Venn's impact vision and model.

Founded in 2016, Venn’s mission is to enable people everywhere to live more balanced and meaningful lives, and positively impact their neighbourhoods. We do that by creating platforms, tools, and experiences that help people forge stronger connections with their neighbours, businesses and the communities around them.

From the start, Venn co-founders Or Bokobza, David Sherez and Chen Avni were fascinated by the impact movement that is breaking down walls between business and social entrepreneurship. Having grown up in rural cooperative communities and cities, they realised there must be a better way of urban living – one that encourages community engagement, inclusivity, creativity, entrepreneurship and affordable pricing.

As Venn developed from an idea into a company, we recognised the need to translate the founders’ ‘impact vision’ into a systematic, operational plan for action. We decided the best way to do that is to embed ‘impact’ directly into our product offerings, ensuring that Venn and its customers all “do good while doing well”. Venn’s impact model guides every aspect of the company, from business practices to business development. At its heart is a seriousness of purpose for positively impacting peoples’ lives and increasing the number of people who can benefit from our business and social success. And we’re serious about holding ourselves accountable to those goals.

Venn’s ultimate goal: Inspired by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, particularly Goal #11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), Venn aims to increase the wellbeing of both Venn’s members and neighbourhoods.

Venn’s impact goals: We focus on a few carefully chosen, ambitious-yet-achievable goals for impacting members and neighbourhoods. These include:

(1) providing honest, fair-priced housing and

(2) creating a sense of belonging for the benefit of members;

(3) accelerating inclusive local economic growth and

(4) empowering community engagement and participation for the benefit of the neighbourhoods we operate in.

Measuring performance: Based on international evaluation standards and with the guidance of a lead investor, the Bridges Israel Impact Fund, we developed a rigorous, measurable tool to help quantify and report social performance. For each goal, we select clear indicators, establish neighbourhood-specific targets, and collect data using proprietary apps and platforms, periodical surveys, member interviews and more. This iterative process helps us assess whether we’re truly living up to the impact promise. It not only enables us to track our effectiveness and progress, it also allows us to develop relevant, value-added content and programming. On a fundamental level, the methodology allows us to measure, track, and analyse social performance as seriously and accurately as we measure business performance.

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Making an impact: getting stakeholders involved.

One of the challenges of working with members and neighbourhoods, especially since we deal with people’s homes and livelihoods, is not getting caught up in what Venn thinks is best for others. We learned early on that the right approach should follow the motto “if they build it, they will stay” rather than “if we build it, they will come”. We work hard to create opportunities for all stakeholders - members, neighbourhood residents, employees, and investors - to get involved and co-create impact.

For members, this involves fostering connections and working to reduce loneliness that people can feel living in a big city. So not only do we measure members’ loneliness levels and how much they feel socially supported after six months of joining Venn, but we also encourage and provide platforms for human-to-human interactions. This can take the form of a Friendsgiving meal filled with homemade food and good laughs, or one Bushwick member encouraging another who lost their job to apply for a position in her company – and he was hired. Overall we found that members’ loneliness is reduced by 33% six months after joining Venn, and by 54% after twelve months. During COVID-19 days 70% of Venn members said they did something nice with their neighbours (like celebrating birthdays, sharing groceries and supplies, childcare etc.) and only 15% of them reported feeling lonelier than before the pandemic.

For Venn neighbours and neighbourhoods, we focus on accelerating inclusive economic growth. One of the biggest events of the year is Bodega Night, where the local bodega (a small, typically family-owned deli and grocery shop in Brooklyn, New-York) turns into a nighttime hangout for members and residents alike. Everyone is invited to join the party and enjoy local music, dancing, and good food, and the bodega’s owner enjoys the increased foot traffic and revenue. Another recent example saw Venn develop an online map of local businesses that remained open during the COVID-19 quarantine, encouraging members and local residents to buy local and support those businesses during difficult economic times. Venn also makes it a point to use local suppliers and vendors as much as possible, which translates into more than $1 million (USD) in revenue for seventy-five small businesses and service providers across our neighbourhoods.

No less important, Venn invests time and resources to encourage all its employees to take an active role in implementing our impact mission. It starts when they join the company, when every new Venn employee learns about the impact model during training, and it continues in their day-to-day work with individual impact targets developed as part of their responsibilities. Whether that takes the form of celebrating holidays with elderly neighbourhood residents or organising a photo exhibition by artists who are homeless or even in the way they approach landlords to negotiate real estate deals, Venn employees are boundlessly creative in developing meaningful, engaging programs around impact.

Over the last two years, Venn employees and members created and curated more than 1,100 events (almost two per day!), attended by over 20,000 participants - mostly members and other neighbourhood residents, their friends and families. We have also been invited by local municipalities to take part in local festivals and holiday celebrations.

Last but not least, Venn makes sure to constantly review our goals and impact results with our investors and board - the same way we review financial indicators and performance. Their input and deep involvement keeps us honest and focused on the mission to prove that social and business performance can go hand-in- hand. We also release annual Impact Reports that are available on our website. We strive for full transparency and welcome any feedback we receive from the reports’ readers.

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Impact is the future of coliving

As a sector, we believe coliving has a unique role to play in the development of the livable, inclusive cities of today. After all, all coliving operators are deeply involved in people’s homes and lives, as well as in the fabric of the neighbourhoods in which they operate. In the ‘new normal’ that COVID-19 has created, as people spend more time in their homes and nearby locales, our influence is even greater than before. We are uniquely positioned to have a real impact on people’s wellbeing and contribute to thriving communities - for everyone. After more than two years of measuring performance, the results are clear - social impact is also good business. Venn members overall are 51% less lonely than the average city resident, and 85% of renewing Venn residents report having strong social connections. Those social connections are the #1 predictor of renewal. In short: the greater the sense of belonging members feel, the better the business.

This is also true for neighbourhood impact as well: collaborations with the local small businesses generate real value for members and are the #1 reason for feeling at home in the neighbourhood.

We invite the coliving community to join us in the quest to bring the impact revolution into coliving.

Venn looks forward to hearing about what colleagues around the world think and what they’re doing to drive impact and sustainability in all its forms. Let’s use this great opportunity to keep the conversation alive and implement this innovative approach into our day-to- day. Join us for the impact revolution.