MIAMI, USA
APRIL 2022
Joan Marie Godoy,
CEO of
Radical Partners
What is your background in Sustainability/Impact Communication if any?
Sustainability is in my blood. Being raised in the home of an environmentalist, I was exposed and trained to care for the environment and be actively involved in its preservation. I chose to focus on the social aspect of sustainability and to work with the humans that design, build, and implement sustainability agendas.
What does Sustainability mean to your organization?
It means everything to us. People come first. What sustainable practices do we have in place to sustain, both financially and emotionally, and develop the social impact leaders that we work with? Purpose comes second. Why are we doing this? What we do has to strengthen communities in one way or another. The Planet cannot be forgotten. If not here, where will we live? Our work and our waste cannot contribute significantly to its deterioration.
Are you mainly focusing on environmental Sustainability or also on Social Sustainability?
Social Sustainability mostly. We are a social impact accelerator and we do that by investing in leaders, engaging locals, co-designing solutions, and building coalitions to strengthen communities. Environmental Sustainability is among the many issues we, and the leaders and partners that we work with, address.
How do you guarantee the success of your measures?
There’s never ever a guarantee when you work with people, and it’s even harder when working with diverse communities, but we do have systems in place to measure, assess, and iterate when necessary. We create Theories of Change for every program that we create and run, identify metrics of success around 4 focus areas: built capacity, fostered collaborations, impact, and belonging. We collect quantitative and qualitative data around it, evaluate impact at the end, and incorporate learnings in our future work. Aside from that, equitable and lean practices guide what we do, who we work with, who we hire, and every single move that we make.
“Sustainability is in my blood. Being raised in the home of an environmentalist, I was exposed and trained to care for the environment and be actively involved in its preservation. I chose to focus on the social aspect of sustainability and to work with the humans that design, build, and implement sustainability agendas."
Do you have a defined purpose at your organization and is it aligned with your sustainability and communication strategy?
Yes and yes. Our purpose is what drives our strategy and culture. We accelerate social impact through everything we do, including our communications. We are very intentional about investing in leaders (visibility opportunities), engaging locals (providing resources), co-designing solutions (interacting with the virtual community), and building coalitions (intentional connections) through all of our communication channels.
Is your purpose grounded in your organizational culture?
Yes. We have a core and extended team of social impact leaders that know and live Radical Partners values. We work with people who are bold enough to challenge systems, smart enough to gain context and make decisions that are data-driven, and who are kind with humans of all backgrounds and lived experiences. We accelerate each other, our work, and the impact of the leaders that we work with.
How does your organization feel about transparent communication?
We love transparent communication as long as it’s purposeful. We tend to share more than what other businesses do. In our newsletter for example, we share when we carry certain feelings or concerns about the state of the world. We admit when we’re not ok. Our team shares what they’re up to too.
Aside from that, failure friendliness is one of our values at RP and it’s also what we do with the local chapter of F*up Nights Miami. We communicate it when we’ve learned something and think it’s worth it for people to learn from it too.
Do you feel that differentiating yourself through impact has brought an added value to your business?
We are a social venture with purpose at its core. In our case, it’s hard for the world to understand and appreciate that we are a hybrid organization that runs programming for free (thanks to the support of our donors) and offers services for a paid fee as a business does. It might be too early for the world to accept and value organizations like ours but we believe that is the most realistic way to accelerate change.
How do you integrate Diversity, Inclusion and Equity into your organizational culture?
It’s the way we do things at Radical Partners. It’s not new or an addition to our work. Equity is at the forefront of our programs as we recruit leaders and talent with diverse backgrounds, perspectives, and lived experiences, from diverse abilities to race and nationalities. We are also forever learners and we’re in the process of unlearning certain processes and adapting certain strategies to not only be welcoming to all but to work in an equitable environment where everyone can thrive in their own way.
What are your organization’s goals for the next year in terms of sustainability?
We are in the process of becoming a BCorp ourselves. One of the criteria we need to focus on before we apply, is the measurement (and reduction) of our carbon footprint now that we work virtually and from different locations.
