Impact Reporting of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
Impact Hub Network Impact Hub is a global network of entrepreneurial communities for impact - home to the innovators, visionaries, and entrepreneurs who are creating tangible solutions to the world’s most pressing issues. From São Paulo to Geneva, from Phnom Penh to Ottawa, Impact Hubs around the world aim to provide access to connections, resources, knowledge, talent, spaces, and investments to turn ideas into action and move from intention to impact at scale. Our network supports the development of ecosystems that drive collaboration as well as entrepreneurial innovation around the SDGs, through our locally rooted and globally connected network. In 100 locations around the world Impact Hub surrounds entrepreneurs with a community of peers, builds social capital by providing access to partners, advisors, and networks, provides access to work infrastructure, and builds capacity through acceleration programs. We are locally rooted and globally connected.
Acknowledgements We’d like to thank the following individuals and organizations who’s interviews and feedback aided in informing challenges and recommendations provided within this report:
Impact Hub Network Contributors Impact Hub
Impact Hub Amsterdam
Sarah Stamatiou Nichols Impact Measurement Lead
Netherlands
Impact Hub Caracas Venezuela Claudia Valladares Director & Co-Founder
Impact Hub Lagos Nigeria Solape Hammond Co-Founder
Impact Hub Ottawa Canada Katie Miller Managing Director
Impact Hub San Jose Costa Rica Monia Hidalgo Co-Founder and Executive Director
Tatiana Glad Co-Founder and Director
Impact Hub Geneva Switzerland Felix Stähli Co-Founder
Impact New York City United States of America John-Paul Parmigiani Managing Director
Impact Hub Phnom Penh Cambodia Abigail Perriman Program and Impact Manager
Impact Hub São Paulo Brazil João Vitor Caires Director, Programs & Projects
Cross Sector Contributors Hidden Harvest Ottawa Jay Garlough Co-Founder and Board of Directors
Community Foundations of Canada
Carleton Centre for Community Innovation Kate Ruff Co-Director and Assistant Professor, Sprott School of Business, Carleton University
Melody MacLean Manager, Public Engagement Alison Sydney Coordinator, Strategic Initiatives
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Executive Summary There is growing momentum across civil society, non-profit, public and private sectors to tackle the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
By localizing the 17 goals, 169 targets, and 230 indicators the SDGs provide a guiding global framework to lead change into 2030. They provide a great opportunity for collaboration with likeminded actors across sectors to explore how the SDGs can be a framework of impact measurement more broadly. The purpose of this report is to highlight a unique and international perspective on best practices and lessons learned in impact measurement and the utilization of the SDG indicators. In an effort to contribute to supporting Canada’s social innovation ecosystem, this report will aid in informing next steps in recommendations of the Social Finance Social Innovation Steering Group and practices in how Canada may measure its progress towards the SDG indicators. Contracted by Employment and Service Development Canada, Impact Hub Ottawa is part of a larger global network of 100 Impact Hubs that provide collaborative spaces and become pivotal actors amongst their local entrepreneurial communities. The network has over 12 years of experience in open innovation, measuring impact, designing spaces for collaboration across sectors, and fostering global connectivity. Aligned with the common language of the SDGs our network aims to work on the issues that demand urgent action, explore trends that can create solutions and be applied to systems that need changing, while enhancing the visibility of lessons learned and best practices honed in driving change. As the SDGs gain greater recognition amongst the public, the Impact Hub Network aims to be a resource for education, program development, awareness, impact measurement, and leadership. The Impact Hub network thus provides a unique lense and expertise in the conversation of how best to utilize the SDGs for impact measurement. As intermediaries actively engaged in sector level conversations on impact measurements we also work directly with social innovators and social entrepreneurs in our communities everyday. The perspective informing the best practices, and recommendations within this report are informed by the solo entrepreneurs, startups and small to medium businesses that make up a driving force of our economies. Noting that this perspective is unique and the awareness and limitations faced in utilizing the SDGs vary from that of the academic, multinationals, or diplomatic community.
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The stories and insights within this report are the combined collaborative efforts of the Impact Hub Global Network and some notable contributors working across sectors regarding impact measurement. The research and recommendations was primarily informed by individual contributors who have offered their practical experiences, knowledge and best practices both as individuals and as representatives of their respective organizations. The interviews, as a primary data source collected for this report, were conducted virtually by both Impact Hub Ottawa and Impact Hub Global staff. As conclusions to our research, this report summarizes the primary challenges in completing impact measurement, as well as, utilizing the SDGs for impact measurement commonly faced by entrepreneurial communities worldwide. The direction that international, federal and especially municipal government bodies, but also funders and partners can provide to social enterprises and social innovators who are facing such challenges will be a key part of ensuring that the SDGs are met by their expected timeline.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS SDGs and Impact Measurement - Setting the Context
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• Standards Ratings and Metrics
SDGs and Impact Measurement - Setting the Context Impact Impact Hub Hub -- Measuring Measuring our our Impact Impact
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•Our Our logic model: Activities, Outcomes & Impact logic model: Activities, Outcomes & Impact •The The SDGs & our Impact SDGs & our Impact •Impact Impact Measurement & Lessons Learned Measurement & Lessons Learned
Challenges & Best Practices Challenges & Best Practices Appendices:
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Appendices: Case Studies: Impact Hubs around the World
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Case Studies: Impact Hubs around the World Impact Hub Amsterdam
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•Impact Impact Hub Hub HubAmsterdam Geneva •Impact Impact Hub HubPenh Geneva Hub Phnom •Impact Impact Hub Hub SãoPhnom Paulo Penh •Impact Impact Hub São Paulo Hub Caracas •Impact Impact Hub Hub SanCaracas Jose •Impact Impact Hub San Jose Hub NYC • Impact Hub NYC Impact Hub Ottawa
• Impact Hub Ottawa Cross Sector Perspectives Cross Sector Perspectives Hidden Harvest Ottawa
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• Hidden Harvest Ottawa
Social Enterprise Perspective Social Enterprise Perspective Centre for Community Innovation •Carleton Carleton Centre for Community Innovation Academic Perspective Academic Perspective
•Community Community Foundations of Canada Foundations of Canada Philanthropic Perspective
Philanthropic Perspective
Further references and tools:
References
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SDGs & Impact Measurement Setting the Context
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: An international framework for development The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals were adopted by world leaders in 2015. They are a set of 17 universal goals for sustainable development that followed the previous Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). The goals are unique in that they provide a common framework for development for all countries and recognize social, environmental, and economic challenges in an integrated way.
“The power I believe of the Sustainable Development Goals that we now see unfolding across the world is that it tries to accept complexity but not let us be paralyzed by it. It provides us with a common framework with a common language. It also gives us a way in which to understand how we can achieve win-win outcomes rather than trade-offs and win-lose outcomes, whether across the social, the economic, the environmental, or indeed between poorer nations or richer nations.” (Achim Steiner, UNDP Programme Administrator, at the 2017 Social Capital Markets/SOCAP conference) 1 1! “SOCAP Voices: The UN’s Achim Steiner on the SDGs as a Framework for Impact Investing.” SOCAP 18, socialcapitalmarkets.net/2018/02/socap-voices-the-uns-achim-steiner-on-the-sdgs-as-a-frameworkfor-impact-investing/, (February 12, 2018)
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The bottom-up development of a common framework and language for sustainable development, the definition of ambitious goals, and the focus on building partnerships for the goals from the start, might be some of the reasons why there is unprecedented engagement of the private sector and investment world with the UN SDGs. There is great enthusiasm for the SDGs, ranging from multinational corporations, to impact investors, and social enterprises as the SDGs provide a valuable universal framework to talk about impact. After the adoption of the SDGs, the private sector and impact investors quickly started to engage, to promote the SDGs, and to use them as a lens to talk about and describe impact. They are indispensable partners for achieving the global goals, both by implementing impact through innovative solutions at the local level and subsequently by investing in those solutions. Three years in, the conversation has evolved from engagement to measurement: how can we measure impact on, and contribution to, the SDGs? It is not enough to affiliate with the SDGs anymore, proof of impact is needed.
Impact Measurement in the Social Innovation Sector: There has been a sharp increase in the application of market-based solutions to social and environmental challenges. In their 2016 paper for the Rockefeller Foundation, Reisman and Olazabal describe that monitoring and evaluating social and environmental performance and impact has long been standard in the public sector, among nonprofits, and in philanthropy. The private sector has traditionally focused on financial and market data and key performance indicators. With impact investors and social enterprises blending social, environmental, and economic returns and different types of capital, demonstrating evidence for social and environmental impact through impact measurement is needed. 2 While the measurement of financial returns has been neatly standardized into KPIs, the measurement of impact is heterogeneous, and poses new challenges to investors and enterprises focusing on social impact. 3 Reisman and Olazabal further lay out that, to address this challenge, the social impact sector started off by developing standards such as the B Impact Assessment and indicators such as IRIS, which measure foremost social and environmental outputs and short-term outcomes. In addition a variety of methodologies to measure outcomes have been developed such as Social Return on Investment and Lean Data (see table below). The field also draws on monitoring and evaluation tools from public and philanthropic funding such as theories of change and logic models.4 A similar trend could be observed with the adoption of the SDGs. Several initiatives by impact investors and other ! Jane Reisman & Veronica Olazabal “Situating the next generation of impact measurement and 2 evaluation for impact investing. Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation.“ http://www.jreisman.com/ wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ImpactMeasurementLandscape_LR_Rev1_6.12.pdf (October 2016) !3 Fran Seegull, Executive Director of the U.S. Impact Investing Alliance in https://www.devex.com/news/ leveraging-impact-investing-to-achieve-the-sdgs-91226 !4 Jane Reisman & Veronica Olazabal “Situating the next generation of impact measurement and evaluation for impact investing. Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation.“ (October 2016)
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intermediaries quickly developed to map IRIS indicators to SDG targets (e.g. Toniic T100 Impact Portfolio Tool).
