Impact Investing: Using Ethnography to Shine a Light on the Human Side of Impact
It’s sunshine, captured, harvested and stored….to be taken out and used whenever and wherever we need it. The potential market for this product is around two billion consumers worldwide because more people around the world today are living in the dark.
Listeners of the radio show soon discover the presenter is referring to d.light. A portable solar lantern created by social entrepreneur and CEO Sam Goldman’s team.
To achieve their social impact goals, d.light uses data-driven approaches to measure impact across their key impact metrics. Nothing new here. This is a standard approach to impact investing. All impact investors rely on effective measurement tools and analysis to inform the strategy of their investment plans.
The difference is d.light obsess on carrying out in person evaluations in the field.
Goldman believes doing this provides much deeper insight to their data evaluations and demonstrates how access to energy transforms people’s lives.?
Dorcas Cheng-Tozun, the company's then communications manager is also a huge fan of ethnographic research. She explained d.light’s approach to understanding the reality of people on the ground and their unmet needs:
“It was about going out and living with people, and finding out what matters to them. Our design team spends hundreds of hours in the field, interviewing, observing and sometimes even living the lifestyles of our customers”.
Impact Investing
“What’s a video ethnographer doing here?”
It’s a question delegates arriving at the upcoming New Private Markets Impact Investor Conference in London might ask themselves as they spot my name badge at the reception desk.
Taking inspiration from d.light, this article shines a light on that question and the need to look to qualitative methods to understand the real life impact of investments in more human terms.
The last decade has seen a significant growth in sustainability awareness with impact investing emerging as a way to create positive change alongside financial profits.?
Impact investing, as defined by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), aims to achieve positive, measurable social and environmental impact alongside financial returns.??
Private impact investors such as foundations, private equity and pension funds, rely on metrics to measure the results of their investments. This could be for example renewable energy, healthcare, sustainable agriculture, clean water, sanitation. Since this is still a relatively new field impact measurement metric sets, methodologies, and assessment tools are still evolving.?
There is no one single agreed set of metrics to measure impact. There are different methods and these in turn depend on the objectives and capacities of each investor which makes measuring impact complex. As we’ve learned from d.light there are other ways of understanding impact outside of quantitative analysis measurement models.?
Investors looking to realise the potential of finance would do well to look at methods used in human-centred design, social and behavioural science to make sense as to what lies behind the numbers and what impact really looks like on the ground. One of these methods is ethnography.
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Humanising Impact
Ethnographers make it their business to study people. For decades ethnographic research, a qualitative research method with its roots in anthropology, has provided businesses and organisations with a unique lens through which to view the complexities of the people they seek to understand. They immerse themselves in individual’s lives and with communities, observing and describing how they see their world. Ethnographers have the skills to explore and make sense of the messy, knotty complexities of human behaviour, social values and cultural norms.? Some use documentary filmmaking alongside their work to record and gather evidence, giving voice to people’s experiences to explain and bring their world alive.
For impact investors, video ethnography offers ways to explain what numbers and data driven tools miss.
They do this by highlighting both the intended and unintended consequences of investments and what meaningful positive change actually looks like.
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Going Beyond Numbers to Longer Term Insights
Impact investors start by defining the impact metrics they aim to measure. These metrics might include social, environmental, or governance factors. For example, if an investor is interested in environmental impact, metrics could include carbon emissions reduced, water saved, or land preserved.
The data is then collected to quantify the impact metrics. Traditionally this data can come from various sources, including direct measurements, surveys, interviews, and existing databases. Within this phase, video ethnography can play a valuable role.? The method allows teams to capture stories documenting the impact of change and collect evidence which can be used to triangulate findings and enhance the validity of the results. This is common practice in consumer studies where researchers integrate video with quantitative measures, and large scale survey results providing a deeper understanding of the underlying processes and mechanisms driving metrics.
Another common practice is revisiting the site over time. Doing this offers organisations a rich source of data to compare and contrast. ?It allows researchers to explore changes, evaluate what has been working, frame new questions to explore and provide clarity as to the benefits generated by investments that would not have occurred otherwise.
The long view opens up new avenues to deeper, more human insights to on board investors, gather and compare evidence and accelerate learning through evidence and storytelling.? Together this communicates sustainability efforts over time in more persuasive ways giving a human face to numbers, data and reports.
All of this creates far more engaging reporting to stakeholders, bringing to life sustainability initiatives in action and revealing how investments contribute to real and meaningful positive change in people’s lives.
As Suzanne Biegel, founder of Woman Effect says:
“People change their investment behaviour when something moves them.”
In an industry where transparency, evidence and trust really matter, this type of outcome-based evidence can supercharge data driven methodologies making them relatable, engaging and increasing their effectiveness.?
Companies like d.light are proof of the results of this approach.
As impact investing progresses there is a need and opportunity to create more holistic frameworks - ones that measure impact while revealing the real-life experiences of individuals over time.
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Helping B2B & SaaS Companies Scale and Grow I Fractional CMO I VP of Marketing I Marketing Director I CEO
9 个月Excellent piece Nick Leon - I note you reference that *d.light obsess on carrying out in person evaluations in the field.* Assuming smart phones are ubiquitous in the field (they may not be in Bihar) digital or (mobile) ethnography may be more attractive options moving forward. You refer to video ethnography also which may be the same. I guess my point is that there are a number of innovative ethnographic solutions on the market, that remove the need to be *in-person* as respondents can use their own Smart phones to capture rich data (usually audio and video) which can then be viewed remotely. The advantages include the reduction in travel costs (and time) as well as removing the risk that the researcher influences the behaviour. Post research reporting is also more seamless (the latest solutions use AI to parse through footage).
CSR l Social impact l Research
10 个月Thank you, Nick Leon, for the insightful article. Recently, while moderating a session on measuring corporate purpose, I kept pondering whether we are measuring the right things in the right way. While numbers may be impressive and help us interpret things directionally, we tend to ignore the human side of the intervention. The outcomes are usually defined in a "top-down" manner by implementers, and never defined "bottom-up" by stakeholders themselves. In most cases, the definition of Impact is also compartmentalized and refers to outputs rather than long-term outcomes. I believe that the measurement matrices of impact are still evolving, and this is the perfect time to introduce a "human" definition of impact, rather than a "numbered" definition. "I would be honored to continue this discussion."
This is great Nick - for many the obsession has been impact data, but at the cost of more powerful impact stories?