Beyond Profit: How Beth Bengtson is Redefining Business for Social Impact

In this episode of the Riveo Impact Lab, Elin sits down with Beth Bengtson, founder of Working for Women, to explore what it truly means for small businesses to become a force for social good. Beth shares her journey—from the high-powered world of 1990s Wall Street to discovering a deeper purpose in elevating women’s economic mobility. Together, they unpack the roots of her passion for purpose-driven business, the global experiences that shaped her worldview, and the pivotal moments that fueled her commitment to gender equity.

Beth explains how Working for Women is changing lives by creating economic pathways, building supportive communities, and reshaping the narrative around financial independence for women—especially those from marginalized backgrounds. She and Elin also dive into the practical side of social impact: how even the smallest businesses can integrate purpose into their operations, why community matters more than ever, and the cultural shift happening around women, money, and empowerment.

Filled with inspiring stories, strategic insights, and a powerful call to action, this episode reminds us that impact begins with intention—and that small businesses can be catalysts for big change.

The Riveo Impact Lab is produced for you by Riveo Creative. For more Riveo Impact Lab content, including the video versions of all our episodes, please visit https://riveocreative.com/riveo-impact-lab/.

Transcript

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[electronic music][Emily] Welcome to the Riveo Impact Lab, the podcast in which we explore what it means for small businesses to have real impact in an evolving world. On this podcast, we engage our curiosity around topics like sustainability, diversity and inclusion, and the ethical outcomes of our decisions, all from a small business perspective.[Elin] You can find our podcasts on audio platforms like Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or, if you prefer the video version, we're on YouTube and you can also get to the video podcasts through our website. I'm Elin.[Emily] And I'm Emily. Beth Bengston is the founder and CEO of Working for Women, a nonprofit organization designed to create business opportunities for women in underrepresented communities. Beth has over 20 years of experience as a leader in marketing and communications, as well as corporate social responsibility. Beth's unique ability to bring purpose to the professional has culminated in her Working for Women model, which connects business members to nonprofits that focus on creating employment opportunities for underserved women so that the business members can contribute both money and skill sets.[Elin] So I get to talk to Beth this podcast, I got to interview her. And I really enjoyed hearing her story, coming from this very corporate background, very, you know, for-profit, profit-driven background. Even though she was working in the ESG space, she still had that to contend with. And she, she evolved her career into this nonprofit that she founded. It is Working for Women. It is all about helping women. So she, you know, went from this, her background in corporate America, into a place where she's leading with her values, she's changing things in a very meaningful way for women all over the country. And I just found that really inspiring.[Emily] Yeah. Beth is a very inspiring person, and I really enjoyed listening to the conversation that you had with her. Beth is doing incredible and meaningful work, and she has been for years. And so we know you'll take so much out of this conversation with her. So let's go ahead and get into it.[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Elin] Hey, Beth. Welcome to the Riveo Impact Lab.[Beth] Hey, I'm so glad to be here. This is going to be fun today. So. We have a nice gloomy day.[Elin] It is a— you know, we're both in different parts of New York State right now. And, yes, very gloomy day, but we're going to bring the sunshine.[Beth] Yes, we’re going to bring the light side. It's funny, I was out kayaking this morning on the river. I go out early in the morning and I was, and it was one of those days that you just had to be reminded that it's, sometimes you just have to wait for the light to come out. So it was a cloudy, cloudy start, but the light was still there behind the clouds.[Elin] That just made me think of like a Leonard Cohen song.[Beth] Hey, you didn't say we had to sing on this, on this.[Elin] No, there's no singing. Absolutely no singing. No. We're here to talk about impact and purpose. And, this podcast is for small business owners who are looking to make more of an impact and wondering how they can leave a legacy that they're really proud of. And it's a topic that interests us because we're on that path. And you and I met, gosh, a few years ago at a conference, and I learned about what you were doing. Found it fascinating. So I'm glad we're finally getting to have this conversation.[Beth] I am too. So where do you want to begin?[Elin] Well, I'm curious about, what really sparked your passion for purpose driven business and. Because you made a shift, you made a conscious shift, and, I really I don't know if, you know, I don't really, don't know the story, so I'm kind of curious what led to that and to this current direction that you're on.