Catherine Griffin is the Founder and CEO of ImpactableX Analytics, which helps social entrepreneurs and their investors leverage data to drive impact on a large scale. Her approach to impact modeling democratizes impact data and analytics by providing a dynamic user experience and generating analytics that engage investors, and drives capital to innovations with the greatest potential to have a meaningful impact. Catherine has extensive experience in the field, including managing an award-winning impact accelerator and leading the execution of FastFWD. She also partnered with the Obama Administration's Climate Data Initiative in 2017 for a project called Climate Ventures 2.0. In addition, her work has been highlighted in Forbes and the New York Times. Catherine discussed the importance of data analytics in breaking down communication barriers between social enterprises, potential investors and customers.
We have developed a methodology to meet the needs of early-stage founders who have limited resources and time, but great potential. We help them apply the methodology to their business, and use the data collected to optimise their revenue and impact. We also work with investors to collect data points at a higher aggregate level. We want to provide guidance and data to the space, and are able to interpret impact through a financial lens. We account for geographic differences and can generate KPIs and impact outputs to differentiate between companies of different sizes and types. We do not endorse any innovation, business model or company but believe that transparency is key.
Research is essential in order for the impact space to develop and evolve. By translating impact into economic terms, it can be evaluated in the context of the economy. The truth is that impact has economic consequences, although these are often not considered. Generating analytics that look at capital impact leverage, revenue to impact and investor stake in impact creation, can help to integrate impact analytics into financial management practices - which is essential.
Bridging the gaps between different languages and perspectives, particularly between the feel-good social impact and financial or micro economic trends, is incredibly powerful. It is critical that all involved parties agree to the same basic terms, and ImpactableX's approach to this issue is to provide a dynamic model that allows data points to be updated as the company grows and changes. This model helps entrepreneurs to effectively communicate their belief system, passion and aspiration for impact to investors and to track impact in hard numbers and hard dollars.
The first step in measuring the impact of a business is getting clear on the metrics that will be used. Resources such as IRIS+ can provide granular data to help with this process. The next step is to think through the impact at a unit level, such as a person, user, product, etc. Finally, extrapolate backwards or forwards based off of the number of units expected or sold.
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Source: impactboom.org