Linking Impact to the SDGs The question of “How does the impact investment field establish evidence about its contributions to positive social and environmental impacts?” 5got further expanded to how does the field establish evidence about its contribution to the SDGs. The SDGs are narrowed down by 169 sub-targets and 232 unique global indicators. By themselves the indicators do however not provide an effective tool for measurement, especially because they are set at the global level. The same way that national governments are called to translate the SDGs to national targets and indicators, also the private sector has been exploring how to measure and attribute impact to the SDGs. The fast adoption of the SDGs by the business sector and assumed and communicated contribution of impact to the SDGs without evidence has also led to concerns of so called “blue washing” at the UN level. 6 Recently there has been an evolution towards shared fundamentals and a framework for impact management and measurement. The Impact Management Project represents an industry wide global effort of measurement bodies, impact investors, and other standard-setting organizations including the International Finance Corporation to create such a shared framework (see image below).7 Impact Management project has developed a framework for impact measurement for the sector and is now working with UNDP on SDG impact management and measurement based on that framework with the aim of developing an “SDG certification” for businesses and investments. 8 An SDG certification by UNDP would positively highlight businesses that are truly having a positive impact contribution to the SDGs.
An SDG certification by UNDP would positively highlight businesses that are truly having a positive impact contribution to the SDGs.
! Jane Reisman & Veronica Olazabal “Situating the next generation of impact measurement and 5 evaluation for impact investing. Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation.“ (October 2016), p 7. !6 “Investing Alongside the United Nations to Achieve the SDGs”, SOCAP 18 Panel Discussion, (October 25th 2018) !7 The Impact Management Project: www.impactmanagementproject.com !8 SDG Impact: www.sdgimpact.undp.org
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The following table lists the number of different measurement tools, methodologies or organizations that have been mentioned throughout the report or are common approaches in the field. They are a combination of established impact measurement tools used by for-profit, non-profit and benefit corporations alike. The structure is inspired by classifications made by So and Staskevicius (2015), Reisman and Olazabal (2016), and O’Flynn and Barnett (2017).
STANDARDS, RATINGS, AND METRICS IRIS
IRIS metrics are designed to measure the social, environmental and financial performance of an investment. IRIS is a “standard taxonomy” or catalog of generally accepted performance metrics. Primarily aimed at impact investors, IRIS metrics are also being used by many social enterprises.9
B Impact Assessment
B Impact Assessment measures impact of companies on workers, community, environment, and customers. It also uses IRIS as well as other indicators. The assessment is free, online, and easy to use. To be certified as a B corp, companies are required to score a minimum of 80/200 on the B Impact Assessment, submit supporting documentation, and meet legal standards and requirements.10
GIIRS (Global Impact Investment Rating System)
GIIRS is a fund rating. GIIRS uses the B Impact Assessment to measure and certify the impact of a funds’ portfolio on workers, customers, communities, and the environment.11
Outcome / theme based metrics
There are a variety of sets of indicators for specific outcome areas or impact themes. Companies working on a particular issue can utilize these indicator libraries to define impact metrics. Indicator sets can be found under the business tools section of SDG Compass and include for example the Food Loss and Waste Protocol, the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, and many more.
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METHODS SROI (Social Return on Investment)
This is a framework and calculation that can be used to understand an intervention’s “value” (social, environmental and economic costs/benefits). It emerged from social accounting, and cost-benefit analysis SROI can be applied as an evaluation or a forecasting tool and measures both intended and unintended outcomes – Financial proxies are applied to inputs, outputs and outcomes to develop a single SROI value.12
Theories of change and logic models
A theory of change describes the intended social change by an organization or intervention through causal linkages. A logic model translates a theory of change into a linear model according to input, activities, output, outcomes, and ultimately, impact.13
Randomized Control Trials and quasi-experimental methods
These methods aim to answer the question: “What would the situation have been if the program or inter vention had not taken plac e?” through counterfactual analysis. A group participating in the program or intervention is compared to a control group that has not participated in the program or intervention. Randomized Control Trials (RCT) use a randomized control group as the counterfactual. Quasi-experimental methods use other methods of comparison such as a pre/post comparison or a historical baseline.14
Lean data
Lean Data by Acumen promises to be an effective impact measurement tool for social enterprises that address the poor. Through low-cost technology survey methods, Lean Data gathers end-consumer data on the social value experienced by customers through l e a n d a ta s p r i nts. T h e fo c u s l i e s o n s o c i a l performance, customer feedback and behavior.15
PPI (Poverty probability index)
The Poverty Probability Index (PPI®) is a poverty measurement tool for organizations and businesses with a mission to serve the poor. The PPI uses the answers to 10 questions about a household’s characteristics and asset ownership to compute the likelihood that the household is living below the poverty line. With the PPI, organizations can identify the clients, customers, or employees who are most likely to be poor, integrating objective poverty data into their assessments and strategic decision-making.16
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METHODS Social Progress Index
The Social Progress Index moves beyond GDP as sole measure of progress and instead evaluates 51 social and environmental indicators. Indicators are divided across 3 key areas for progress: basic human needs, foundations of wellbeing, and opportunity. The index does not measure people’s satisfaction or happiness but instead focuses on actual life outcomes in areas from shelter and nutrition to rights and education.17
Evidence-based outcome frameworks and universal theories of change
Where sufficient evidence exists from RCTs and other experimental methods, universal ToCs or outcome frameworks can be built as a resources for many organizations working on a specific issue (So et al., 2015). Examples include the Smallholder Impact Literature Wiki by the Smallholder Finance Initiative, or the Outcomes and Evidence Framework developed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) for five outcome areas (health, safety, education, economic well being, and power).
Sustainable Livelihoods
Adapted from the UK Department of International Development’s model for evaluating poverty reduction interventions. Sustainable livelihoods has three framework components: sustainable livelihood assets, vulnerability context, and techniques and interventions. It encompsasses five broad ranges of assets (financial, human, physical, personal and social). However it does not prescribe indicators or tools for impact measurement as rather it focuses on the conceptual framework.18
Impact Management Project
The Impact Management Project (IMP) is facilitating a global network of standard-setting organisations to coordinate impact measurement and management principles, frameworks, disclosure standards and benchmarking initiatives that, taken all together, provide clarity for anyone looking to measure, manage and repor t their impact. The network is an unprecedented collaboration between: the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), the Principles for Responsible I n ve st m e n t ( P R I ) , t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l F i n a n c e Corporation (IFC), the Global Steering Group for Impact Investment (GSG), Social Value International (SVI), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA).19
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SAMPLE TOOLS Sinzer
A Dutch private organization that uses SROI, IRIS, SDGS, and more to develop custom impact measurement plans for its clients. They work on impact strategy, data collection, impact maximization and SDG reporting. When measuring impact through the SDGs they match IRIS indicators and targets to the respective SDGs through a comprehensive indicator database.20
Vera Solutions’ Amp Impact
Amp Impact is a flexible program, project, and grant management tool that enables organizations to streamline performance reporting, visualize progress against targets, collaborate with stakeholders, and integrate seamlessly with Salesforce CRM. Amp Impact is run by Vera Solutions, a global technology consulting firm for the social impact sector.21
Taro Works
TaroWorks LLC is a social enterprise that sells an advanced mobile data platform to help organizations enhance data collection, monitoring, sales and inventory management in the field. Their mission is to improve product and service delivery to the poor by bringing real-time data to any organization, anywhere. They are a wholly owned company of Grameen Foundation.22
9 IRIS Metrics”, IRIS, iris.thegiin.org/metrics, (2018) 10 “What We Believe”, B Impact Assessment, bimpactassessment.net/about-b-impact, (2018) 11 “Fund Ratings”, B Analytics, b-analytics.net/content/fund-ratings, (2018) 12 Kate Ruff, et al. “, Amplifying the impact of Ontario's social enterprise community: An Action Plan towards a common approach to impact Measurement”, carleton.ca/3ci/wp-content/uploads/ IMTF_Final-Action-Plan_-April-13-2017_Accessible.pdf, (March 31, 2017) 13 Ivy So and Alina Staskevicius, “Measuring the “impact” in impact investing”, www.hbs.edu/ socialenterprise/Documents/MeasuringImpact.pdf, (2015) 14 Ibid. 15 “Acumen: Changing the way the world tackles poverty”, Acumen, acumen.org/wp-content/uploads/ 2017/10/About-Acumen-One-Pager-Q2-2017.pdf, (2017) 16 “About the PPI: A Poverty Measurement Tool”, Poverty Probability Index, www.povertyindex.org/about-ppi, (2018) 17 “View the Index”, Social Progress, www.socialprogress.org (2018) 18 Kate Ruff, et al. “Amplifying the impact of Ontario's social enterprise community: An Action Plan towards a common approach to impact Measurement”, carleton.ca/3ci/wp-content/uploads/ IMTF_Final-Action-Plan_-April-13-2017_Accessible.pdf, (March 31, 2017) 19 “About”, Impact Management Project, impactmanagementproject.com, (2018) 20 “Impact Experts”, Sinzer, www.en.sinzer.org, (2018) 21 “Transforming the Way Organizations Operate”, Vera Solutions, www.verasolutions.org/approach, (2018) 22 “About Us”, Taro Works, taroworks.org, (2018) Impact Reporting of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
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Impact Hub - Measuring our Impact
Our logic model: Activities, Outcomes & Impact As an international network of 100+ Impact Hubs around the world, we engage with their communities by delivering three core activities: ● Community building: Impact Hubs build diverse, entrepreneurial communities of members focused on creating impact. Community building happens through the hosting of work and event spaces, the delivery of content in the form or programs and events, and the application of community building practices. ● Entrepreneur support: Impact Hub facilitates access to resources along the entrepreneurial journey, and provides support services to members looking to grow and scale their ideas and ventures. ● Convening: Impact Hub convenes diverse stakeholders to create new partnerships between unlikely allies and achieve specific impact objectives.
These core activities are intended to lead to the following outcomes: ● Awareness: Members, partners, and others that engage with Impact Hubs become more aware, informed, and skilled in putting a triple bottom line approach to business and into practice. ● Collaboration: Community members embrace collaboration as a way of working to grow their ideas and impact. Members collaborate with one another, share information openly, support one another, and create opportunities for each other. ● Entrepreneurial Action: Through its core activities, Impact Hubs inspire, connect, and enable members and others to take entrepreneurial action for positive impact.