[Beth] So, you know, my whole career has been a journey, I think as, as many of ours have been, you know, in terms of thinking about, like, direction. When I started, my, you know, coming out of college and with a business degree, I don't know, you know, there was no conversation necessarily about purpose driven business. And I found myself early in my career. You know, I worked in the financial services industry to start off with and always looking for, and I was working down on Wall Street at the time in, in the 90s, so at the time where, you know, purpose was not necessarily part of that conversation at all, when you think about finances and thinking about, you know, evaluating companies. And I was looking for that piece of how can we be using money in a way that is actually making society better? And I started thinking a lot about, how could I take my business skills and use them as a force for good, right? Like, how could businesses be that force for good? And I didn't—and, and not wanting to have to wait. You know, I came into the workforce in the place where it was, you earn as much money as you can as fast as you can, so that you can retire and go off and do good. And I think I always questioned that from the start, like, why? Why do I have to wait to do good until I retire? Isn't there a way of actually using my skills and using business to be a force for good?[Elin] That, that's interesting. And really in the 90s on Wall Street were there a lot of women? I'm picturing the power, the, the shoulder pads, power suits.[Beth] I had the shoulder pads and the power suits. I totally can admit to that.[Elin] Yeah.[Beth] You know, it was an interesting time to come in to working on Wall Street, too, because that's when affirmative action was really at full play and I will argue that part of why I got the opportunity that I did was they were looking to meet numbers. Right? And so it's really great. I don't know if everybody can see what we look like, but to be tall and blond, makes it a lot easier to get into the workforce at that time. Right? In terms of meeting quotas, and bringing more women in, met those quotas at that, in that time place. So in a great way, it opened up doors and opportunities for me that I don't think I would have had access to otherwise. On the other side, it also made me question why I had access, to those opportunities. So I think it was already planting a seed in my psyche about the role of business. And again, how we can be, how we could be using it for good. It doesn't necessarily have to be for bad.[Elin] Yeah, yeah. Or maybe not even bad, but just like personal gain.[Beth] Yeah.[Elin] You know, like, yeah.[Beth] Yeah.[Elin] Which sometimes involves bad.[Beth] Yeah. Well, but it doesn't have to, you know, but it was also at the point, the point of all of that time period was also starting to become the real emergence of the corporate social responsibility piece, of really starting to think about not that it hadn't been there, but, and, and the irony of it is, you know, there was a lot of focus then on environmental, social and governance. And then the movement went through many iterations and ended up back at environmental, social and governance. But, you know, in any of its iterations, it's been a place of people thinking about, what is that social impact? Right? Like what is the social impact of the company? And I think what we've just seen, though, is more and more focus on that over time because it, I think people just started questioning. Right? Like, it's not enough. We had 50 plus years of Milton Friedman thinking of it's all about profit. And then people kind of saying, well, what about all the other stakeholder groups, that are involved in that? So.[Elin] Right. Yeah. And, and I think that once that seed is planted, it doesn't go away. Despite the best efforts of certain people trying to squash it. You know, it's just the ideas are out there and, there's a whole lot of people that care about having some kind of social cause attached to their company.[Beth] And at the end of the day, it's the evolution of business, right? Because it's about differentiation. You know, if any. You know, if all. When I was teaching this and I would go into companies and especially small businesses, I would talk about purpose being that product differentiation piece because if all things are consistent. So I would talk sometimes either about sneakers or pasta and I'd say, you know, when you go into the store and all of the things that at a certain point in the lifecycle of anything, the function and the price all become almost the same, right? The, the box of pasta on the shelf. There's five different types of pasta. They all, you know, roughly are the same type of thing. The price pick place in there is almost exactly the same. So then it becomes, well, why wouldn't I choose the box of that saves the world, right? Like in terms of thinking about that product differentiation. And I think that's what you have more so now, but it only comes into being when everything else is, is, is, in alignment, if that makes sense.[Elin] Yes for sure. So for you, I'm sure you have a lot of causes that you care about. And you decided to focus on women and helping women. How did you get there? What was, was there a moment that helped you make that decision or what led you down that route?