Driving social change and improving business outcomes.
ABOUT
We are social impact experts creating a more socially mobile, sustainable and prosperous world.
We advise leading companies, nonprofits and individuals to maximize their social impact and drive growth. We also deliver social impact workshops that inspire professional and college athletes to ethically and effectively create positive change in the world.
PROVEN PRACTICE
EXPERIENCE
Leadership team with 50+ years working directly in the field. Global ecosystem of top-quality impact strategists and operators.
EXPERTISE
Designed and implemented impact strategies for 12 corporations across multiple regions.
TRACK RECORD
Our leaders have launched and managed 5 highly respected nonprofits globally, tackling a wide range of social issues including education, sports for development, racial justice and crisis relief.
WHY IMPACT
Employees, consumers, regulators, and investors alike are demanding companies invest in their communities, emphasize inclusion and diversity, and operate sustainably.
When done thoughtfully and authentically, impact work has countless upsides.
Employee Retention – Attract and retain employees aligned to your purpose
Communications – Drive positive communications
Public Affairs – Improve reputation and support government relations
Regulation – Ensure compliance with the regulations of today and tomorrow
Sales – Develop brand credibility and loyalty with consumers
Communities – Establish positive relationships with external communities
of consumers are motivated to purchase from companies committed to making the world a better place.
- 2019 AFLAC CSR Survey -
77%
of employees who work at companies with a strong sense of purpose say they’re more inspired, motivated, and loyal.
- Porter Novelli, 2020 -
90%
of consumers agree that businesses must play a role in addressing societal issues; they want companies to take actions which increase profits and improve social conditions.
- Edelman Trust Barometer -
80%
SERVICES
We advise leading companies, nonprofits and individuals to maximize their social impact and drive growth.
ADVISORY
We design a bespoke approach based on each client’s needs.
We assess: mapping impact work done to date and assessing effectiveness
We set vision: setting a clear direction for social impact work
We design: crafting innovative and tailored social impact initiatives that leverage our clients’ capabilities and address the unique challenges of their ecosystems
We implement: bringing our designs to life, leaning on our 50+ years of expertise for seamless execution
We measure: collecting data and assessing impact through validated methodologies, ensuring maximum accountability
We report and communicate: sharing compelling data-driven insights for internal and external stakeholders
SOCIAL IMPACT WORKSHOP
SITUATION — Today’s professional and college athletes wield unprecedented influence.
Regional, national and global broadcast exposure
Major sponsorship deals
Some of the largest social media followings in the world
CHALLENGE — Athletes want to leverage their platforms, voices and resources to drive positive social change, but most are not sure how or where to start.
84% of athletes are willing to speak up on social issues
74% of athletes are eager to learn more about creating positive social change
OPPORTUNITY — Our social impact workshop combines our CEO’s story building three global nonprofits with the impact methodology we use to advise our clients. The workshop inspires action and provides a clear and simple framework for athletes to create positive change in the world.
CASE STUDIES
We work as a strategic advisor to corporations, organizations, and high-profile individuals. We specialize in sports, but have capabilities across several sectors and have recently supported clients in education, entertainment, and real estate. Below are two examples of our work.
NJ/NY Gotham FC
NJ/NY Gotham FC is a professional women's soccer team based in New Jersey and New York.
In January 2023, Gotham FC engaged Charter Oak to work closely with its owners, executives, and players to build a social impact strategy that will be core to the club’s overall strategic plan. With our support, Gotham FC will deliver social impact initiatives that:
Are integrated into Gotham's core activities
Leverage Gotham's strongest capabilities
Appeal to fans
Drive marketing and sales
Support employee and player retention
StubHub
StubHub is the world's top destination for ticket buyers and resellers.
Charter Oak and StubHub established a long-term partnership in April 2022 to revamp and redefine StubHub’s social impact work. We are working directly with StubHub’s senior leadership to establish the first comprehensive and global social impact strategy in the ticket exchange and resale industry. StubHub’s social impact strategy:
Supports stakeholders relevant to StubHub’s core business activities
Leverages their resources, platform + network
Appeals to entertainers, fans and regulators
Drives marketing and sales
Offers opportunities for employee engagement
TEAM
Our capabilities are global, with a core team and wide ecosystem of impact operators and advisors. Our team has launched and grown nonprofits, run policy and political campaigns, and crafted strategies for companies.