Impact Hub views awareness, collaboration, and entrepreneurial action as a necessary precondition for member ventures to thrive and new partnerships to flourish: ● Idea to market: Members that start with an idea of how to create impact successfully develop their idea and bring it to market. ● Startup to scale: Members that run social ventures and have first customers are enabled to grow and scale their social enterprises. ● New partnerships: Impact Hub member communities are diverse and Impact Hubs regularly convene a variety of stakeholders around a shared interest or purpose. New partnerships and alliances are intended outcomes of these convening activities. ● Specific impact outcomes: Some Impact Hubs go beyond their network type activities as community builder, convener, and entrepreneur supporter, and also engage in direct impact initiatives by creating programs that directly address disadvantaged beneficiaries.
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The SDGs & Our Impact The Impact Hub Network adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2017 as a lens to capture the impact of its members and network. Impact Hub started mapping it’s global member base to the SDGs through its Annual Global Member Survey and online community platform.
The top 10 SDGs addressed globally by Impact Hubs and members are:
Within those 10 SDGs, there is a strong focus on SDG 4: Quality Education and SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth. In the Global North, these two SDGs are mostly accompanied by SDG 3: Health and Wellbeing, SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities and SDG 5: Gender Equality. In the Global South Impact Hubs have a particular focus on SDG 1: No Poverty and SDG 2: Zero Hunger in addition to SDG 4 and SDG 8.
Impact Hub contributes to the SDGs primarily through: ● Indirectly contributing to SDGs through providing support to member entrepreneurs: As an intermediary, Impact Hub seeks to support entrepreneurs that create direct impact on the SDGs. In addition, Impact Hubs run acceleration and other programs that are SDG based.
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● Directly contributing to SDGs and accelerating progress towards the goals: Through building communities for impact especially in the Global South, and direct impact initiatives, Impact Hub can also directly contribute to SDGs. In addition, Impact Hubs are promoting the SDGs in their wider communities through: ● Raising awareness and promotion of the goals. ● Making solutions and entrepreneurs visible.
Indirect contributions to the SDGs Impact Hub has a direct impact on its member entrepreneurs, and as an intermediary aims at creating an enabling environment and supporting conditions that help entrepreneurs thrive. Ultimately it is the ventures that have a direct impact on end-customers or beneficiaries, and the SDGs. As shown above, while our members address a variety of SDGs, a focus lies on quality education, decent work and economic growth, reduced inequalities, and good health and wellbeing. Impact Hub works with members addressing all SDGs, but will run theme-based acceleration programs that focus on specific SDGs.
Direct contributions to the SDGs Impact Hub directly contributes to SDGs through some of its key activities. Impact Hub promotes entrepreneurship, innovation, job creation and the formalization of micro small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), especially in the Global South. It further enables access to markets and capital for scaling social enterprises. These activities relate to both SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure. SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth ● 8.3 - Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small- and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services. SDG 9 Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure ● 9.3 Increase the access of small-scale industrial and other enterprises, in particular in developing countries, to financial services, including affordable credit, and their integration into value chains and markets.
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Impact Hubs run programs, classes, and events to educate and train members on issues and skills relating to entrepreneurship and sustainability. These activities contribute to sub-targets of SDG 4: Quality Education: ● 4.4 - By 2030, substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills, including technical and vocational skills, for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. ● 4.7 - By 2030, ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including, among others, through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development. Lastly, Impact Hubs convening and multi stakeholder initiatives around the SDGs contribute to SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals) ● 17.16 - Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development, complemented by multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources, to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals in all countries, in particular developing countries. ● 17.17 - Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships.
Raising awareness and promotion of the goals Globally, Impact Hub raises awareness for the goals by using the SDGs as a general framework for communication as well as angle for specific campaigning efforts. This includes for example tagging all blog posts & member stories that are being published according to SDGs, and referring to and using the SDGs as core anchor in all communications materials and brand assets such as the Global Impact Report. Impact Hub further promotes the goals through events such as the Global SDG Mash-Ups, an event series that aims to inspire and engage a multi-location audience around one Sustainable Development Goal. For example, several Impact Hubs in Latin America hosted a Mash-Up on SDG 5: Gender Equality. This event was done in partnership with 4 other Impact Hubs, IH São Paulo, IH Curitiba, IH San Salvador and IH Monterrey. They addressed issues such as gender inequality, gender pay gap issues, and sexual violence. For 2019, an Impact Week is being planned as an SDG awareness and action campaign for the social enterprise sector. At the local level, Impact Hubs raise awareness for, and promote the SDGs through a variety of activities. New members are asked to map their activities to the SDGs
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upon sign-up to a local Impact Hub. Impact Hubs further connect events and activities to specific SDGs and host events with the aim to raise awareness around one or more SDGs. In many cases, Impact Hubs also partner with other local organizations and institutions to raise awareness around the SDGs.
Making solutions and entrepreneurs visible The SDGs can be an abstract concept when staying at the level of the goals. Showcasing entrepreneurs and social enterprises that address the SDGs makes the goals and their solutions more tangible. Impact Hub thus focuses on highlighting the work of member entrepreneurs and making the solutions they work on to address the SDGs more visible. Specifically this is done by putting a monthly focus on specific SDGs in the global communication channels, portraying entrepreneurs from around the world who address those SDGs. In addition, successful members are featured in Impact Hub’s global Impact Report. Beyond communication, Impact Hub also participates in events such as the Global Goals Week at the UN General Assembly and ensures entrepreneurs present their ventures. Building on media relations, Impact Hub also includes the SDGs in media pitches and framing media opportunities and features around specific SDG-related topics. Any articles that are being published related to current affairs will tie in the SDGs and the network’s as well as sector’s progress towards them. Locally, Impact Hubs also highlight entrepreneurs on social media and other communication channels, and will host events for stakeholders that include and highlight entrepreneurs and their impact on the SDGs.
Impact Measurement & Lessons Learned Similar to the development of impact measurement at the sector level, Impact Hub started its impact measurement by defining a variety of indicators and collecting data through an annual survey. Since 2013 Impact Hub, together with the Social Entrepreneurship Center at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, conducts an annual survey across its global membership to understand the impact of member entrepreneurs, their support needs, and the ecosystems of support that surround them. Members provide information about their activities and outputs, which often serve as proxies for impact in the sector. These are for example revenue, investment, number of jobs created, number of customers or beneficiaries reached. In addition members map their activities to the SDGs, share their impact approach and define the importance of social, environmental, and economic returns to their operations. Results are independently analyzed by the university research partner. In 2018 3,078 unique responses were collected, which amounts to a sample size of about 20%.
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In 2015 the Impact Hub Network agreed on a joint theory of change (ToC) and further deepened the ToC with a network impact logic in 2016 (see “our logic model” above). Both serve as frameworks for impact and put the networks’ activities and outputs into context. Going forward, the Impact Hub network aims to deepen the measurement of members’ impact outcomes and create richer information on how members address the various SDGs and the impact and contributions towards the SDGs that they create. With the growth of Impact Hub’s programs business line - over 200 entrepreneur acceleration programs were offered in 2017 - the measurement of impact of program participants and program evaluations are also gaining in importance. A streamlined and standardized data collection process for all programs can be the basis to track social enterprises over time, allow for more thorough analytics, and better impact management and measurement. For global and regional programs Impact Hub aims to develop a new monitoring, evaluation, and learning platform with shared measurement standards and data sharing practices between programs. Working together on entrepreneur support and sharing impact data gives insights into the effectiveness and quality of entrepreneur support programs, and will allow Impact Hub to better aggregate impact data across social enterprises and locations.
Lessons Learned Moving from impact measurement to impact management: The Impact Hub network has a theory of change, impact logic, data collection tools through annual member and staff surveys, basic processes to evaluate trans-local programs, and dedicated staff for impact measurement. Much effort is put on capacity building and sharing data back with local Impact Hubs through global, regional, and local reports, visualizations of insights, and deep dives into specific topics. Nevertheless comparatively a lot of resources are being taken up by data collection, and less are available for analysis and insights. Moving from collecting data and measurement, to managing impact and using data for deep learning is a necessary next evolution. Capacity constraints: Impact measurement is resources intensive. It requires a specific skill set, time, and money. 62% of Impact Hubs are 5 years old or younger. As many start-ups, also local Impact Hubs face competing priorities and operate under tight capacity. Participating in the annual global member survey requires Impact Hubs to mobilize their membership through a month-long communication campaign. Similarly, the thorough analysis of impact data and translation of results into reports that bring insights back to the team and community requires resources. The same challenges are present within member enterprises. Building capacity for impact measurement by educating social enterprise leaders about impact
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measurement and methods and potentially providing tools for members to measure their impact are all potential avenues of support by Impact Hub. Measuring the contribution of impact outcomes to the SDGs: Similarly to other organizations in the sector, Impact Hub wants to move from SDG engagement to SDG measurement. Members are being mapped to the SDGs through our annual member survey and insights complemented with additional impact data (approach, reach, returns). Our focus now lies on deepening understanding and measurement of the most prominent impact outcomes and SDGs among our membership (SDG 4, SDG 8, SDG 10, SDG 4). Ultimately Impact Hub would like to be able to tie its network’s SDG contribution into national, regional, and global SDG tracking efforts. Measuring network impact: Impact Hub is a theme-agnostic global network for impact. Local ecosystems of support are further being connected at a regional and global level. Some of the impact that is being created by the network relates to social enterprises and can be measured through our current systems. However Impact Hubs also create systemic impact by growing, often even starting, social enterprise ecosystems in their local contexts. At the local, regional, and global level Impact Hubs contribute to the mobilization and aggregation or resources for social impact and make the movement towards sustainable business and social impact more visible. These types of system or network impacts are harder to capture and measure but are nonetheless part of Impact Hub’s impact logic and ToC. Finding new and innovative ways to capture network impact will be a needed.
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Challenges & Best Practices The following challenges and supporting recommendations 
 and / or best practices are the cumulative feedback, experience and opinions noted from the multiple stakeholder interviews that were conducted of the Impact Hub network, as well as, some notable cross sector representatives from the various lenses of a social enterprise, foundation, and academic institution. Their full case studies and feedback can be found in the attached case studies provided.