[Beth] So I think there were multiple moments, one being, you know, where we started with where my career was, where there wasn't many women and just being cognizant of that over time. And then finding as I came into more leadership roles, that I was always mentoring women in organizations and helping them find their voice and self-confidence to be able to kind of, be in the roles that they were and evolve moving forward and, you know, go on that career trajectory. And then I actually had a pivotal moment, probably about, I guess it would be about ten years ago now that I ended up on a service trip with a friend, and we ended up in Guatemala, and I got to see women that were basically, well, it was the prostitutes in Guatemala City. And when we went around to visit them, I realized that they were all running businesses. Righ?. While it was the sex trade, because of the way that it works in Guatemala, it's very much on an individual basis, and that they all had business skills. And I thought, what if we can help women really see the skills that they have in other and apply them and put them into, better pathways, right, for building those skills. And out of that is kind of the beginnings of, you know—the seed was already there along those lines and, and being passionate about, you know, corporate social responsibility. I brought that in to multiple firms. But that piece really brought it over to, if we're going to focus our efforts, let's help elevate more women in the workforce and help support them along those lines. Because there's not and especially in the United States, there is not a lot of focus around women and economics and their trajectory.[Elin] Not yet.[Beth] Yes. And we're building, we're building that motion right.[Elin] So. Yeah, I hope we are. I mean, you know more.[Beth] Yeah, you know what? You have to stay committed. So regardless of, and I think if anything, even with where we are right now, it's even more important, right? Like, I have a real responsibility to use my voice to help elevate others as we continue on, on this journey.[Elin] Yeah. As do we all I think on some level. How did—so you mentioned Guatemala. You also studied in Paris. Do you think that that international education and in your global experiences did help shape your perspective on gender equity and social impact? And you know, how, how so? What, what were you observing?[Beth] So I would say it wasn’t even, you know, the educational experience, it's been all the travel that I've done. I think travel and education are never, never wasted dollars in any way. And the more that you get exposed to other environments and other ways in which people live, I think without a doubt shapes, what you do, especially when you see the different economics, across the world. It can't not, I would believe it can't not shape you if you're open along those lines. So I always feel like you, you need to get out of where you are to see what else exists out there, both from a positive and negative standpoint. But 100% my, my travel, especially in the undeveloped world, in the developing world has, it has totally shaped my approach to business and thinking about the role that business plays in society. And, you know, business generates capital. The question becomes, how do you use that capital and where, and where do you use that capital?[Elin] Yeah. And, a the—one thing I find interesting is when you think about helping women and you put it in a global perspective, it feels so overwhelming. And yet, here we are, you know, each trying to do our bit to make more of an impact. And, and one of the ways you're doing that is through your company now, your nonprofit that you founded, Working for Women. Can you tell us the origin story of that and talk a little bit about the mission of that organization?[Beth] Yeah. So let me talk about the mission first. So Working for Women exists to help elevate all women in the workforce, right, because—and especially those from marginalized communities across the United States. We are U.S. focused. We just talked about my global experience and while the need is there globally, when we started Working for Women, it was really looking at the United States and seeing, you know, realizing that, you know, we are not on an even economic playing field, not only just from women overall. But, you know, women tend, are in, 50% of the women that are working are working jobs that are below the federal poverty wage. And so we need to be focusing on that. But those are, we see more women than ever in the workforce. But the economics of that of more women in the workforce does not mean that it's economically viable or in a way that a lot of women can support their families. So that's the first point in kind of with Working for Women and where the focus is, and that was where the board, you know, as we got this up and going. The, and what Working for Women does is it's a business giving community. And what I mean by that is it's a collective of, of businesses and professionals that all come together and we aggregate their time, skills and money to then move into our network where we provide programing across other nonprofits across the United States that reach women in those communities that are working to advance in the workforce. And we do three things. We invest in connecting them to pathways, better pathways on the job, on their job journey that will allow them for, to achieve economic mobility ideally. We support them with skills and training, so they become part of what we call the Working for Women Circle, which is a whole range of programing support from things like negotiation skills training to financial support groups that help support them on that career journey. Because my other big learnings since starting Working for Women is the fact that I thought we just had to put women into better jobs, and that would change the paradigm. But we can't just do that. It's about building that support, system around it. And then the third area where we focus is on changing the conversation around barriers for women in the workforce. And that's some of our