The impact ecosystem has long relied on anecdotal reports for highlighting performance and progress. In our present data-enabled world, can we move towards more universal and more accurate metrics to report performance. We will discuss using these for informing the internal strategy of impact organizations as well as for them to build external credibility using these. While universal metrics bring consistency, accounting for the diversity in regional contexts - such as country/ecosystem maturity, socio-economic-political conditions etc. - is also important for accurate representation. We will discuss approaches to incorporating these in metrics with some examples and other significant factors for moving towards reporting performance. Speakers: Saurabh Lall - Associate Professor, University of Glasgow Adam Smith Business School Tom Adams - Co-founder & CSO, 60 Decibels

Wednesday Wisdom Series Funding for social entrepreneurs in general has become more accessible over the years, but some inequities still do exist. One that has caught everyone's attention is that faced by women entrepreneurs in securing appropriate funding for their enterprises. In this session we will be diggin deeper into what barriers exist for the woman entrepreneur and also for the funders who want to support them. We will shine light on why these are unique to WE's and how impact organizations can begin to address them effectively. We will present a few examples of these approaches and discuss learnings that can be applied across the ecosystem Speakers: Keisha Gani - Acting Country Manager, SHE Investments Katleho Tsoku - Technical Advisor, Gender, yGap

Speakers - Maggie Flanagan - Program Officer, Lemelson Foundation David Milestone - Sr. Advisor, McKinsey & Company "There are multiple stakeholders when it comes to impact investments, philanthropic funding, multi-lateral agencies, corporate foundations, impact oriented-funds etc. For impact organizations to effectively plan for funding in the future, it is important to understand trends of where impact funding interests are headed - like, focus areas for DFI's, themes of interest for foundations and invest mandates for impact funds etc. Join us in a conversation where we explore these with specific discussions on where funding gaps exist for social impact and how impact organizations can leverage private and philanthropic capital to fill this gap."

Scaling Impact - Leveraging Ecosystems to Unlock Strategy & Funding Nadine Freeman - Co-Director, Ashoka Globalizer AB Chakravarthy - India Country Head, Upaya Social Ventures Most impact organizations start with a strong empathetic connection to a social issue and direct their operations towards solving it. Few plan for scaling that solution once it becomes successful, and subsequently end up failing to deliver their impact at scale. Also, this effort needs to be well integrated with the ecosystem they operate in and will involve unlocking bottle necks present. ESO's (e.g. impact incubators) can play a significant role in guiding strategy and operations to ensure successful scaling of there enterprises and their solutions. We will discuss strategies and operational aspects for successfully scaling impact, with a few examples of how enterprises have scaled even in adverse conditions during the pandemic. In this session, you will learn: Why do many impact organizations fail to scale? What are some ecosystem factors to consider while creating organizational strategies around scaling impact? Why should an incubator care about the ecosystem? In what situations can an incubator itself become a barrier? What are the key trends in the ecosystem for scaling impact? Takeaways from an operational/funding perspective.

Speakers- Lynne Anderson (Mentor Network Director, Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship) Erika Norwood (Former CEO & President, Gray Matters Capital) For impact organizations, mentors are worth their weight in gold. And an effective mentoring program is an important asset of an impact organization - perhaps as important as funding. But great mentoring programs don’t just happen. They are built through thoughtful planning and sustained commitment. And running a structured mentoring program can be a lever for highlighting your organization's impact to funders! Learn the best practices in design, outreach, recruitment and engagement of mentors to ensure an effective mentoring program at this month's Wednesday Wisdom Session

Speakers: Abigayle Davidson - Director of Research & Impact, ANDE Nicholas Colloff - Executive Director, Argidius Foundation Impact measurement can feel overwhelming, but streamlined, simplified data collection can not only help you communicate your impact to your stakeholders, but inform your future strategy and make your case to funders. When designed strategically, these metrics can generate insights on the delivery of one's impact to beneficiaries, effectiveness of the organization's interventions and efficiency of deployment of funds. We will discuss best practices on how to design and measure metrics for these, as an impact organization. We will briefly look at insights that these metrics can offer - to both the organization and funders. Participants will leave this session with 3-5 key insights to take back to their programs.

Funding for Impact - How can Impact Organizations become Sustainable? Romy Cahyadi, Co-founder & CEO, Instellar How can incubators become successful? 1. What is the problem at hand? Why is it important for social impact incubators to be financially sustainable? 2. What are some innovative ways that have been researched/experimented? 3. What did Instellar do to become sustainable? Talk about the service model. 4. What do funders / investors look for in a financially sustainable incubator? 5. What are some other models that an incubator can explore for financial sustainability?

Speaker- Keith Ippel - Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Spring Activator Impact organizations have always found raising private funding a challenge. In general, they find that the cost of private funding outweighs monetary return. Conventional businesses rely on a spectrum of sources such as equity investors, bank financing, and venture debt, but social enterprises traditionally start with grants and struggle to get to other forms of funding. This mainly because, venture funding focuses on 'future' potential while banks work with 'past performance'. For an impact organization both are a challenge - projecting mega returns is risky and, by definition, they don't have a performance history to excite banks. In this session, we will discuss some aspects of novel funding approaches such as: 1. Leveraging grants as means to de-risk and 'subsidize' other investment 2. Loan guarantees to mobilize working capital 3. Quasi-equity debt - or convertibles - where returns are indexed to the SE's financial performance 4. Revenue-based financing 5. Pooling SE portfolios - with varied tiers of risk vs return 6. Social impact bonds - where impact and returns are linked in an incentivized model. We will explore a few examples of how social impact organizations can benefit from these innovative funding approaches.