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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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How Artificial Intelligence Can Simplify International Development Research: An Intriguing Experiment (Involving NextBillion)
International development professionals must often spend a great deal of time trying to keep up with news, trends and research about their area of activity – and this requires a lot of manual labor. But much of this can now be automated and aided by artificial intelligence (AI). Jacob Rosen and Ashirul Amin at BFA explore how they used AI to sort and categorize a vast amount of development-focused content online, using NextBillion's 5,000+ article library as a test case. The results of their experiment show how AI can help people reduce time and labor and learn more efficiently.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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Turning Impact Measurement on its Head: A Q&A with 60 Decibels Co-Founders Sasha Dichter and Tom Adams
How should a social business measure its impact? The sector has always struggled to answer that question, leaving many enterprises and investors without useful data about the impact of their work. Acumen is addressing this issue by spinning out a standalone social enterprise called 60 Decibels, which leverages mobile technology to quickly and easily acquire impact data from low-income customers and beneficiaries. Co-founders Sasha Dichter and Tom Adams discuss its innovative model, and the potential it offers to investors, enterprises and the people they serve.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Press Release: Acumen Launches 60 Decibels to Make Lean Data an Impact Measurement Standard for Impact Investing
The new entity, supported by lead investor Ceniarth, makes customer-centric impact measurement accessible to all, helping social sector organizations listen to those who matter most
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
- Region
- Global
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Ghana Is Adopting a Data-Driven Approach to Fighting Poverty
The government is now seriously committed to a “leave no one behind” ethic, which means counting every single person in the population. That includes people who are sometimes called “the invisible” — those who live in slums, who are homeless, or who are institutionalized.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Are We Actually Making Progress on the SDGs?
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) outline 17 areas where we need to make a collective effort and provide a useful sustainability framework for business and other actors. We have a decade until the 2030 deadline and businesses are increasingly committing to the goals in a public way.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment
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Five Things We’ve Learned Creating Data Standards for Inclusive Fintech
It’s no secret that capital is flowing into fintech. In 2018, global fintech investments exceeded USD $100 billion. Yet this investment is highly concentrated among a relatively small group of companies. Blaine Stephens and Chrissy Martin Meier of MIX share five insights from a new research initiative based on 40 interviews with fintechs, investors and ecosystem actors, designed to drive capital to inclusive fintechs in hopes of reaching 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Technology
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Africa’s Biggest Mobile Operator Is Struggling to Protect Its Users’ Digital Rights
A new study shows some of the world’s biggest communications companies are still lagging behind, inadequately informing users about how their data is collected, with whom it is shared, and why.
- Categories
- Technology, Telecommunications
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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