are much larger work that really reaches across our investor community, because that's, we think very much, we don't think about ourselves as a charitable organization while we are registered that way. We think about ourselves from the standpoint of, from that financial, from us having a fiduciary responsibility to really make sure that the dollars that are donated into us really have that meaningful impact. So that advocacy work, is really about raising the awareness of things like child care, really using our the voice of our organization to raise up more of the barriers that are holding women back in, in the workforce. So that was a lot. I don't know that I got to all your, your questions just kind of really the background Working for Women. The, I think your other question was the fact of where did the genesis come from? And the Genesis came from the, the emergence of both my thinking about the role of business as a force for social good, and then the intersection of my always seeing that we needed to do more to help support women in the workforce.[Elin] Yeah, we sure do. I, have another project. We're working on a documentary about women and money, and so have been hyper focused on the disparity there. Historically and currently, where women just don't have the same. I mean, we haven't been on a level playing field for so long, and we, we are trying to catch up. And then there's all these societal taboos, you know, when it comes to talking about money, learning about money. If you act a certain way or if certain questions you're characterized, you know, negatively a lot of times. And there's just a lot to unpack with that topic, a lot of work to be done. So, you know, kudos for all that you're doing.[Beth] Yeah. You and I need to have a. As you talk about that, I noticed that you and I need to have a separate conversation from this. and really take you through some of the, the work that we're doing, along that because that's become a big focus. You know, when I started Working for Women, we weren't necessarily thinking about that financial literacy piece. It was really about that connection to jobs. And we have launched a program called Money Talks this year. That is not, it's so much more than financial literacy. It's a six month program, which is where we bring women in through a cohort model to really unpack and, and talk about money, right, and talk about the role of money in their lives, but really bring that foundational support and start changing that conversation. And then all the work that we've done as soon as you put the term “money” up in front and try to bring women to it, you know, nobody shows. So there's so much work to be done here. But what I'm so excited about with the Money Talks program is, while we've been on a road to help women, you know, gain financial independence through, through the workforce, the Money Talks program, we're going to be changing lives because we're going to be enabling women to, to generate wealth. And that becomes a game changer, right? As we go forward. Because, you know, as we're able to put women into jobs, support them on that job pathway so they can get to that financial independence, then we move them into a place where they can actually, where we're actually talking about wealth generation and putting foundations in, that's going to change the conversation.[Elin] That sounds really exciting. I would love to hear more about that.[Beth] Yes. We will have a separate{inaudible} that documentary.[Elin] Okay, so we're back. For those people who are watching this on YouTube or on our website, we just had a little technical hiccup. And this is on a different camera. You look equally fabulous. But, a new set up. It's like doing a wardrobe change in the middle of a concert.[Beth] I know. I feel like you get to see a whole new, different part of my office. You see my different, my different setups and backgrounds. Yeah. No. Awesome. Anyway, so we just jump.[Beth] Anyway. We just thought we’d bring a lot variety into the interview.[Elin] We were, we were talking about working for women and, choosing, how you identify and choose the nonprofit partners you're working with. You said that they generally come to you?[Beth] So they come to us through written all recommendations. You know, here's, here's the stark fact: in the United States, less than 2% of all philanthropic dollars goes to women and girls. The majority of those dollars goes to the health and reproductive conversation, not exactly shocking. There's not a lot of dollars that goes to helping women from an economic standpoint, of really kind of from that workforce development. So the majority of the nonprofits that we work with are all grassroots and regional, across the United States. There's not like there's a national. Well, we are the national nonprofit that is really kind of aggregating and thinking about this. So how we find our partners is a lot through word of mouth, through recommendations in those areas from, some of the Women's Funds, Funding Network, you know, saying who's working on workforce? And, you know, what do you think? And that way we also get that place of evaluation because they've also been working with them or grant, putting grants and seeing the success. What's amazing is there's so many great groups, you know, across the country that are doing this work, but awareness is so low because they don't have the time or the dollars to really focus on that, that key piece, right, or working with firms like yours, Elin, to really raise awareness and be able to have that marketing, marketing and communication dollars to really kind of bring those stories. So that's the other piece that we're able to do kind of as that larger organization that sits over it is raise awareness and help them with those stories and those case, case studies. Because at the end of the day, Working for Women really exists not only to help the women, but to expand the capacity of resources that are going in here, to support women across the United States. So to grow that capacity.