Impact Measurement: How much is too much? How much is not enough? | Summary

​Impact Measurement: How much is too much? How much is not enough?
Devin Thorpe, Forbes
 
As CFFP emerges from it’s research phase and begins to collaborate with Craft3 in the more tangible work of making and tracking investments, it’s important to ask several questions. These questions stem from our ever-present quandary of “how good is good enough?” and sound something like “what is our standard for impact?” “how will we track progress?” and “how will we tell our story?”. Impact measurement, management, and evaluation lend a wealth of tools to address these questions.
 
This article, last in a three-part series on impact measurement, presents perspectives from impact investment experts from around the globe on their experiences surrounding impact measurement and its added value in impact investing work. While recommendations vary widely, a few common themes emerged:

• “Bake the impact in” to your investing practices as part of due diligence and operating standards, so that active tracking of specific impacts becomes more targeted and less cumbersome.
• Right size your reporting obligations to the capabilities of your investees (or, as some in the evaluation community say, don’t be an “ask-hole”)
• Find alignment between investor and entrepreneur by identifying common goals and objectives for impact measurement – this way, the data collected is informative and useful to both parties.

 
Lastly, the author and interviewees emphasize that while impact measurement and management often sounds daunting to investors who are unfamiliar with tracking anything beyond financial outcomes, reporting is important. Collection of impact data contributes the evidence base for impact investing as a financial tool and catalyst of change. Contributing to this evidence base is both a responsibility and community-building privilege in transforming mainstream investment practices.