March is B Corp month, the annual time of year when you’ll hear B Corps all over the world talking about the movement (even more than usual!). This year’s theme is “This Way Forward” and focuses on how we keep improving and keep making a difference.
Since earning our B Corp certification in 2019, the B Corp network has really inspired Cathexis to strive to do more for our workers, planet, and community. Even though our B Corp certification signifies that we’re already doing business differently from most others, it also solidifies our commitment to keep growing, learning, and improving.
We asked our team how Cathexis shows we keep moving forward. Here’s what they had to say.
“How has Cathexis been moving forward as a company and as a place to work?”
We are prioritizing people by investing and engaging in a number of new initiatives that are part of our strategic priority to make Cathexis a great place to work, where diversity is celebrated and everyone feels valued. The team mentioned examples of new initiatives we’ve introduced in that past year and a bit:
- A parental leave top-up program (one of our team members is already piloting this!)
- The option to participate in an employer-paid extended health and dental plan OR health spending account
- Combined personal and sick days in a flexible pot of paid leave days (now staff can use “sick” days for preventative health and wellness!)
We’ve also been exploring an Employee Shared Ownership Plan (ESOP).
The team told us Cathexis is putting the planet first by looking at how we can minimize our environmental impact, guided by discussions and learning sessions such as “The Week”; and we’ve been building our capacity to have conversations with clients about the environmental impact of their programs.
And we’ve been advancing social good through the learning our team has been doing collectively and individually on anti-oppression and Truth & Reconciliation. We now have a renewed company-wide Strategic Plan, an Anti-oppression Strategic Plan, and a Reconciliation Action Plan, all of which are guiding our way forward.
“How does Cathexis support its clients to continuously learn and improve?”
As an evaluation consultancy, learning and continuous improvement shows up all over our work: much of the time, this is what our clients hire us for! We bring an external perspective to evaluations, encouraging clients to think critically about the broader forces and factors influencing their programs. We also help build our clients’ capacity for internal evaluation, empowering them to continuously learn and improve in their own organization.
New things that we’re doing in the past year or so include:
- Using AI-powered tools so that we can help our clients understand how to leverage it in their work.
- Being more intentional about helping our clients consider their environmental impacts and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) aspects of their work.
Check out www.bcorpmonth.com to learn more about more about how B Corps are moving forward.