[Elin] Yeah, that, that's great. And you're right, that that storytelling piece, the amplification is so important. Like that's something that's part of our mission is to tell those impact stories and help get that word, the word out there. And, we're working on innovative ways to try to do that. So it's not burdensome to the nonprofits. But it's, it's a challenge. It's, it's something that the infrastructure for that doesn't automatically just exist. So, that's another conversation we can have offline, Beth.[Beth] Yeah. The infrastructure doesn't exist. And the other side of it, it was interesting. We've had people come in recently is the aptitude of the people that are investing or making charitable dollars, they don't want to see dollars going into that area too. So it also burden is on the nonprofit of, you know, if you can't tell your story and you can't bring more people in, you can't grow your capacity just like any business. Right? It's, it's the same. No, no business is growing without awareness. And people understanding, and you make that investment. But in the nonprofit world it's viewed negatively. Right? That is the biggest opportunity. But it is also when funders come in, you know, they don't want, they want to look and see all your dollars are going to programing. Well that's great. And yes, you know, the majority of those dollars go out to programing. But if you're not able to bring more people in, you're, you're kind of stuck, right? Because you can't grow that capacity to be able to, to do more. So I think there's, there's this systems and, and the awareness in terms of the nonprofits and to be able to bring it. But there also needs to be more understanding on those that are donating dollars, that their dollars are going to go a lot further if you're able to expand the reach of, of that organization and its work, so.[Elin] Yeah, that's I mean, that's an awareness campaign in and of itself. But that's, where a lot of our interest lies. So thank you for bringing that up. But, I want to dial it back a little bit, and I'm wondering if you can think of a story. I'm sure you can think of many stories, but if you can just illustrate some way that Working for Women has impacted a real life woman and made her life better, is there a story that comes to mind that you'd like to share?[Beth] Yeah, there's a couple stories and it's interesting. I was just working on our mid year letter and talking about it and you know, what is, what has happened with Working for Women,(I'm going to talk about kind of generally with, with women that come in) is they'll come into one area of our programing. And so it could be a connection to the job program or a certification program. And, and it was something that we, we didn't necessarily know about in the beginning. And what has come back over the last few years as we've brought more programing on and reach on those lines, is the community piece that is so lacking, especially for women on the, on the lower end of the economic journey, right, a place where they can be seen for their aspirations and maybe not the traumas of where they’ve come from. And so when women come into the Working for Women community, and this is the feedback that we get consistently again and again is the, the place of being seen and being supported for, for the dreams and where they're trying to go. Right. And, and that, that it's a surrounds, like they, they also are connecting with other women. You know, so many of us have professional groups that, you know, when you're on your journey that you've connected into, when I walk in and when we're doing more stuff in person and, you know, when we come on virtually, when you ask these women, you know, who's there for them, they haven't had that experience. They haven't had that experience of community. And I would, I think that's one of our strongest pieces as we continue to grow and, is that the women, when they come in and have one experience, come back and sign up for all our programing. So in terms of that story, what we're seeing now is we'll have a woman come in for the negotiation skills workshop, and then they come back and they do the certification program. Now they're doing the financial support groups and they're feeling that, that not only that sense of community of being in, in community with other women because everything we're doing is a cohort model, but they're also feeling seen and supported on their career journey as they go forward. And, and lastly, the, the other piece that I'll say that, you know, you sometimes underestimate the power of just being there and seeing and being present with, with women. I, and I think anybody. Right. And I think we can think about this along those lines. When we start a session, when I've started sessions at Working for Women, I will walk into the group and say, we're here to invest in you. And that moment is a pivotal moment, right? You see, all of a sudden, because so often women are not used to anybody saying—you know, we're, we're the caregivers. We're going off and taking care of everybody else. And to walk into a room and all of a sudden hear that this whole session is there for them and that we're here to support them, it changes the energy like, like nothing else. Right? You just see that, that burst of all of a sudden everybody sits a little taller and is more awareness. And it's kind of like—and unfortunately it's not, it's not the experience that they have all the time. Right. I think, I think possibly overall as most women, we, it's not an experience that we have of sitting there and having someone say, I'm here to invest in you today.