How would you like to do something good in the world, every time something good happened in your business? That would be great, wouldn't it?!

Read on to find out how I achieved that goal, and the product I created to help you do the same!

The background

When I launched my website I had the idea that I'd help make the world a better place by showcasing inspiring leaders and companies using technology to do great things.

That was great, I really enjoyed that work, and so did my readers. I still thoroughly enjoy publishing this work on my website, however ... in terms of impact I felt it was a too intangible and lacked accountability.

I then set out on a journey to find a way to directly support good things in the world.

I started off by sponsoring carefully selected tree planting and growing projects for every newsletter subscriber.

Again, this was good, but limited, and didn't address a broad-enough scope of SDGs that I aspired to support.

Then I found B1G1.

(Actually, I "rediscovered" them because I had known about them for a few years since attending a Roger Hamilton entrepreneur summit in London).

Since then I've integrated automated micro-impacts into many aspects of my business.

• Sign up to my newsletter - a tree gets sponsored
• Engage with my website - one of 17 different SDG focused projects gets supported on your behalf
• Comment on a LinkedIn post - a child receives blindness preventing medication
• When I raise an invoice - 1m2 of rainforest is protected
• and many more. You can find out more about these, and make an impact with no commitment/cost today here.

"How can I do that?"

That's one of the most frequent questions I've had since starting this work.

As companies of all sizes look to build more purpose, more impact into their daily operations, many have asked me how they can also integrate automated impact into their businesses.

Until now, it's been difficult to support all of them because I was doing everything on a consultancy basis. Also, it's fair to say that the consultancy approach didn't work for many of them, either.

I knew I had to 'productise' the ability to integrate these automated micro impacts into businesses, and that's just what I did.

Before we get on to that, let me answer a couple more frequent questions ...

What are micro-impacts and are they worth it?

This is another frequently asked question.

In my world, micro-impacts are small donations to support specific SDG-related projects from carefully vetted, highly scrutinised worthy causes across the planet. I partnered with B1G1 to enable this, as they do the legwork in hand-picking thousands of trusted projects.

Donations to these worthy causes range in monetary value from over 5,000 USD down to just a single cent - it is the lower range, sub 10c that I refer to as micro donations.

Can a single cent actually do any good? (another FAQ). Well, yes.

When the monthly family income is under $50, a cent has much more power. But I'm not donating a cent, just one of the projects I have supported received more than $100 from me alone - and it's not just me supporting that project.

That's the other key thing about it. My cent joins the cents of thousands of other likeminded businesses to multiple and have significant impact.

Micro-impacts and scale

The last point I'll make on this is that micro-impacts suit the budget of any company - large or small - and when they are linked to a business milestone or success, then the cost of supporting a project can be proportional to the business gain.

Adding automation to this means that businesses can embed doing-good in their DNA, across their teams and throughout their processes from day one, with their impact scaling proportionally to business growth and success.

Of course, if you're a bigger company you might redefine the monetary bracket of 'micro'.