Capacity of startups and small businesses
Challenge: Impact measurement is far from being a standard among social enterprises, yet demand for proof of impact is continually growing. However, the capacity of startups, small businesses, and not for profits to conduct impact measurement is a universal strain to meeting this demand. A challenge heard by all interviews, from local to international, the capacity restraints observed can be primarily categorized as the following: time, skills, and money. These challenges are detailed further below: Time - Competing needs and priorities Impact measurement and in particular when consistently conducted, is a valuable resource in providing evidence to attract investments, clients, and funding. However, these benefits can be often prolonged, non immediate, and difficult to directly attribute. When small and early stage social enterprises are consistently restrained by limited resources, capital and staff this results in impact measurement regularly becoming secondary, pushed back and in many cases conducted only for funding or grant requirement needs. There is an ongoing need within the social sector to shift away from the negative effects of this potential short term thinking and put greater value in the benefits of impact measurement, however it remains an ongoing limitation. In addition, to short term and competing business priorities, depending on the local climate these restraints can additionally be compounded by local economic, political and/or social instabilities that further push back the priority of impact measurement. Skills - Lack of expertise and necessary tools If a small and early stage organization are able to prioritize and find the time to conduct impact measurement they are often then faced with a lack of skills and or tools/ resources within the organization to complete meaningfully measurement and analysis. Even with a growing number of frameworks, methods and tools their reach and training with small and early stage social enterprises is limited. Many intermediaries to social enterprises, resource centres, and incubation programs are
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integrating and delivering training and resources to support the development of impact measurement skills. These resources and training to support the capacity development of the sector are a valuable asset. Unfortunately, they reach only few and when the development of new skills and capacity take time, as per the challenge of limited time, they can continue to be a barrier. Money - Financial restraints With limited skills and capacity to complete impact measurement many startups and small businesses require the aid of third party consultants to support impact measurement needs. Hiring external parties to support impact measurement can provide long term benefits in supporting organizations to refine and/or focus their impact targets and aid in supporting the long term development of skills and impact measurement processes within an organization. Largely internationally, however, consulting practices for impact measurement are a significant investment and costly activity. With limited resources in small and early stage social enterprises the financial investment required to conduct impact measurement is not accessible and a significant barrier. Few make the investment.
Recommendations/Best Practice: � Adjust impact measurement expectations by stage of business: 
 There is an opportunity for funders, investors, incubation program leads, and government parties to be more mindful of and vary their impact measurement expectations and requirements depending on the recipients stage of business and/or size. For example, as an early-stage social enterprises especially might lack skill and resources for measurement but impact data can provide crucial market data that allows the venture to successfully develop, an early-stage recipients reporting requirements could be more relevant to their stage of business by focusing on market size, beneficiaries and embed the development of their impact measurement framework. Whereas later stage applicants may be expected to upfront display their impact measurement framework and report accordingly. Adjusting impact measurement frameworks by stage would better support early-stage social enterprises to develop the necessary skills within their restraints and support later-stage social enterprises to continue to progress their skills. � Embed evaluation and impact measurement into grant/funding programs: Funding for evaluation varies greatly across the sector. Some grantee/funders require the inclusion of evaluation into program budgets, others limit the percentage of budget that can be allocated to evaluation, and some do not allow budget dollars towards evaluation at all. A greater encouragement and push for grantees/funders to support evaluation will levitate the financial restraints and allow greater portions of social enterprises to invest in external or third parties consultants to develop and enhance their skills to complete impact measurement.
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â—? Partnerships with academic partners: Academic partnerships, as per the example of the Impact Hub networks ongoing partnership with the Vienna University of Economics and Business, are great opportunities to support ongoing academic research and improvement of practices for impact measurement. The development of organizational processes for impact measurement that can be developed by these forms of financially accessible partnerships provide social enterprises with ongoing skill development. Further support and promotion of these partnership opportunities should be encouraged.
Impact measurement driven by funders and investors
Challenge: Impact measurement is primarily driven by demand from impact investors, funding, and government. As a successful form of motivation for the social sector to continue to progress development and skills for impact measurement, this driver equally has its limitations. Individual impact investors, funders and government parties all have their own individual priorities, targets, and goals. In addition to beliefs that these priorities and impact guidelines can be stifling to innovation it certainly affects what gets measured. Metrics and results are not always a holistic view of impact and highly informed by the type of investors and the funders own goals. Forms of this limitation can be seen when funders have a short-term view and reporting requirements that focus on activity and output data rather than outcomes, resulting in long term outcomes and long term results being lost. Or equally when the funding or investor has limited impact targets or focus, for example when economic targets are prioritized secondary or affiliated environmental and societal outcomes are left un measured. Furthermore, as measurement conducted for funding is primarily program related, there is little push to conduct impact measurement on core operation activities of many organizations.
Recommendation/Best Practice: â—? Building impact measurement targets together: Where possible, social enterprises should seek funders that are aligned with their values and goals. Strategic funders can also be helpful in growing an impact measurement practice if they have a long term focus. In addition, further encouragement of granting and funding programs that are building into the granting process steps that initiate the funder and lender to develop their impact measurement targets together are allowing for individualized targets and developing holistic measurement capabilities. These opportunities allow for education and skill development of the recipient and better marry both the desired targets and priorities of funder and lender.
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● Measurement frameworks that measure all aspects of business: There should be greater encouragement of measurement that is not isolated to only program outputs but that is all encompassing of an organization's activities. For example, B Corp certification provides a framework that measures all aspect of a for profit business to measure their social and environmental impact and frameworks such as these could be leveraged as tools within the not for profit/charitable sector as well. ● Alternative Funding Solutions: Continuing to explore alternative funding solutions for impact measurement is needed to avoid program focused, shortterm outputs/outcomes and allows ventures to strategically develop their practice is still needed. This could require new funding avenues through research funding or otherwise, but continuous experimentation to evolve the skill and sector of impact measurement to ease processes and increase accuracy should continue.
Consistency of Metrics
Challenge: Small organizations can sometimes struggle to find consistent information when dealing with different various stakeholders and government departments. For example, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Statistics Canada and the National Capital Commission all have different impact measurement strategies that can create inconsistencies and confusion across the sector. Government bodies have a unique opportunity to engage with their local community organizations, social enterprises and non-profits using empirical information and data.
Recommendation/Best Practice: ● Open Data/Data commons: Data collected in the public interest should be provided in an accessible and easy to read format. This crucial data can close the gap between microeconomic data or information collected at the enterprise level and macroeconomic or a national data framework. In order to aggregate impact data to draw conclusions or themes it will be necessary to provide open data to demonstrate how it relates to the broader changes at the SDG level. All open data should be provided in a easily parsable format for its audience. As machine learning and AI become more readily available technologies the need for open data will only become more apparent.
● Ensure Data is Easily Accessible: The spirit of open data requires content to be easily accessible on the website or resource that it’s displayed on. If organizations, enterprises or individual citizens are required to fill out forms or pay fees in order to access information that was collected in the public interest,
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then the accessibility of that data has not met the appropriate benchmark of transparency. Hidden Harvest Ottawa is a prime example of a local social enterprise that has made great use of the City of Ottawa’s open data resources. If the federal government wants to be a guiding actor to its entrepreneurial sectors then it will need to adopt greater principles of open data in order to be able to provide organizations with the resources that they need. The respective data portals that are published on the federal government’s website should be on the homepage and easily marked as “open data”. The federal government through the Treasury Board Secretariat has already taken some great initial steps to accelerate and expand open data initiatives and make government data more readily available in digital formats, but an equal amount of work will need to be done in order to ensure that open data initiatives at the SDG level are maintained. These open datasets should either be released as raw data or through quarterly or annually publicly published reports. Openly available statistical datasets at a country or sector level can be a great help to put the work of social enterprises into context.
● Data Needs to Parsable: As machine learning becomes more commonplace properly structured data will become a mandatory part of the necessary framework for open data initiatives. The dataset itself will need to be in an appropriate format that will easily make it parsable. If a dataset is published in a quarterly or annual public report, it will be necessary to publish any data tables in additional formats besides the standard .pdf that most reports are usually published in. While a .pdf can certainly be a great format to ensure consistency across multiple devices or operating systems, it also means that it would require additional labour intensive processes in order to extrapolate that data into a useable format. While it is possible to use data scrapers to extract information from a .pdf, it can sometimes require a manual revision to ensure that the data was correctly extracted. Government bodies should be encouraged but not limited to publishing their properly structured data using the following formats: csv, .xls, .xlsx, or .json. This will ensure that those raw datasets will not only be easily accessible, but easily parsable to be able to generate insights, analysis and draw conclusions. If the appropriate data is structured and easily accessible using schema.org frameworks then outside actors will be able to easily draw from that data and close the gap between the macroeconomic work done at the federal level and the microeconomic initiatives done at the enterprise, advocacy or non-profit level.
Awareness of SDGs
Challenge: Although the SDGs certainly have international reach that is continuing to grow, the audience is still however primarily diplomatic, international development, funding
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communities, and national level groups. Their spread to the average citizen, broader population or a social entrepreneur working locally is still very minimal. Of the small groups of citizens or social entrepreneurs who may have been in fact exposed and are aware of the SDGs, only a small demographic is at the level of understanding the targets or individual indicators. Thus application of the social entrepreneur community applying the SDG indicators to measure their impact is still in need of much more awareness and education building.
Recommendation/Best Practice: ● Education: Government can play a role in creating greater awareness and capacity to utilize the SDGs for impact measurement by working with intermediaries that support entrepreneurs to boost public communications and engagement. Partnerships with intermediaries could include but are not limited to communication partnerships, support of training and capacity development, and leveraging existing entrepreneurial community events and education programs to collaborate with and raise awareness and education of the SDGs. Additionally, academia could be encouraged to take a leadership role in integrating education of the SDGs in post secondary curriculum.
Lack of localizing the indicators
Challenge: Given the breadth of scope that the SDGs were required to cover there are many targets and indicators that have deliverables at the national or international level. While there is no doubt that international cooperation will be required to meet the goals by 2030, local organizations will require some sort of plan or framework in order to take macroeconomic national trends to the microeconomic enterprise level. While many local actors will certainly identify their work and align their impact measurement along SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, given the relevance of the municipal oriented work they may already be doing, target SDG 11.C concerning financial and technical assistance for developing countries may be outside of the scope or resources that a smaller local oriented non-profit may be able to provide. That’s not to say that there aren’t other targets or indicators within SDG 11 that may be more relevant, but without a proper localization framework or plan an individual organization may miss potential impact measurement opportunities or mistake the SDGs as goals that don’t require action at the local level.
