In Australia, we invested $5 billion (2017) on social purpose programs and impact initiatives, yet often, we don’t know if they are effective. Globally, GIIN (Global Impact Investment Network) estimated impact investment reached $502 billion in 2019, which is more than double the $228 billion estimated in June of 2018. Despite impact investment growing exponentially, reporting is still financially focused. Both investors and investees are in need of a tool that clearly identifies and tracks:
- The issues and challenges that are occurring throughout all levels of facilitation and amongst all stakeholders (most importantly the people and communities that are meant to be receiving the social benefit of the investment);
- How facilitators, managers, and decision-makers are responding to and managing these challenges;
- The positive or negative impact of these decisions and responses, which is significantly associated with the overall outcome of the investment and the initiative.
Currently, despite the identified need for citizen-led reporting, the vast majority of organisations are still unable to collect timely and accurate data from community members within Australia and across the globe. Across all publicly funded initiatives, there is a growing demand and need for greater accountability and transparency. Many organisations don’t have the resources to measure impact correctly or identify which programs work and are therefore worthy of replication.
Insight Into Impact will help address this. We want to help the social sector monitor, measure, communicate, and improve its social impact. We want to support people working for social change to be data-driven and outcomes-focused so they can improve people’s lives and create better, stronger communities. Investors and investees both need to understand the perspectives of the people affected so responses can be more relevant, timely, effective, and efficient.
Our modelling process is able to assess impact investments in accordance with IRIS+ and the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Through our process, we facilitate transparency and accountability, which will captivate more investors because they will be able to see the direct relationship between their investment and the corresponding social impact initiative (i.e. affirmation). Assigning accountability to the investees will improve outcomes. Accountability is always important because with accountability comes trust. With trust comes greater investments and greater impact.
Based on the Australian Government’s Principles for Social Impact Investing, Insight Into Impact’s 3i Management Modelling process© aids and supports:
- ‘Government as Market Enabler and Developer’ principle by being able to obtain and synthesise Insights from various stakeholder groups related to regulatory barriers that impede development or sustainability.
- ‘Robust Outcomes-Based Measurement and Evaluation’ is supported by our ability to continually evaluate outcomes based on our proprietary monitoring process, which enables the investment to be refined as appropriate. Our monitoring process and
- ‘Co-design’ by providing the data and Insights required for social service delivery. Our process is an innovative means to gather input from various collaborators, stakeholder groups, and community members about what responses are needed to achieve positive impact.