William H Smith
Founder and CEO
Will Smith is the Founder & CEO of Charter Oak Advisory. Since 2015, Will has either founded or co-founded three nonprofit organizations in the United States (LEAD Edu), Liberia (LEAD Monrovia Football Academy), and Morocco (LEAD Morocco). Will has also consulted for corporations and social impact organizations in Côte d’Ivoire, Mexico, Rwanda, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Zimbabwe.
Will holds an MSc in African Studies from Oxford University, BA’s in Government and French from the College of William & Mary (Phi Beta Kappa), and a degree in social entrepreneurship from Santa Clara University. He played NCAA Division 1 College Soccer and NCAA Division 1 College Golf, serving as a two-year captain of the William & Mary Men's Soccer team. He also played in the United States Golf Association's 2010 US Amateur Championship.
Tory Faries
Strategic Advisor
Tory Faries is a social impact leader with over a decade of experience designing and executing community-driven corporate impact programs. As a founding member of Airbnb.org, Tory led the team and strategy responsible for engaging, activating and deepening the commitments of Airbnb employees, Hosts, guests and donors to support their communities in times of crisis. The culmination of these efforts have resulted in free, temporary housing for over 200,000 individuals impacted by natural disasters and conflict across the globe. Tory is passionate about working with organizations to align how their products and services, communities, reach and objectives align with what they are uniquely positioned to offer the world. She received a bachelor's degree in Political Science from Northwestern University, and currently resides in Portland, Oregon.
Priyanka Mahajan
Project Principal
Priyanka is an impact and business strategist with 20 years of experience working in the UK, US and globally. Throughout her corporate career she has led teams in multiple business functions from Strategy, Commercial, Business Development, Marketing, and Operations, working closely with executive leadership teams to drive decisions and outcomes. She is passionate about the opportunity the private sector has to create social impact. She has previously taken on pro-bono consulting engagements for foundations and has also founded and launched multiple social impact start-ups. Priyanka holds a BA in Economics from St. Xavier's College in Mumbai, a Diploma in Marketing from UC Berkeley, California and an MBA from SDA Bocconi in Italy. She currently lives in London with her son, daughter and husband.
Stasi Baranoff
Project Principal
Stasi Baranoff has worked in social impact and international development in a variety of capacities since 2010. She completed an MA in International Relations at King’s College London with a dissertation focused on the efficacy of micro-finance for women's borrower groups in Bangladesh, and since then has worked in micro-finance, coffee and cocoa supply chains, leveraging business principles to facilitate social and environmental change in emerging economies.
Stasi served as the Program Director for Sustainable Harvest Rwanda, a Bloomberg-funded non-profit built to connect rural women coffee farmers to the international specialty coffee market. Following these years in Kigali, she spent 5 years traveling throughout Central and South America, and East and West Africa as the Director of Operations and Sourcing for Uncommon Cacao, a fully transparent impact-first cocoa importing company.
Prior to joining Charter Oak, she supported Kiva.org to provide non-financial services and support to investees around the world, specifically in the areas of social impact, operations, and product/market strategy. At Charter Oak, Stasi has served as the Project Principal for the StubHub project, as well as a project advisor to several additional clients.
Shanda Cooper
Project Manager
Shanda Cooper Goff is a program development specialist with over 20 years of experience working in the US and Africa. She has provided strategic planning for start-ups and non-profit organizations. Shanda has led project management efforts for a sports foundation and a health equity non-profit catering to underserved communities. She specializes in project planning, community engagement, program coordination, and program infrastructure development. Passionate about social impact and advocacy, Shanda is Co-Chair of the Washington National Cathedral’s Outreach and Social Justice Ministries. She holds an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies, and a BA in International Relations from the College of William and Mary. Originally from Liberia, Shanda lives in Washington, DC with her husband.
Sarahí Romo Uribe
Project Manager
Sarahí is an anthropologist with over ten years of experience working in social development programs in Mexico and the United Kingdom. She has collaborated with NGOs, private companies, and international agencies such as UN Women.
Sarahí firmly believes that it is vital to create conditions that allow all people to access the structure of opportunities. With this in mind, she has worked as a project manager in initiatives aimed at promoting social mobility and women's economic empowerment. As part of the Charter Oak team, Sarahí works as the project manager to support the establishment of Nauka Nayarit’s social impact strategy in Nayarit, México.
Sarahí holds an MA in Anthropology of Development and Social Transformation from Sussex University in the UK and a BA in International Relations from the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Occidente in México.