Recommendation/Best Practice ● Indicator Localization: As a greater awareness grows for the SDGs, relevant stakeholders will begin to inquire how they may be able to contribute towards
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the global goals or how their existing activities may be measured against the targets and indicators. There are many sectors that can contribute towards the global goals but they will require encouragement and guidance in order to demonstrate how a list of goals developed through international consensus can benefit them. Going beyond corporate social responsibility, the SDGs have a great deal of potential that if properly localized can demonstrate great value to local actors. By creating a tangible local framework organizations will be able to understand how their individual contributions and specific work have a place within the larger international picture. By localizing the indicators individual contributors will provide a greater social license and investment. While municipal and provincial governments would most likely be the best actors in this scenario to develop those localization initiatives, there is certainly still a leadership role that the federal government can lead.
Restrictions of standardized metrics
Challenge: When organizing such large datasets around international consensus goals, it’s important to be able to look at each indicator to determine its relevance to that specific nation or sector. While every nation and state will share the responsibility of implementing the sustainable development goals there is no doubt that the indicators and targets within each SDG don’t apply to all actors equally. As previously mentioned, while there is still an existing opportunity for government bodies to develop their own SDG plan and framework, the measurement of those indicators will require a degree of flexibility. While different government departments would benefit from a unified strategy around impact measurement and the SDGs, individual targets and indicators cannot be rigid as it will actually result in less accurate data. The most successful standards are those which are able to adapt and change to the specific needs of local actors. It would be misguided to apply the indicators equally across all sectors as uniformity is not essential to create a strong standard.
Recommendations/Best Practices ● Creating Relevant National Targets: Each country needs to have its own relevant targets and indicators which take into account the slight variables that can exist when measuring impact across different sectors. While Canada may define youth as young adults aged 15-34, Costa Rica may define its youth as those between 12 and 35 according to their General Law on Young Persons. That doesn’t mean that either definition is wrong, but simply that it makes sense for that particular context. These relevant national targets are important
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in leading the conversation across all sectors within that country, but they must be truly reflective of that country’s context. Likewise, there are similar variables across different sectors that should be taken into consideration when developing national strategies as each one will have its merits and a case for relevancy. ● Adequate Indicator Flexibility: Local institutions should be the best leaders in determining how their sectors can engage in impact measurement. While there is certainly a need for a national framework, government bodies simply don’t have all the resources to act without local input. The flexibility of a standard plays a great importance in how that standard can adapt to the changing needs of those who would be using it. Dr. Ruff of the Carlton Centre for Community Innovation talks about how the more an indicator matters, the more it can become corrupt. When an organization is only tasked with accomplishing a narrow set of indicators without a holistic approach, the standard risks becoming a simple benchmark that organizations are required to meet at its most minimum standards. For example, if an effort to create a more accessible space is solely measured along a strict indicator like how many accessible bathrooms it has without a greater context, then the only way that an organization can measure how well its impact is across that variable will be through that indicator. It means that this organization might fail to create an accessible space in a more holistic sense, though that wouldn’t necessarily be its own fault, rather it would be the flawed standards that it was using to measure its impact that also bear responsibility. However, if the standards allowed for greater flexibility and recognized that while this space only had one accessible bathroom, it had made great strides in a number of other ways that weren’t measured by an indicator then the standard can provide greater context and insights for those who would be tasked with analyzing them.
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Canada & Looking Forward The role of federal government will be key to Canada’s ability to measure progress and impact towards the SDGs. In doing so, the federal government has an opportunity to take leadership in pushing forward best practices in the field of impact measurement by leveraging best practices from around the world. As was recommended by the 2017 report commissioned by Global Affairs Canada, Where Canada Stands- As Sustainable Development Goals Progress Report, the development of national and subnational SDG indicators is a required first step. The SDGs global indicators are not all relevant to individual countries and can be reduced to select relevant indicators and add additional indicators that align with Canada’s selected interest and focus areas for development. Canada can learn from global initiatives that have begun the process in creating national targets including Germany, Switzerland, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the European Union. Some best practices and approaches learned in these national approaches include ensuring that national indicators that are developed use existing and ready to use metrics for which historic data and regular data production is capable. When regular data collection is not capable, ensuring each goal has indicators that are possible to monitor at both high frequency and low frequency can aid ongoing analysis and reporting prior to 2030. The selection of the national indicators is also an opportunity to consider standardization of national metrics that may have cross departmental reach and currently use varying metric standards. Furthermore, the utilization of multipurpose indicators can be key in ensuring each goal in monitored by multiple indicators and highlighting the links between goals. The federal government can equally utilize this opportunity to move from indicator setting to impact data sharing practices by providing more open source statistical data in usable formats. As recommended within the challenges and best practices, the development of data commons could allow capabilities of cross sector input to feed in impact data to measure and report Canada’s progress towards 2030. Providing the tools and capabilities for private sector to citizen to report in the measurement of SDG indicators will be key to tracking progress and engaging diverse audiences to participating in the goals. With growing interest and multiple platforms developing to be such data centres from academia, international development communities, and government at various levels, coordination and collaboration to reduce duplications and sync data will be key to ensuring these tools can aid in driving change. The SDGs provide an opportunity for Canada to take a global leadership role in advancing social and environmental goals. We hope that the expertise, recommendations and best practices provided can support Canada in the measurement of progress towards the SDGs and utilimately contribute to thier achievement.
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Appendix
Case Studies:
Impact Hubs around the World !22
Impact Hub Amsterdam Netherlands Impact Hub Amsterdam is covening community and members to collaborate to address the SDGs as part the cities SDG house, as well as, using the Sustainable Development Goals in order to connect their members around the idea of impact measurement.
Activities & Partners SDG House: IH Amsterdam shares a physical location and space with KIT (Royal Tropical Institute), an education centre and knowledge institution for sustainable development in The Netherlands. They have created an SDG House which offers a space and environment for organizations working towards sustainable development to identify partnerships, create solutions, and stimulate knowledge development. They are a community of 50 organizations including office of The Netherlands National SDG Coordinator, SDG Charter, Human Cities Coalition, Worldconnectors. Transparency International, Fairfood, the Female Health Company, De Groene Grachten, B Corp Europe and more. 1 All aligned around the values of sustainable development, the house acts as a catalyst for SDG related initiatives that are affiliated with the 2030 Agenda. SDG Meetup: As part of ongoing programming of the SDG House, Impact Hub Amsterdam along with other SDG house residents, C-Change 2 host the monthly series SDG Meetup. The series provides a continuous engagement opportunity to accelerate solutions on the SDGs, developing shared knowledge and resources. It is also an accessible collaboration platform for established organisations, impact entrepreneurs, SMEs, institutions and independent professionals who want to learn about and work on the SDGs in an entrepreneurial way. Each edition focuses on one
!1 “SDG House”, KIT Royal Tropical Institute, www.kit.nl/sdg-house, (2017) !2 “Making it Easy and Worthwhile for All Actors to Connect”, C-Change, www.c-change.io, (2018)
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SDG and is an interactive evening event meant to generate new ideas, connections, collaboration and action. SDG Challenge Lab: IH Amsterdam has also partnered with the City of Amsterdam’s social entrepreneurship program, Amsterdam Impactor3 the European Union Social Challenge —the EU Social Challenge 4 is a platform aiming at connecting social challenges with innovative solutions. The platform supports public sector and servants, private companies, and third sector organisations in defining, prioritising social and environmental challenges, and uploading them onto the online marketplace where there are then connected to social innovators, startups and SMEs to fund, develop and test concrete solutions. Impact Hub Amsterdam, as local partners of the EU wide program, supported social entrepreneurs to develop their applications and engage on the platform through training and workshops. Successful finalists were then awarded €30k grants and 6 months of mentorship to implement their programs that were addressing SDG targets. Plastic Free Ocean Accelerator: This 7 month accelerator delivered January to October 2018, was a partnership between the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) and IH Amsterdam to help develop innovative solutions to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean. As part of WWF’s efforts to reduce plastic leakage into the ocean by at least 80 percent before 2050 – the program consisted of a group of 10 startups registered in the Netherlands all supported by Impact Hub and WWF's combined networks of mentors, experts, corporate partners and investors. By combining Impact Hub’s entrepreneurial knowledge with WWF’s research on the negative effects of plastic on ecosystems and biodiversity they helped amplify the start ups positive impact through masterclasses, mentorship, and investor access. Areas of training to develop stronger business proposition and venture success include strategy & execution, finance, marketing & sales, partnerships, investment, impact measurement, organisation & leadership, go-to-market, pitching, and systems & processes.
Impact Measurement IH Amsterdam has primarily used private third party organizations to experiment with different avenues for impact measurements frameworks. Sinzer uses social return on investment (SROI) to develop custom impact measurement plans for their clients. They match indicators and targets to existing measures through the sustainable development goals. Sinzer experimented in IH Amsterdam’s Plastic Free Oceans Accelerator - where they extracted the most relevant metrics and customized a plan for their participants so they’d be able to enter measurements and track their progress every 6-12 months.
!3 “Amsterdam Impact”, I amsterdam, www.iamsterdam.com/en/business/amsterdam-impact, (2018) !4 “Matching Social Innovation Challenges to Entrepreneurial Innovation”, Social Challenges, www.socialchallenges.eu/en-US/community/4/About, (2017)
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Avance is another Dutch organization that is looking to measure corporate social responsibility. They look to create, measure and maximize impact and have developed and managed high-impact programmes, like Progreso and ProClimate. The work with social investors, NGOs and for-profit companies wishing to contribute to a sustainable economy and improve the sustainability of value chains.
Challenges & Recommendations Diversity Within the Goals: A key challenges in SDG house has been around the inclusion of diverse minority communities within their space. MakersUnite, who work out of IH Amsterdam’s space worked with former refugees and developed a 6 month program for newcomers in Amsterdam. Throughout this process they were reminded that their indicators, targets and frameworks cannot simply be Western or colonial models, but rather must emerge as a collaborative effort with diverse communities. The African Union has its own Agenda 2063 that cannot be ignored when it concerns impact measurement. Building Capacity of Entrepreneurs: Entrepreneurs don’t necessarily like to be measured, but their impact measurement needs to be a tool that they can envision as a partnership so it isn’t seen as a burden. Unfortunately, even after Sinzer’s customized plans developed for participants of IH Amsterdams Plastic Free Oceans Accelerator number of members didn’t continue tracking afterwards. There is a cultural change that needs to take place as well as an investment in the proper measurement systems.
