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If I See One More Post About the Lack of Progress on Impact Metrics, I’m Gonna Lose It
It's a popular sub-genre in media coverage of impact investing: Think-pieces lamenting the sector's lack of progress on impact measurement. But Sara Olsen, Founding Partner and CEO at SVT Group, has had enough of this critique: "We do have the tools to understand the impact of the global capital marketplace, in all its diverse and terrible glory," she argues. And those who don't recognize this are muddying the waters – or worse, giving businesses and investors a good excuse to ignore the many options that exist for measuring their impacts on people and the planet.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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Turning Impact Intention into Impact Evidence: How to Put the GIIN’s IRIS+ Metrics into Action
Accounting for impact is notoriously difficult. And though impact investors have long turned to the GIIN's IRIS metrics as a standardized measurement tool, as SoPact co-founder Hetal Sheth points out, the IRIS metrics don't make impact strategy actionable. Now that the GIIN has reintroduced its standards with IRIS+, Sheth explores how the new metrics improve on the previous version – and how SoPact’s Impact Cloud platform can help investors use them to build a robust impact management strategy.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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New Thinking to Advance Gender Equality: ‘Radical Collaboration’ in Action
"We don’t want to wait centuries or even decades to achieve equality for all women everywhere. We want it now." Alexa Blain, co-founder and Managing Partner at Deetken Impact, recently attended the Women Deliver conference where, along with a decent dose of inspiration, she and her colleagues discovered that a bold, collaborative approach could hold the key to unlocking empowerment efforts.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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It’s Not a Diet, It’s a Lifestyle: Is Developmental Evaluation the Right Measurement Strategy For Your Organization?
Social enterprises working in emerging economies know it’s important to measure their social impact, but they often struggle to find the right approach. Like dieters looking for quick weight loss, they try one strategy or another – then grow frustrated when they fail. But according to Rebecca Baylor at WDI, there’s a solution that's geared toward the unique challenges these businesses face. Called “developmental evaluation,” it resembles not a fad diet, but a new impact measurement lifestyle. She explores this innovative approach, and how organizations can use it successfully.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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The Impact of Equal Education: Solutions to the Gender Disparity in Sub-Saharan African Schools
About 132 million girls are out of school around the world, and the problem is fundamentally tied to gender. With issues ranging from child marriage to misperceptions about menstruation, girls face unique obstacles to education in many countries. Mark Buttweiler explores how Bridge International Academies is tackling the gender disparity, via a multifaceted, research-based approach that supports equality both in the classroom and the surrounding community.
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- Education, Impact Assessment
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The Social Innovation Paradox: Why it’s Hard to be Both Innovative and Scalable
Feeling good about using an organic cotton tote bag for groceries, instead of disposable plastic bags? Research suggests that you'll need to use it 20,000 times to offset the high water costs of growing the cotton. That's just one example of the unseen web of impacts behind seemingly positive interventions, says Bright Simons, president of mPedigree. Interventions with more concrete impacts are more often penalized for their negative side effects, he says – but they're also more likely to scale. Simons explores the resulting paradox: The most scalable interventions become risk-averse, sacrificing innovation for growth.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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From Counting Women to Valuing Women: Practical Impact Measurement Tools for Complex Contexts
The old way of measuring the gender equality of a company or program consisted of simply counting women – from the number of female employees and clients, to the number of women beneficiaries and board members. The new way is all about valuing women by collecting data on how they are impacted by a company or program. Rebecca Baylor at WDI's Performance Measurement team provides some concrete strategies for gender-based impact measurement and management.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Why Aren’t More Social Enterprises Measuring Impact? A New Study in South Africa Raises Questions for the Global Sector
South Africa has arguably the most mature impact ecosystem in Africa, with both seasoned and new social enterprises, incubators, accelerators and funders. And a new study from Impact Amplifier and Genesis Analytics revealed a similarly robust impact assessment sector, with 72 percent of study participants claiming to have an impact measurement practice. But as Tanner Methvin at Impact Amplifier explains, those numbers contrast significantly with what his organization has observed on the ground. He explores that discrepancy and the broader findings in this revealing post.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise
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