CASE STUDY / EF Impact report
EF was Doing well by doing good, but they weren’t telling the story of their impact effectively. it was time for a change.
When I took on the opportunity to create a global solution to share EF’s stories, EF had already made decades of impact on millions of people’s lives around the world. Whether through language learning, cultural exchange, educational travel, or experiential education, there were few for-profit companies that could rival EF’s positive contribution in the world. The problem was, nobody was telling that story. Like ephemeral moments, the stories of impact were largely lost. I saw that across all businesses at EF, there was a need for proof of impact, and most of all, pride. That’s how EF’s first-ever EF Impact Report was born.
THE APPROACH
Uncovering the impact of EF
The brief was simple—I wanted to find and tell the stories that made customers and team members proud of EF. The process started from zero. There was no platform to tell stories, no system to collect them, and no way to express what the collective impact of EF was.
I started where I always start, with questions. This was during the pandemic, and everyone was working from home. It was the perfect time to do in-depth interviews with people across time zones. I approached building understanding and momentum for the project through conversations.
After collecting about 100 hours of content getting to the root of what made people proud of EF, the real trick was pulling it all together into something that people around the world of EF could connect with.
THE PROCESS
doing the work
The pandemic had many downsides, but one upside was that I had an incredible team of storytellers who had the time to focus on one mission—help me figure out how to tell the story of EF’s impact. From far and wide we hunted down information, collected assets, and debated the best way to put it all together. We were a team of writers, marketers, designers, product owners, and videographers, but we worked as collaborators who supported one another to create something we could all be immensely proud of.
One of the biggest challenges was putting everything together in a way that businesses across EF could leverage. Some EF businesses sold travel products directly to customers, some worked with educators and schools, and some partnered with governments and Fortune 500 corporations. Whatever we created needed to work for all of them.
THE WORK
highlighting a world of impact
I felt strongly what EF needed was an anchor piece that conveyed authority and credibility. That’s why the end result, a 65-page report, had such heft and depth. I knew not everyone would (or would need to) read the whole thing to get the point. But the fact that it existed gave weight to the ecosystem of channels and assets around it. From doing a roadshow to present the report to business teams across EF, to social assets, to blog posts, to videos, the universe of the EF Impact Report couldn’t have existed without the core authoritative piece at it’s heart.
The Team // Amy Van Aarle, Jennie Jouvenaar, Jim Williams, Brooke Parker, Hamo Field, Jeff Sias
THE SHIFT
from Passing Moments to pride
At a moment when the pandemic rocked EF, just like it rocked the world, the EF Impact Report gave team members around the world confidence and pride. Confidence we had the gravitas and legacy to get through the pandemic, and pride that the transformative impact of EF was worth fighting for.
We heard it over and over—people felt proud that the company took the impact of EF seriously. It positively affected how they felt about their daily work, their contributions to EF’s mission, and their confidence about telling the story of EF to others.
To this day, the EF Impact Report is one of the accomplishments at EF that I’m most proud of.
52,000
Team members globally who needed to understand EF’s impact
100+
Countries where team members needed to be able to communicate EF’s impact
~20
Different businesses that each needed to connect to EF’s impact