[Elin] It's so important. I love that that was your answer and that this is being experienced by these women. I think too, a lot of times people underestimate the value of that virtual community. You know, think of community in terms of going down to the community center in your actual community. But like for myself, I have worked so hard to build online communities and like, I feel like those are my people and they're not necessarily in my backyard, but it doesn't matter. And it's like, this is a new phenomenon, relatively new phenomenon, and it's real and it's powerful and it's really awesome that you're tapping into that.[Beth] Yeah. And like I said, you know, if you'd asked me seven years ago, I don't think community would have been in the, you know, what we were doing? I was like, we're going to build resources, we’re, you know, very business mindset. I'm going to take the power of the business community, aggregate what business does really well which is generate capital, and move more capital over to those nonprofits that are spending way too much time fundraising and let them do more of their social, really do the social work, right, and support them on that journey. And so community, I wasn't thinking about that. And it, it's emerged because we spend so much time listening and we were hearing from the women where we were bringing the programing in, and the group and the organizations that were supporting, they came back and told us that, that that was such a big component of that experience of being seen. And so we now have women that have been with us for multiple years. Right? And they feel that they are, that, that we're there for them. Right. And, and nothing—we all know, we've all had that power of there's been somebody there that has seen us and helped us on those days and, and that, that to me has been amazing to watch that come out of this. And we didn't go into it intentionally. Right. It, it's emerging organically and it's meeting a need that we didn't realize was there.[Elin] No, you're doing important work, that's for sure. And, so bringing this back to our audience, small business. You have said that business can and should be a force for good, which I also definitely believe, a force for social good. What, what do you think that looks like in practice, especially for small businesses? So these, you know, probably are for-profit businesses that are, they don't exist exclusively, like you do, you know, as a nonprofit. But how can they incorporate that, becoming a force for social good, into their business model?[Beth] So this is a place I always love to talk because, you know, before I came into running Working for Women, I ran for, I built and ran for-profit businesses. You just have to bake it in, right? It's, it's not as hard as everybody thinks it is, you know, and I, and I would also argue most women owned businesses are value driven along those lines. And already it's somewhat they're. You put it in your bottom line. You just make the commitment. You just say, you know, that this is part of what we do. We give back a percentage each year. And here's where we're, we're giving that to. And you build it into your budget. And you know, I listen to this from so many businesses and say, and even when I was running my for profit business before, people were like, well, it's so amazing what you're doing. I can't wait till I can do that. This is why Working for Women exists. Like, you could be giving $10. You could be giving $100, you could be giving $1,000, you could be giving 10,000. You know, we have we have people at all different levels and businesses at all different levels. You just get started. You just write the first check. You just make the first donation. You don't have to wait till you're big enough or anything. Because the power of the giving circle model means you're$100 can be part of 100,000,$1 million, because the more we have more businesses come together, the more we can aggregate those resources and move it out. So, you know, we always talk about the power of, if a thousand businesses give $1,000, that's $1 million. Like just do it, you know, like. So if you as a business can't give $1,000, then give $100, whatever it is, but give it into a place where that, that collective giving model is, because that's where the power of the aggregation comes.[Elin] It sounds so easy. It is easy.[Beth] It is easy.[Elin] It is easy. It’s just making a decision.[Beth] I’ve listened, I’ve sent— and sorry, this is like a area of, I guess of pain, right, of coming from the business thing. I've spent so many presentations where people will come up to me afterwards in small businesses and they say, I'm, well when I get big enough. And you don't have like, that's the wrong, that's the wrong place because then you're waiting. You don't need to be big enough. You just need to say, this is part of my business, and it doesn't matter how much you're giving, it matters that you're giving and that you're incorporating it into your business. You don't have to, it doesn't have, there's no point in your business growth model that's the right time to turn this on.[Elin] Is there a link between social impact and business success?