (TIP)
- Public relations planning for Dragon Army, a digital services agency (and Certified B Corp!) in Atlanta, Georgia.
- Consulting for a merger between the Idaho Community Foundation and the Idaho Nonprofit Center
Inspiration Alley
At my coworking space, I price memberships affordably compared to the market and offer nonprofits an additional 20% discount on membership. I also provide mentoring services – of which I haven’t tracked hours. Need to do that this next year!
While I still have dreams of scaling the impact I’m able to make in the world – always! – what I have accomplished feels consequential and personally rewarding. Here’s to more of it in 2026.
Godspeed, friends.
Russ
P.S. I'll be trying in an upcoming issue to find the impact reports for OpenAI, Anthropic, Blue Sky, and Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs, public benefit corporations all. In the past I haven't succeeded; wish me luck this time.
💬 Think About It
"I prefer a hard life with meaning to an empty life with tea." A woman who goes by her first intial "F" on today’s NY Times The Daily podcast, "How Iranians See The War."
✍🏼 The Poetry Challenge
Who needs a poetry challenge when the art form is already challenging for many?
But, hey – it's National Poetry Month, so we don't want to let this opportunity pass us by. Here's a gift link to a New York Times Poetry Challenge – memorizing a poem by W.H. Auden (one of my faves). And if that doesn't entice a click, perhaps Matthew McConaughey reading the poem will.
💥 Quick Hits
- My Truck's Bigger – You know all those giant pickup trucks in your city parking garage that just radiate little-dick energy? Turns out there's a name for that: autobesity. That's the trend for bigger and bigger vehicles. And it's killing people on the highways.
- Library of Things Toolkit 2.0 – We're all about sharing – check out this guide for learning all you need to know about starting a sharing hub in your community.
- A BIG Shout-Out – to Pat Williamson for joining as a paying supporter. We're not rolling in it, and every little bit helps. Appreciate you, Pat. 👏
Undercover
Folks seemed to enjoy last week's Dolly Parton cover of Shine by Collective Soul. So let's keep it going with another of my favorite genre-busting covers: Irishman Luka Bloom covering LL Cool Jay's I Need Love.
Let's make this a two-way street. Send me your favorite cover song, with a brief "why," and we'll see to it that it find its way into a future issue.