Kopernik, a non-profit organisation that seeks to bring technology to the poor with a balanced business and philanthropic approach, is conducting a comprehensive survey on low-cost, technology-based social impact measurement tools. It is looking to create a catalogue that will serve as a guide for social enterprises and nonprofits to upgrade their impact measurement in an affordable manner, by providing them with information on technologies available in the market.
“Technological innovations, particularly those in ICT like mobile tools and digital apps, have the potential to help social enterprises and nonprofits manage their operations more efficiently, effectively, and sustainably,” says Tomohiro Hamakawa, Project Manager at Kopernik. He adds that the benefits in turn improve transparency and accountability, thus creating a win-win situation for the social enterprises or non-profits, as well as investors, donors and other stakeholders involved.
While there are many low cost, ICT-based tools that are already in the market to help collect data and communicate with clients on a real-time basis, there is no central marketplace for organisations to access such tools, he says. Organisations want to understand the pros and cons, then use the feedback of such “impact tracker technologies” before adopting them. Kopernik’s catalogue aims to fill this gap, with the help of funding from the Impact Economy Innovation fund, an initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation and Asia Community Ventures.
The catalogue will be user-friendly and will feature each technology, including information on different aspects of these technologies that users may wish to know about, such as costs, ease of use, “real-timeness”, scalability and customisability. Tomohiro says the catalogue also provides users feedback on each featured technology in the style of amazon.com or tripadvisor.com. It is designed to be a tool that will make the adoption of impact tracker technologies far easier than it currently is.