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Impact Hub Geneva Switzerland Impact Hub Geneva uses the SDGs as a communications tool with their audience and as a common language across the different sectors that their members are a part of. They have developed partnerships with international government bodies and across sectors to focus on SDG 17: Partnerships for the Goals.
Activities & Partners Accelerate 2030: Accelerate 2030, is a global multi-stakeholder program cointiated by Impact Hub Geneva and UN Development Program, as well as, 40+ partners from across private, public, and financial sectors. With a mission to scale internationally the impact of entrepreneurs working towards achieving positive social and environmental change contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Working with Impact Hub network and together with UN country offices they identify and support the most promising ventures tackling the SDGs through a 6 month scale readiness program that includes expert trainings and clinics, strategic matchmaking and access to coaching and expert support. Finalists are selected through nation-wide outreach, selection of nation finalist and then selection of global winners by international jury. Finalists are flown to Geneva to engage in a series of workshops, introduced to the Geneva tech ecosystem and taken to innovation tours at Microsoft and Amazon offices in Switzerland. Along with Boston Consulting, finalists were also supporting in strategizing an appropriate plan to scale and prepared for final meetings with investors. Since 2016, Accelerate2030 has been held in 19 developing and emerging economies across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. To date the program has had 500 applicants, 50 national finalists, 15 global winners.5
! “About Us: Creating Positive Impact Through Collaborationâ€, Accelerate 2030, 5 www.accelerate2030.net, (2017)
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In future iterations of the programming, the are looking to work with the Swiss government to focus specifically on solutions and ventures addressing SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation and SDG 3: Good Health and Well Being. IH Geneva reached out to multinational companies and SMEs for applicants. That jury would then select 10 finalists which are flown to Geneva to engage in a series of workshops. They were introduced to the Geneva tech ecosystem and finalists were taken to innovation tours at Microsoft and Amazon offices in Switzerland. Along with Boston Consulting they strategized an appropriate plan for these finalists who concluded their program by meeting with investors. SDG Factory: As part of the Accelerate 2030 programming and the finalists tour in Geneva, IH Geneva hosted SDG Factory to inspire and engage a broader local audience in a collaborative event to tackle SDG-related challenges. The event brought together Accelerate 2030 finalists with fellow innovators and unlikely allies from international organisations, startups, corporates, academia, and the public sector to explore how we can successfully scale entrepreneurial solutions for a sustainable future. Hosted through a full day session and workshops the participants helps co create new solutions.
Impact Measurement IH Geneva is a B Corp, an impact assessment tool for benefit corporations with indicators that relate to the environment, community, governance and accountability. They use the certification process and the indicators within their B Corp assessment to measure how well their organization is performing. All the applicants of their SDG Factory program were required to show how they were measuring their own impact. Through the process they are required to track how many events were hosted, how much money was raised in venture capital, how many ventures were approached and how many people were reached.
Challenges & Recommandations Capacity of startups and small businesses: The European Union uses a number of International Organization Standards that can make it confusing for smaller organizations that want to measure their impact. It takes a particular skill set to be able to capture a data set and then provide insight and analysis. Not every entrepreneur may have the resources to engage in that level of analysis. Cost of impact measurement: Businesses are unfortunately cautious about impact measurement and any additional costs it may incur. Out of 300+ members that work at Impact Hub Geneva-Lausanne there are 25 organizations that are developed enough to be able to dedicate those resources. 
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Impact Hub Phnom Penh Cambodia IH Phnom Penh’s goal is to raise awareness and ensure that all their members understand the meaning and importance of the SDGs. They can be a valuable tool to find a common language and connect with outside partners.
Activities & Partners Smartspark: IH Phnom Penh organizes a program series with their corporate partner Smart Axiata. They emerged as a natural partner given their commitment to sustainability initiatives and their desire to provide young social enterprises with the proper support and mentoring. 6 This startup program introduces the key concepts of social entrepreneurship to youth looking to turn their ideas into a viable business model. Their first cohort was themed around social welfare. They will guide 9 cohorts of young entrepreneurs, students and professionals through an ideation program around one or several SDGs. Their series of incubation programs are aimed at finding and growing innovative startups tackling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Cambodia. They will be required to develop and test an innovation design and test a business model with 6 workshops tailored around business support. They are then paired with a personal mentor on a one-on-one support and advisory capacity throughout the program. Their first cohort will be focusing on SDGs 1, 2, 3 and 6 – No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Health & Wellbeing and Clean Water & Sanitation. Six teams tackling issues in these areas will be selected for the program, with one team going on to win $3,000 to invest in their idea.7
! “Smart, Impact Hub launch entrepreneur program”, The Phnom Penh Post, 6 www.phnompenhpost.com/business/smart-impact-hub-launch-entrepreneur-program (August 21, 2018) !7 “SmartSpark Launch Event”, Impact Hub Phnom Penh, phnompenh.impacthub.net/event/smartspark-launch-event/ (August 10, 2018)
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Impact Measurement IH Phnom Penh focuses their impact on program participants. All their programs have implemented a standardized baseline and post-program survey to measure the progress of their participants on entrepreneurial skills, soft skills, and a number of other KPIs. Measuring the SDG contributions of their members and program participants remains a challenge, due to a lack of resources within the team. Furthermore most of their members are still at an early stage, focussing on putting their ideas into reality and getting operations running. Impact measurement is usually not (yet) a key priority in that stage. Also the public discourse in Cambodia is still at an early stage. Therefore a main goal is still to create awareness and excitement, or measure along the key indicators that their partners require when sponsoring programs or events which often capture indicators that reflect e.g. reach.
Challenges & Recommandations Capacity of startups and small businesses: Smaller teams have limited resources that can be dedicated to impact measurement. They lack the expertise required to be able to properly measure an indicator. The first step has to be to create awareness, knowledge and excitement around the SDGs in general in order to motivate as many people possible and not discourage anyone from engaging with the SDGs. 
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Impact Hub Lagos Nigeria Impact Hub Lagos aims to educate its members about the SDGs and create awareness of their potential to be used as an instrument to garner a greater interest for their local organizations from the international community. They are focused on a number of initiatives including health, financial inclusion, sustainable energy, and agribusiness — initiatives that overlap with the SDGs.
Partners Global SDG Mashup: IH Lagos participated in the global SDG Mashup which brought numerous stakeholders within the Nigerian entrepreneurial ecosystem together with a growing number of startups. The Mashup is organized by Impact Hub Network with the goal of inspiring and engaging a diverse audience. This year’s event revolved around the focus of SDG 5 (Gender Equality) and was held in collaboration with three different Impact Hubs in Lusaka, Harare and Lagos. The events are always locally-rooted, but globallyconnected in order to leverage Impact Hub’s network to deliver meaningful content. 8
Impact Measurement There are a number of members that have mapped out their desires to work on tackling and SDG but have yet to reach the stage where their able to adequately track their measurement.
! “Global Mashup”, Impact Hub Harare, impacthubharare.net/global-mashup, (2018) 8
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Challenges & Recommandations Lack of Awareness: As more local entrepreneurs continue to learn and gain awareness about the global goals they will reach a stage in the growth in organization that allows them to create a strong impact measurement framework. While the Nigerian government has undergone a UN Voluntary National Review of their progress on the SDGs, many in the entrepreneurial community lack an appropriate framework or guidance from their government leaders. There is still development around the best methods that can be used to capture data regarding the SDGs within the social innovation sector.. There is still a great amount of information asymmetries that prevent all stakeholders and potential entrepreneurs from acquiring the same level of knowledge. Leveraging Existing Metrics: There is an emerging social entrepreneurship community that is looking to use existing indicators, but require additional support to tie their existing metrics back towards the global goals. This is a growing opportunity that exists for central organizations to aid emerging enterprises and smaller organizations with their impact measurement once they are able to reach that stage in their growth.  
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Impact Hub São Paulo Brazil Impact Hub São Paulo has been part of the Impact Hub Network for a decade and has gained experience encouraging businesses and social enterprises to adequately track their impact The emergence of the SDGs came as a natural alignment that could be used for their members.
Activities & Partners Pense Grande (Think Big): This is a partnership with the Fundação Telefônica, a telecommunications company that is looking to facilitate communication between people and organizations. The Pense Grande program aims to develop social entrepreneurship in young Brazilians. The programs consists of onsite visits, workshops and web conferencing training activities. Their education program consists of up to 300 students. IH São Paulo is aiming to tie these programs back to SDG 4: Quality Education. They invited teachers and educators from Brazil’s technical schools to help them to be better prepare their students for today’s economy. Their methodology was made looks to create parallels within the entrepreneurial and education spheres. At the end of they came together to make an assessment of their performances and how the course had collaborated with their pedagogical practices.9 Warriors without Weapons: Partnered with Instituto Elos of the Elos Foundation, this program focuses on leadership and social entrepreneurship in order to enable youth with the right tools to transform their ideas into sustainable organizations. This 32 day leadership program is targeted towards social entrepreneurs to develop and enhance their goals to have a positive local impact within their communities.
! “Educadores de ETECs participam de formação sobre empreendedorismo em sala de aula”, Pense 9 Grande, pensegrande.org.br/fique-por-dentro/educadores-de-etecs-participam-de-formacao-sobreempreendedorismo-em-sala-de-aula, (November 21 2017)
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Each year 40-60 participants from different parts of the world partake in the program. 10 The Elos Philosophy is based on a 7 step methodology which concludes in building stronger communities and closer partnerships by strengthening the individual, the community collective and the larger global connection through training in the field. Water and Sanitation Program: Exist as a partnership between GIZ, the Minister of Cities of Brazil and Impact Hub São Paulo. This programs focuses on initiatives that can be found in the targets and indicators of SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation. Their goal is create an awareness and potential strategies to address the needs of local communities in urban centres who don’t have access to proper drinking water.
