Afdhel Aziz opened GoodCon with a question that got me thinking.
"We have a lot of movies about the apocalypse caused by different reasons, but can you think of a single movie about how we are saving the future?"
As I flew home, one answer came to mind: The Terminator. Yes, that 1984 "I'll be back" classic. Set in a not so distant future of 2029, Kyle Reese time-travels back from a dystopian future to find an unlikely heroine, Sarah Connor, and together they fight a relentless cyborg to stop humanity from being overtaken by machines, also known as Skynet.
But what struck me at GoodCon, hosted by Afdhel and Bobby Jones, co-founders of Good is the New Cool and Conspiracy of Love, was something else about that story. Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor had no obvious reason to trust each other, yet they partnered anyway. Against something that seemed impossible to defeat, united a belief that “The future is not set. There is no fate but what we make for ourselves."
That is the moment we are in right now. Marketing and social impact leaders, the unlikely allies, must unite to create hope.
The narrative around purpose-driven business is under real pressure. It can be dominated by cynicism, muted by fear or hollowed out by empty, performative branding. But three companies at GoodCon showed what happens when marketing and impact teams stop operating in parallel and start telling authentic, bold and community-oriented stories together. Here is what they did and why it matters.
When social impact becomes a business differentiator
HP's example shows that when marketing and impact share a goal, the story reaches further, and the business case gets stronger.
Michele Malejki, Global Head of Social Impact at HP Inc. and Executive Director of the HP Foundation, did not open with a feel-good story. She opened with a business opportunity.
HP is a title sponsor of the Ferrari Formula 1 team. That partnership earns HP a seat in conversations they would not otherwise be in and creates real brand exposure at a global scale. Lewis Hamilton's move to Ferrari made it more resonant still. His Mission 44 initiative focuses on helping young people from underrepresented communities thrive in school through STEM. HP's mission is to power future workers to participate and thrive in an increasingly digital world. Two forces oriented toward the same horizon with marketing and impact collaborating across both teams to amplify the same story.
The problem behind that mission is real in scale. Roughly one-third of the global population is still offline. In the U.S., 90% of workers need some level of digital literacy to participate meaningfully in the economy. HP builds access and training directly into its social impact programs, with employee volunteerism as a core delivery mechanism. Eight hours of volunteer time per month is part of HP's culture, built in from day one of onboarding.
The business case is straightforward: customers ask about social impact in RFPs. It is a differentiator. When HP employees show up in communities, build digital skills and represent the company's values in action, that creates real brand equity with customers and real meaning for employees. Malejki called it the brand halo effect, a measurable business outcome rooted in genuine community investment.
Her challenge to the room: why would a customer care about your brand in their local community? If you cannot answer that, you have a gap.
How storytelling can reshape a cultural narrative entirely
Land O'Lakes demonstrates what is possible when a CMO and an impact team share a narrative ambition and pursue it with real creative commitment.
Heather Malenshek, Senior Vice President and CMO of Land O'Lakes, made the case for something bolder: using storytelling to reshape a cultural narrative entirely.
Rural America is one of the misrepresented communities in mainstream media. Land O'Lakes decided to change that. They partnered with Getty Images to put authentic imagery of rural life into circulation with real people and real places. They partnered with Imagine Entertainment, Ron Howard's production company, to tell these stories in long form. The result included "Somebody Somewhere" the hit HBO series that brought a rural Midwestern community to life in a way that reached far beyond its geography.
That work became the foundation for the Modern Rural Collective, a coalition of brands committed to reshaping how rural communities are seen, heard and valued. Modern Rural Collective aims to inspire a new, shared narrative for all Americans. Sharing practical toolkit that equips the entertainment industry with credible context and practical guidance for representing rural life.
The brand benefit is real. The social impact is real. And neither is possible without the other.
Why everyday moments drive community-wide change
You do not need a blockbuster production partner to make storytelling work. A repeatable system is enough.
Craig Cichy, Executive Director of the Social Impact Fund, showed that you do not need a blockbuster production partner to make storytelling work at scale. You need a consistent and scalable infrastructure.
Macy's uses checkout roundup to create sustained awareness and connection with every shopper. Each month features a different campaign and nonprofit partners like Big Brothers Big Sisters, Girls Inc. and The Trevor Project. Keeping the story fresh and giving customers a reason to engage repeatedly. Every checkout becomes a moment that connects a shopper to something larger than the purchase.
What makes it work is the system. Not one campaign. A repeating infrastructure with new stories flowing through it. Systems create habits. Habits create culture. Culture creates real change.
Filling the hope gap
Bobby Jones closed GoodCon with a line I have been thinking about ever since.
"Hope starts with a belief that something will be better, but it has to be combined with the action and power to make it possible."
Here at Benevity, we are reimagining and delivering what’s next for social impact.
For nearly two decades, Benevity has built the infrastructure that makes global social impact trustworthy, with regulatory compliance, secure payment and nonprofit due diligence engine that runs beneath every program. Now we're reimagining how users can interact with it to create more impact. As AI becomes embedded in how our development actually gets done, we're witnessing accelerated velocity to how new capabilities can be built: what used to take months become days. Disjointed workflows become connected journeys. Passive reporting becomes active guidance. Operating a program gives way to collaborating with one. The result is a social impact partner that works alongside you: surfacing the right nonprofit, flagging the right risk, recommending the next best action so that running a world-class program feels less like managing a system and more like working with a colleague who already knows your goals, your people and your mission. This is only possible because of our trusted global engine.
Less than a year ago, Ian Goldsmith joined us as our first ever Chief AI Officer, leading the effort to define responsible AI in social impact. In January we published our AI policy to ensure we are grounded in integrity, fairness and accountability, with every employee responsible for ensuring it enhances trust, inclusion, and positive impact.
In March we released two AI capabilities to help leaders and grant makers:
Match Assurance: Instead of relying entirely on manual data entry and reviews, the AI-assisted feature can extract key information from uploaded receipts and help build the submission before it even reaches program administrators, reducing the time spent on manual approvals by up to 80% for certain types of match requests. Among early adopters, one of our global partners saw their match decline rates drop from roughly 30% to under three percent by catching errors and incomplete submissions earlier in the process
Grant Summaries: Using generative AI to provide a structured overview of an application’s purpose, funding needs, and intended impact. This enhancement at the beginning of the grant review process allows program admins to more quickly sort to complete proposals, assess how a proposal aligns with specific funding goals and allows for more time on grant program alignment and potential program impact.
Other platforms ask you to operate them. Benevity is building a social impact partner that works alongside you. This is how we fill the hope gap: by uniting people in purpose and powering trusted impact for the world.
Taking action on storytelling
Not every company can afford to partner with Imagine or sponsor a Formula 1 team. But every company can start with a joint strategy built around authentic stories, real community partners and a commitment to showing up consistently, not just when it is convenient.
At Benevity, we are doing this ourselves. Sona Khosla, our Chief Impact Officer, host of the Speaking of Purpose podcast, just completed a joint strategic planning process with our marketing team. This was a genuine two-day investment in shared strategy to align our long-term roadmap, operational priorities and budget to what we both believe can create meaningful results for our clients and their communities.
A story is only as powerful as the audience it reaches. That is not a marketing function or an impact function. It is both when we are working from the same page, toward the same goal.
How will you be telling your impact story this year?
Benevity helps leading companies connect employee giving, volunteering and grants programs to business outcomes that matter.
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