[Beth] I would argue, yes. Just from what I've seen in my experience. But there I will also tell you there's research out there that shows, right. The firms that have this, especially in times of economic, you know, hardship, they do better overall because whether you're a solo entrepreneur, entrepreneur, right, and you're, you're pulling it along those lines and you feel better and you know that you can support. To growing your business. It just, there's no downside to people feeling like they're part of something bigger. Right. And really feeling like that not only are they going to work to support themselves, but that, that the place that they're working at is working to make the world a better place. That deepens that commitment, I've seen it again and again, of employees to the organizations in the companies that they work with, because it ties you back to being part of something bigger than yourself. There's no downside to that. And those firms have more committed and more loyal employees. And that's the piece I think on a larger standpoint, that business just doesn't like, it keeps—you know, we, again, we had too many, we had 50 years of it's just about, just about the dollars. Right. And so I think in the world now people are starting to see it's not just about the dollars. We need to bring those other pieces in if we're going to have a strong and committed workforce. But also I drank my Kool-Aid.[Elin] What does, we, and we asked all of our guests this question, what does impact mean to you? We like talking about impact.[Beth] I know it's such a, it's such a term that is out there, in so many levels. And, you know, we put out an impact report every year. And I, we have so many conversations about it because then what we define as impact, someone will define is output. And there's so many definitions of impact. For me I think it really comes down to, and it's not a quantitative thing. It's a qualitative piece. It's the stories that are coming back in. It's the community. It's the, the lives that I know that we're touching. Because I know that that impact will have that ripple effect, right, over affecting one life, that life is in turn going to ripple and in effect, it out. And I think the hardest part in the work that I do is navigating that piece between the, the data, the quantitative and the qualitative, right, of, of showing that and then being able to really, you know, demonstrate that in, you know, everybody wants in the hard, fast place when so much of it is you, you know, you're changing lives because of the conversations you're having and because of what we were even talking about before. The feedback that we get that people are so engaged in our community, that we didn't even know we were building necessarily.[Elin] Right. So and, it’s so inspiring talking to you. I could continue this conversation for the next hour, but we're not going to do that. Instead, I would love to have you share how people can get involved with Working for Women, how they can find you, support you, you know, all the things.[Beth] No problem. So we're pretty easy. We've been talking the name, Working for Women. It's workingforwomen.org. You can just get on and find us. We are active on LinkedIn and Instagram. Those are other great places to follow our, our content. Not that we don't have some in other areas, but those are two primary areas, especially because we're really trying to reach that business community. So engage and follow us on LinkedIn. You'll learn a lot about what we're doing. Sign up for our email newsletter, as you got today, because—and we don't overly, we, probably about once a month just to kind of keep you up and on the works. And then, of course, contribute. I think that's most important. We take it, we take it in all shapes, forms. If you have a donor advised fund, we are a great place. We are listed on all of those, great place to be able to help support. And just remember the power of the collective, right? Those dollars that you give to an organization like Working for Women go that much further because of that, that motto of the aggregation. And thank you, thank you. Spread the word. You know, opportunities like this, if anybody wants to have us come on and talk, speak, you know, I love talking about the work that we're doing. So that's how we, that's how you change the world, right, is, is more opportunity. So I really appreciate you making time to have this conversation on your podcast.[Elin] It was a pleasure and really so inspiring to hear about what you're doing, and, how you are changing the world. So thank you very much, Beth, for being here with us on the Impact Lab. And sure we'll be talking again soon. Thank you.[Beth] Sounds good.[electronic music][electronic music concludes][Emily] Our Make an Impact tip of the week is decide to donate. You don't have to donate $1,000 to a nonprofit to make an impact, but we can all give something. Decide exactly what you're able to contribute to an organization in need, and make your contribution by the end of the week. Then send us a message to tell us who you've chosen to support. We can't wait to hear about the amazing organizations that have captured your heart.[electronic music] Thanks for listening and make sure to do good in the world this week. If you have questions you'd like us to address on the podcast, you can reach us at info@riveocreative.com. Subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss out on any of our incredible upcoming guests, and we'll see you soon at the Riveo Impact Lab.[electronic music][electronic music concludes]