Impact Measurement Sponsors provide them with their own indicators that they use when measuring the success of their programs. These indicators don’t always overlap with relevant impact measurement indicators but it does open dialogue and exists as a point for collaborative process. Accelerators, investors and sponsors need to be made aware of the potential of the SDG indicators and what that can mean for their long-term goals. Program organizers are normally more concerned with short-term deliverables that only span the duration of the program rather than the life cycle of the SDGs until 2030. As the SDGs gain conscious awareness and a greater understanding emerges IH São Paulo aims to have more consistent data across their programs to determine success.
Challenges & Recommandations Capacity of Startups and Small Businesses: Local businesses and entrepreneurs are not necessarily equipped or at the stage in their development to consider impact measurement. Early stage entrepreneurs are still focusing their attention on maintaining a constant revenue stream, but do hope to reach a stage in their growth eventually where they will able able to allocate resources to these communities. National to Municipal Metrics: Many São Paulo organizations focus on national metrics and indicators, rather than those at the local or civic level. Municipalities have a great role to play in leading the conversation around how local organizations and cities can work towards SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.
!10 “Becoming a Warrior without Weapons”, LabGov, labgov.designforcommons.org/2018/11/20/ becoming-a-warrior-without-weapons, (November 20, 2018)
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Impact Hub Caracas Venezuela Impact Hub Caracas’ goal is to empower and facilitate the needs of the entrepreneurial community in Caracas despite the larger economic problems in Venezuela that SMEs are facing. Their members are asked which SDG they identify with and which one they’d like to focus on as their initial step in engaging with the global goals.
Activities & Partners TechCamp: IH Caracas’ office space is in the same building as the local UNDP office. There were fortunate to be able to partner with an ally that shares their sames values. TechCamp is a boot camp for social entrepreneurs. Their TechCamps aim to promote economic growth, increase transparency, promote human rights and disseminate democratic values through the use of technology.11 They were able to invite 60 entrepreneurs from around the country to participate in a two day event which was provided at no cost to the participants thanks to the sponsorships by the Embassy of the United States from neighbouring countries. The program focused on opportunities to use augmented reality, how to employ a call to action video and digital storytelling strategies through social media networks. These events are sponsored by the Embassy of the United States of different countries. They seek to enhance the knowledge of social entrepreneurs, as well as the synergies between the participating organizations. Their challenge is to build a responsible digital society capable of generating networks to create positive changes in communities.
! “Techcamp 3era Edicion”, Impact Hub Caracas, 11 caracas.impacthub.net/servicios-corporativos/techcamp/ (2017)
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Given the lack of proper access to food security that currently exists within the country, IH Caracas provides food with all of their programs for their participants. Technovation Venezuela: This program is centered around proper skills development of young women in girls in the tech ecosystem. It is done in partnership with Iridescent and through sponsorship assistance of the Embassy of the United States in Venezuela. Their mission is to empower and support low-income women and girls through the design and user experience of mobile apps. Their program had 35 girls from around around Caracas participate and compete against teams form 115 other countries in order to attend the grand finale which took place in Silicon Valley.12
Impact Measurement Venezuela has unfortunately not been able to provide any framework for SMEs to measure their impact. IH Caracas has been working with Cuantix, a company that has a set of tools designed for impact measurement for education programs.
Challenges & Recommandations Local restraints and priorities: Caracas faces many immediate challenges such proper access to food and resources. Entrepreneurs are certainly open to impact measurement, but there is no doubt that they will never be able to reach their goals without adequate economic investment. As inflation soars and food security become more precarious their immediate needs will be their highest priority. There are many actors that are committed to measuring the outcomes of their impact programs, but don’t have an adequate partner. IH Caracas has found a suitable partnership working with Cuantix given their experience and knowledge in impact measurement and have gained a greater value than attempting to develop their own indicators.
! ”Fondo de Valores Inmobiliarios participó como jurado en Technovation”, Analitca, 12 www.analitica.com/emprendimiento/fondo-de-valores-inmobiliarios-participo-como-jurado-entechnovation/ (May 17, 2018)
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Impact Hub San Jose Costa Rica Impact Hub San Jose asks their members which SDG they would personally like to contribute to when their first sign up as members. Through this process they were able to find out that a large number of their members recognize the importance of SDG 5: Gender Equality — a particularly prominent problem to tackle given the unfortunate amount of violence that women in region face.
Activities & Partners Youth Speak Forum: This partnership with with AIESEC, one of the largest nonprofit youth organizations, is a leadership program for young social entrepreneurs. For the 2018 edition of their event, they partnered with Magic Trees, a local environmental organization and organized a reforestation event along with 250 young Costa Ricans to plant 350 trees along the Maria Aguilar River. 13 Their goal was to focus on SDG 15: Life of Land and address the deforestation that has taken place in San Jose. Latin American Mash-Up: Their mash-up is an event that is was done in partnership with 4 other Impact Hubs, IH São Paulo, IH Curitiba, IH San Salvador and IH Monterrey. They focused on SDG 5: Gender Equality as chosen by their members and addressed issues such as gender inequality, gender pay gap issues, and sexual violence.14
!13 Cristina Masís Ramírez, “Communidad ISJHO: Semana de los ODS”, sanjose.impacthub.net/blog/ 2018/9/19/comunidad-ihsjo-semana-de-los-ods, Impact Hub San Jose, (September 19, 2018) !14 “Combating Gender Inequality in Costa Rica”, Impact Hub, impacthub.net/combating-gender-inequality-costa-rica/, (August 28, 2018)
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Impact Measurement The Social Progress Indicator includes 54 indicators which overlap with the work that some of the SDGs aim to tackle. Although the SPI is a framework for government bodies, it can provide a framework of indicators that other organizations can use. They also use their B Corp Impact Assessment as an affordable resource to be able to measure their impact and encourage other smaller organizations to look at their local impact.
Challenges & Recommandations Government Institution Partnerships: IH San Jose recognizes that it can be an intimidating and sometimes challenging process to meet with representatives of local government institutions, but also recognize the level of support that can result from these meetings. These opportunities may result in grant opportunities, framework guidance and/or partnership strengthening which can be extremely helpful. These opportunities can exist to further elaborate on how local organizations can properly measure their impact. Recognizing Specialized Skill Sets Amongst a Team: It was greatly helpful to be able to map out the skill sets of their entire membership to determine who is contributing to their SDGs. Their members all have unique and specialized skill sets that can become a great asset when contributing to the SDGs as a whole. Each member will have something that they’ll be able to contribute towards the combined effort.  
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Impact Hub New York City United States of America The values of the SDGs resonated with IH NYC given their position in such an interconnected city. They are positioning themselves as an SDG institution within the American context. For them, SDG 3: Good Health and Well-Being continues to be a priority as they aim to advocate for those who don’t have proper access to affordable health care.
Activities & Partners Accelerate 2030: Accelerate 2030, is a global multi-stakeholder program cointiated by Impact Hub Geneva and UN Development Program as well as 40+ partners from across private, public, and financial sectors. With a mission to scale internationally the impact of entrepreneurs working towards achieving positive social and environmental change contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. Working with Impact Hub network and together with UN country offices they identify and support the most promising ventures tackling the SDGs through a 6 month scale readiness program that includes expert trainings and clinics, strategic matchmaking and access to coaching and expert support. Since 2016, Accelerate2030 has been held in 19 developing and emerging economies across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. To date the program has had 500 applicants, 50 national finalists, 15 global winners. In NYC they have supported the program in creation of 8 different SDG related events, including those as part of the UN General Assembly and Global Goals Week hosted in New York in Sept 2018 that showcased venture participants and impact, connecting them to strategic networks and opportunities for collaboration with US based partners. 15
!15 “About Us: Creating Positive Impact Through Collaboration”, Accelerate 2030, www.accelerate2030.net, (2017)
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Chamber of Commerce Series: IH NYC partnered with entrepreneurs from the Mexican Chamber of Commerce in order to address the unique experience of Mexican American entrepreneurs. The State Department has also expressed interest in being involved in their Chamber of Commerce.
Impact Measurement Members currently self identify which SDGs they’d like to align themselves with, but haven’t been able to dive into how to properly engage in impact. Goetz, a German merger and acquisition firm that works on consultative processes, has been working with them to create a proper impact measurement strategy.
Recommandations Capacity of Startups and Small Businesses: Entrepreneurs are open to the idea of engaging in impact measurement, but may not be able to allocate the resources to those initiatives yet. Early stage startups are still looking to gain capacity. Municipal SDG Measurement: NYC is one of the first cities that’s been actively worked towards measuring its impact around the SDGs and report directly back to the United Nations. This level of framework from the municipal level has been helpful for smaller organizations on the ground and demonstrates the value that municipal institutions can play as leaders for the organizations in their ecosystem.
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Impact Hub Ottawa Canada Impact Hub Ottawa is home to 300+ members and establishing themselves as the centre for social innovation in our nation’s capital. With a mission to inspire, connect and enable people working to solve the worlds challenges big and small, they are also educating and raising awareness of the SDGs through events, communications and by convening diverse citizens around specific SDGs. This includes SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities with the goal of establishing leaders and new solutions to solve the SDGs.
Activities & Partners SDG Workshops: Partnered with Statistics Canada SDG unit, IH Ottawa is hosting introductory workshops for the community on the SDGs and how they can be used, as well as, monthly workshops on each global goal that aim to dig deeper into how Canada is placed using data and relevant learnings from Statistics Canada SDG Data Hub, identifying gaps, and showcasing social entrepreneurial solutions that are working to address the SDG targets. Alliance 2030: IH Ottawa is a multi-sector partner of Alliance 2030, a national network of organizations, institutions, and individuals committed to achieving the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals by the year 2030. Currently the network has more than 2000 members. 16 It formally launched at the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development in July 2018, is creating a national searchable database of work being done across Canada in alignment with the SDGs, and sharing community stories amplified through their blog and podcast series. As a partner, IH Ottawa contributes to their database, as well as, is sharing the experience of their members and their contributions towards the SDGs to aid in raising greater awareness nationally.