Magdalena Zorraquin
Project Manager
Magdalena is an education researcher from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy. Magda started her career in the education public sector in 2016 as Head of Operations for The Varkey Foundation in Argentina, supporting the Foundation's launch in Argentina and managing the implementation of teacher training programs across four provinces. In 2018, she transitioned to the academic team, developing program content and designing the M&E strategy for the Foundation. In 2019, Magda consulted for a specialist using the Reggio Emilia Approach, designing a platform for teacher training and an advisory strategy for private and public schools. Since 2020, she has been a research consultant for The Varkey Foundation, focusing on education policy, school leadership, teacher career trajectory, and teacher training. Magda also coordinates an international network of government officials and education experts which advocates for policies that support teachers worldwide and advises governments and other organizations.
Justin Morrow
Sports Strategist
Justin is a retired twelve-year veteran of Major League Soccer and former Technical Development Manager for Toronto FC. Throughout his championship-winning professional career in Major League Soccer he leveraged his platform to build community, including co-founding Black Players for Change to work for a more inclusive environment in the league and communities in which they play. In his role with TFC, his responsibilities included both Player Development and Culture & Inclusion. Through his time both as a player and in the front office of a professional team, Justin has a strong background in building collective action amongst athletes in the movement for sports equity. He graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2010 with a degree in Finance and studied the convergence of social movements and sports as the first Global Sports Initiative Fellow at Harvard's Weatherhead Center for International Affairs in 2022.
Francesca Keller Sarmiento
Ops & Partnerships Manager
Francesca recently completed her Master’s degree at Columbia University, where she studied critical global issues and worked as a research fellow at the Committee of Global Thought. Her studies culminated with a thesis on how entrepreneurship can be a gateway for the economic success of low income women.
Before graduate school, Francesca worked in several different startups, as well as for organizations that focus on women’s professional development.
Francesca obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Women’s and Gender Studies and Latin American Studies from Wellesley College. As an undergraduate, Francesca worked as a Research Assistant for Dr. Pilar Opazo at MIT Sloan and Dr. Marysa Navarro at Harvard’s DRCLAS.
ADVISORS
Steve Miller
Steve is the CEO of Agassi Graf Holdings. He is responsible for the leadership and operation of three for-profit entities (Agassi Graf Holdings, Agassi Ventures LLC, and Stefanie Graf Ventures LLC) plus one non-profit foundation (Andre Agassi Foundation for Education). He is a visionary; a passionate and progressive leader with the broad institutional experience and the intellect necessary to motivate and lead a diverse team of professionals in both the for profit and not for profit business sectors.
Steve is also well known in the world of sports marketing, having served as Director of Global Sports Marketing during his 10 years at Nike. He has a B.S. in English literature and physical education from Bradley University, and a M.S. in physical education and biomechanical analysis from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.
Jill Ellis
Jill Ellis is the former Head Coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team and a 2-time FIFA World Coach of the Year. She is the only coach to have won the Women’s World Cup twice. In previous roles, Ellis served as the Assistant Coach of the U.S. Women's National Team, as well as the Head Coach of UCLA and the University of Illinois. She played college soccer at the College of William & Mary, where she was named an All-American and earned a bachelor's degree in English Literature and Composition.
Ronnie Lott
Ronnie Lott is a Hall of Famer who played in the NFL for 14 seasons during the 1980s and 1990s. Lott played college football for the University of Southern California (USC), and was honored as a consensus All-American. A first-round pick in the 1981 NFL Draft, he played for the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Raiders, New York Jets, and Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL. Lott was elected into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2000, and is widely considered to be one of the best players in NFL history.
In 1989, Ronnie founded All Stars Helping Kids, a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization that creates opportunities in education, health and life skills for disadvantaged youth.
Graham Albert
Graham is a seasoned professional with over seventeen years experience working in finance and social impact. As a founding employee of the fixed income hedge fund MP Securitized Credit Partners, where he worked from 2008 to 2021, Graham was part of an investment team that oversaw trading, operations, risk management, accounting, and reporting across all positions and asset types. Over the past seven years, Graham has also served on the fiduciary boards of Monrovia Football Academy and LEAD Edu, as well as the Annual Giving advisory board at the College of William and Mary. As Charter Oak's Chief Operating Officer, Graham supports the firm's day-to-day operations and works closely with the CEO on the firm's overall strategy and growth.