We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Emily Kane Miller. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Emily below.

Emily, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

As someone who would never have described themselves as an entrepreneur, the decision to step away from a stable job to found my own company was scary.

From the moment I graduated law school, I worked in government or for a large corporation. For the better part of a decade, I built a social impact career in-house, and loved being part of a bigger team.

Then in 2019, a few things happened. First, I was pregnant with baby #2, and acknowledged that I wanted to continue to grow professionally AND have more flexibility at the same time. Second, the social impact ecosystem had changed dramatically. When I began my career in 2004, giving back within a corporate framework was a “nice to have” – but over the years it had transformed into a “need to have.” Business leaders were being asked with increasing speed and specificity – what are you doing to make the world a better place? So too, families and individuals with resources were looking for more ROI and impact in their giving.

I had the skills, experience, and heart to help this growing list of impact-oriented donors and doers. I recognized that there wasn’t a firm to help create and build out the kind of social impact programs I knew were possible and necessary, particularly in Los Angeles and California more broadly.

But as a regulatory lawyer by training, stats and data are my framework. And leaving a stable job (with great benefits at a well-established, well-respected corporation) to build a company from the ground-up in a niche field (with a newborn and two-year-old) is, analytically, a “bad” decision. So walking into the abyss went against the logical thinking I always relied on.

Ultimately, I knew in my heart that there was an opening in the market for a supercharged social impact agency, and that I could add real value to the sector. So I created Ethos Giving.

As a consulting business, our knowhow is the product, and – thankfully – our services are consistently in demand. We signed our first client in our first month of business. As they say in finance, we were in the black right off the bat.

Nearly 5 years in, I am so grateful I took the leap and find the work to be not only vital, but meaningful.

Emily, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

A seasoned social good strategist with deep experience in corporate and individual giving, I’m the founder and CEO of Ethos Giving, a leading-edge Social Impact consulting firm, and the creator of Ethos Tracking, a revolutionary software tool that allows businesses, nonprofits, and foundations to more effectively track their social impact.

Twenty years ago, people looking to advance social justice pushed toward careers in government and nonprofits. As someone who wanted a career that made a difference, I expected to do the same. When I graduated from law school in 2009, the economy was rocky–I needed to update my plan. I had a chance to work on social impact at a company focused on addressing huge challenges in California’s Central Valley, where most of our employees lived and worked. We didn’t simply “give back” – we blended philanthropy, impact investment, community empowerment, employee engagement, and advocacy work to make sustainable change for real people. During my nearly decade there, I saw firsthand how much can be accomplished with this multifaceted model – we were able to support paradigm-changing work in education and healthcare and foster powerful community-based work across a myriad of issues, including immigration access to parks and voter enfranchisement.

By 2019, I saw that the world had really shifted. More and more donors and corporations were looking to implement strategic, powerful, and dynamic social impact work. The 1990s version of “giving back” was dying: Corporate good centered on volunteer days and supporting a few galas wouldn’t cut it anymore. The social impact work of the future is purpose-driven, rooted in the values of a company. You can read more on that via this piece I published in 2019: https://www.triplepundit.com/story/2020/its-end-csr-we-know-it-and-i-feel-fine/86246

So I launched my own consulting firm – Ethos Giving. We help anyone looking to really move the needle on impact. This includes individual donors, foundations, and corporations. First, we help clients identify a smart and effective impact effort that truly makes sense for their business and/or passions and that they can sustain over time. Unfortunately, so many causes are selected based on headlines and popularity. That is a surefire way to fail at impact – it’s crucial to do what you know or can build expertise around. Second, you can have the best impact idea in the world, but it won’t take off without a structured plan. At Ethos, we know the devil is in the details, having built and led this work for over a decade both in-house and for clients. We build the scaffolding necessary to sustain outstanding impact work and train the internal teams to take the reins.

Over the course of my decades-long career in social impact, I always knew philanthropy and CSR professionals needed better tools to do their great work. After launching Ethos Giving, the search for that better tool continued – I wanted to be able to offer a best-in-class tracking resource to our clients alongside our services. So ultimately, I built it! Ethos Tracking launched in April of 2022. It’s a comprehensive social impact software, a SaaS platform built to help social impact teams or individuals seamlessly track the full scope of their social impact portfolios.

When it’s all said and done, I want to be able to say that we changed the way individual donors and corporations deploy generosity and show up as a force for good – and that it made an outsized difference for the communities and people served. Not just for our clients, but for the entire sector.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My business was barely a year old when COVID struck and the world shut down.

Though unclear how this would affect Ethos Giving, I leaned into the moment to figure out what was needed and how we could best be of use to our community and our clients. We identified that this was exactly the time when organizations needed to – and were willing to – step up and give back. Companies were in uncharted territory… but we had the map.

We quickly found so many generous individuals and businesses ready to show up and give back. When clients wanted to know how they could help, I made calls to figure out who had the greatest need, which hospitals were lowest on supplies, and where we could deploy capital most impactfully.

There wasn’t a one-stop shop for these answers at an institutional level, so we developed the Greater Los Angeles Hospital Registry, a free, volunteer-run online resource that allowed any hospital in LA County to list, quantify, and share publicly its specific needs. This opened the door for companies to jump in and help. Vendors could meet the needs by providing inventory (either for purchase or as an in-kind donation), and donors of all levels could use it to make a general gift or contribute to specific needs. As I explained to The Forward, the registry was meant to “flatten the curve of generosity” by engaging crowdfunders as well as six-figure donors. Anybody – regardless of budget, size, or resources – could get involved and maximize their impact.

With millions of dollars in cash donations and in kind support, we were able to spread the generosity across the county, deploying hundreds of thousands of units of PPE to more than 30 hospitals, most of which didn’t have big development departments or donor bases.

We knew that wasn’t the end of the story. Hospitals still needed to feel like we had their backs, even once the PPE shortage was resolved. So, we created opportunities for our clients to bring flowers, food, and other gifts to thank and support the staff. That’s the magic of this work—being able to show up and be kind.

Ultimately this all allowed for business to grow, and provided an opportunity to develop our strategy and augment the work. I’m so proud that Ethos Giving was able to pivot and turn what could have been a very tumultuous time for the business into an opportunity to facilitate the flow of generosity from our clients to those who needed it most.

We learned that in times of strife or downturn, this work can still be a priority.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

At the very onset of offering my consulting services – before the firm even had a name – I signed a client that taught me a valuable lesson.

From the start, I was clear about the project’s KPIs and deliverables. I would guide them through the process of building a strategic, effective social impact program that would bring real value to the community.

Four weeks into the contract, the program was up and running – but the client expressed frustration that sales hadn’t increased. When that contract was complete, I opted not to resign. I realized how critical it was for client expectations to match our skillset.

Of course I believe that our work will drive revenue for our clients in a host of ways – but that isn’t our target KPI. We are uniquely situated to create the very best impact work in the business. If that isn’t what the client is looking for, we probably aren’t the best firm.

It was then that the company’s name crystallized for me. I wanted to signal to those hiring us (and working with us) that when it came to making the world a better place, we meant business. Ethos Giving was born.

Four years later I’m thrilled to say we’re a respected name in the space, with a diverse and growing list of clients ranging from household names to small start-ups in sectors from pharmaceuticals to professional sports to financial services. My only criteria for accepting new business remains ensuring they all have a genuine desire to really move the needle with their social impact work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ethostracking.com/
• Instagram: @ethosgiving
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-kane-miller-32272286/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ethosgiving?lang=en
• Other: Consulting firm: https://ethos-giving.com/