Impact 4 Good began as the brainchild of two individuals with significant experience in very different spaces. Alan Ranzer was working in nonprofit community service work domestically and internationally while Ira Almeas was coming from work in meetings, incentives, and corporate events.
Almeas was running an established business facilitating corporate meetings and events and had clients that wanted to do positive community givebacks and immediately saw a need he could fill. His industry lacked the community outreach component, so with the existing contacts he’d made, he began incorporating it himself. After a few successful events, he knew he needed more of the community service influence. Participants were engaging with their colleagues and collaborating as a team and then making a meaningful donation, but something was missing. He shared his idea with Ranzer, and they began discussing the nuances of how this concept could blossom. As someone with a nonprofit background that understood facilitating those partnerships and how best to expand on Almeas’ ideas in a meaningful way, Ranzer and Almeas decided to partner in this effort.
A complete “leap of faith” for Ranzer, who had never considered owning his own business, and July 9, 2005, over a cognac toast, they made it official. By August 5, the earliest iteration of Impact 4 Good was born.
As they began designing programs striving to connect corporations with communities, an exciting kickoff event was held at the Montego Bay in Jamaica, building beehives for a local farmer. Those beehives were needed as an income generator for that local farmer to help keep his farm up and running. The team contacted every local news outlet and magazine they could think of to share their unique corporate socially responsible team building event with the world and their vision took off.
Ranzer and Almeas both derive different joys from the work they do every day, but the shared joy is, what they call, the “Win. Win. Win.” Win for the attendees. Win for the corporation. Win for the community. Participants get the warm and fuzzy feeling that they contributed to something greater than themselves, the corporations put their philanthropic values to work and show their employees that giving back is a priority to their organization, and the beneficiary, and the community it supports, have gained new partners in their fight.
As one of the lead pioneers in the industry of “socially responsible team building,” Impact 4 Good has helped define the very roadmap of what meaningful, purposeful team building looks like today. Their sixteen-plus years of delivering quality teambuilding 4 good has not only positively impacted employee engagement in companies nationwide but has benefited hundreds upon hundreds of community organizations where their programs have taken place.