! “Members”, Alliance 2030, alliance2030.ca/members, (2018) 16
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Future Cities Forum: Partnered with Artengine, an Ottawa-based collective of artists, technologists and interested members, IH Ottawa hosted the Future Cities Forum on February 23-24, 2018, bringing over 250 engaged citizens and the next generation of our civic leadership – 60 youth leaders, students, and young professionals from the technology, social impact, and cultural & creative sectors – to explore and examine possible futures for our cities. The findings from this particular convening were shared in a summary report17 to highlight the strongest themes and narratives about smart cities that emerged from our participants. The convening provided education and awareness building for youth leaders to become civic leaders driving SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities, as well as, collected citizen input and feedback to inform Ottawa’s Smart Cities proposal in response to the national Smart Cities Challenge. Impact Academy - City Makers Edition: In partnership with Synapcity, an Ottawa not for profit providing knowledge and tools to help people understand and navigate city structures and policies to drive positive change, and supported by the City of Ottawa, Impact Academy is a 3 month incubation program supporting early stage social enterprises. The program, design and offered by IH Ottawa has supported over 150 social entrepreneurs since 2012. Offered for it’s 7th cohort Sept Dec 2018, this special City Maker's Edition focused on Transportation & Mobility, Environment & Sustainability, and Healthy & Caring Communities for. All priority areas of the Ottawa City Council and aligned with SDG11: Sustainable Cities and Communities. With 12 participating social enterprises the program provided training on design thinking, system thinking, business model canvas, impact measurement, and communications, as well as connected participants to local leaders and community support through facilitated study tours in order to accelerate and amplify their organizations impact and contribution towards SDG 11.
Impact Measurement IH Ottawa is measuring their formal programming results through participant surveying tracking in both baseline survey and post program reporting as initiatives of SDGs. Targets have largely been self-created for these programs to inform funder priorities. As such, they have revolved around indicators such as economic, social, cultural and environmental outcomes.
!17 James Chan, “Future Cities Forum: Smart Leaders for Smart Cities”, ottawa.impacthub.net/wpcontent/uploads/sites/193/2018/05/Future-Cities-Forum-Summary-Report.pdf, (April 2018)
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Challenges & Recommendations Awareness and Education: It is certainly evident that there is still much education and training that needs to be done around the SDGs towards the local community. Through engagement and work with their local community they have noted high interest in learning about the SDGs but little to date initial education and awareness. Time Restraints in Measurement: IH Ottawa’s contributes to enabling individuals and organizations to have the skills, community support and connections in order to enact change. This connection can be difficult to measure as it can occur tomorrow or a decade down the line on an entirely new project. Traditionally impact measurement of funded programs and projects are short term and do not allow for the necessary robust and continuous surveying and tracking that it is required to truly measure the necessary impact and outcomes instead of just outputs.  
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Appendix
Cross Sector Perspectives
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Hidden Harvest 
 Ottawa Hidden Harvest is a local 
 social enterprise that harvest fruits and nuts that would otherwise go bad from public and private lands and splits it in four ways, at least one-quarter goes to the nearest food agency, onequarter is shared with the homeowner, one-quarter is shared with the volunteer harvesters, and up to one-quarter goes back to Hidden Harvest Ottawa. Their founder Jay Garlough, sees huge potential in organizing their impact measurement around SDG 2: No Hunger as it aligns with their mission to increase their food sovereignty, address climate change and prevent food waste. They are specifically looking at the indicator 2.4.1 which deals with the proportion of agricultural area under productive and sustainable agriculture.
Activities & Partners Awesome Ottawa, a local grant giving organization that is part of the Awesome Foundation provided Hidden Harvest with their first small grant of $1000. Members of Awesome Ottawa still volunteer for volunteer for Hidden Harvest. This provided them with an added level of accountability and a strong connection back to the community. Hidden Harvest provide their harvests to food banks for free and to small business at a negotiated rate. They work with local food banks such as Parkdale Food Bank and the Ottawa Food Bank and with local breweries, ice cream shops and a fruit preserve store.
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Hidden Harvest keep a level of transparency with all their activities. All their harvest are published on their website and the reports of their harvests are submitted in real time through a mobile app which is then pushed onto their website. They track what they harvested, how many pounds went to the food bank, how many volunteers were involved, how much went back to volunteers, as well as what food bank they donated it all to. They currently measure their impact through SROI. However, that means that there is also a carbon cost to everything they do. The EcoAction Community Funding Program was largely helpful in being able to evaluate the CO2 emissions of the organization. They provide a spreadsheet to evaluate the impact that their funding has had. It asks questions such as how much food was diverted from the landfill and what kind of compositing is being used. Is it being processed through a facility or through local composting?
Challenges & Recommendations Standardization of metrics: As a small organization proper impact measurement is a large undertaking. Smaller organizations could benefit from a standardized model for impact measurement around the SDGs. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Statistics Canada and the National Capital Commission all have their own sustainable development plans. A streamlined approach from would go a long way to prevent confusion and clarify procedures. For example: The city of Ottawa and the NCC mesure local sustainable agricultural expansion as the number of new farms that are transitioning to sustainable agriculture, rather than measuring it as a percentage of acreage. Measuring it as a percentage of acreage would provide much more information as an indicator, and that measurement would be more closely aligned with SDG 2.4.1. Open Data: Finally, open data needs to be a larger part of the conversation. Whenever a government body releases information or data in the public interest, it needs to be made available as a CSV file or in JSON. Releasing raw data in difficult to read formats such as a PDF, creates an additional hassle for an organization or companies that are looking to use and analyze those data sets. This information will need to be easily accessible and machine readable. Creating data sets that are made in schema will allow others to easily be able to discern that information and make use of government frameworks.  
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Carleton Centre for Community Innovation Social Enterprise Impact Measurement Task Force
3ci (The Carleton Centre for Community Innovation) is a university research centre based at the School of Public Policy and Administration at Carleton University. The Centre looks to enhance understanding and knowledge of the distinctive contributions of the non-profit and philanthropic sectors. They are part of the Ontario Social Enterprise Impact Measurement Task Force which consists of different academic, non-profit, social enterprise and government bodies. Dr. Kate Ruff, a research fellow and Assistant Professor at Carleton’s Sprott School of Business was able to provide academic insight for impact measurement. From the Ontario Social Enterprise Impact Measurement Task Force’s Action Plan1, her findings revolved around the need to for flexibility regarding impact measurement. Their Common Approach to Impact Measurement for Social Enterprises explored that idea that uniformity is not essential for strong concrete data. The task force has identified that SDG 2: Zero Hunger and SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth as the goals that members of the social enterprise sector can most closely align with, although their efforts are not necessarily limited to those SDGs. SDG 8 is an obvious choice given the work the sector does around employment and skills development, the indicators for SDG 8 are the easiest alignment. Whereas the indicators around SDG 2 are a bit more abstract. However, for food enterprises or organizations that deal with organic food boxes and breakfast programs, those indicators have some level of overlap. The Task Force found that out of 21 food indicators only 5 did not overlap, which means that there is a 76% overlap with SDG 2.1.
1! Kate Ruff, et al. “Amplifying the impact of Ontario's social enterprise community: An Action Plan towards a common approach to impact Measurement”, https://carleton.ca/3ci/wp-content/uploads/ IMTF_Final-Action-Plan_-April-13-2017_Accessible.pdf, (March 31, 2017)
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Impact Measurement When measuring impact across such a large global dataset it is important to be able to use the proper indicators of that respective country in order to achieve an accurate portrayal. A prime example can be highlighted in the distinction between how countries measure statistics for youth. In Canada, Statistics Canada considers youth ages 15 to 34, whereas in Costa Rica their General Law on Young Persons defines youth as 12 to 35. The SDG indicators will need to be flexible in order to be able to capture the unique needs of government bodies, nonprofit organizations and social enterprises. There is a misconception that uniform data is better, but if each country is forced to use indicators that may not necessarily best apply to their situation then that may actually result in less accurate data. Flexibility is a necessity when capturing information. The Task Force found that when measuring impact, it focused on SROI, Sustainable Livelihoods, IRIS and the Demonstrating Value Project, but local organizations may find other methodologies might work best for them. Given the task force’s emphasis on flexibility when measuring the indicators it is not imperative to use any one methodology.
Challenges & Recommendations Data Centre and Indicator Flexibility: Part of the Task Force’s action plan recommends the needs for creating a data centre that could answer the questions of having flexible indicators. As previously mentioned, there is a misconception that uniform data is somehow greater data. Using a strictly inflexible indicator would actually make for less accurate data gathering as it wouldn’t allow local organizations to be able to collect information based on their own needs. Proxy indicators will be a crucial part of the strategy as we require. Indicator Flexibility: Additionally, the more an indicator matter the higher chance it has to become corrupt. If your entire plan becomes so narrow that the indicator is the only metric of success that can be used, the entire action plan risks becoming simply a vehicle to meet those indicators. It’s important to be able to look at the greater pictures and not allow the indicators to become horse blinders. For example, if the only indicator being used to measure whether a space is accessible is the number of accessible bathrooms that place has, other barriers to accessibility could be missed or worse completely overlooked in a simple blind effort to simply meet the indicator required by them. Capacity of startups and small businesses: A number of social enterprises fear that the SDGs are simply another burden of another framework that they will have to adopt. The icons are a great starting point and basis, but they cannot simply be limited to just being used as a communications tool.
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Community Foundations of Canada Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) is a network of 191 community foundations. Their idea is to be able to serve their respective communities across all of their sectors. Some may focus on homelessness issues and some may focus on arts and culture, which means that measuring impact at the local level will depend on their unique priorities. However, many focus on both, a 360 degree view of the community and granting towards initiatives. They have the best perspective on where grants are needed most and focus their priorities there. Some do have specific targets i.e. youth, seniors, isolation but that largely depends on their community and the issues they face. Community foundations consist of a more holistic approach rather than contributing to one aspect of the community in particular.
Activities & Partners Alliance 2030: Alliance 2030 first started as Alliance 150 which was created by Community Foundations of Canada along and Heritage Canada as a partnership to share uniquely Canadian stories to celebrate the country’s 150th year since Confederation. After the 150th concluded, there was still a desire to use the existing framework in order to continue those partnerships and aligning with the SDGs made the most sense. As a collective their goal is to focus on SDG 17 and facilitate their local community foundations, nonprofits and businesses. They would like to engage in the SDGs as much as possible and use existing metrics to match the indicators as much as possible. Canadian Council for International Cooperation: They work along the same shared goal as CFC but instead work with international development organizations rather than local community based organizations. They are able to provide the global lens to smaller activities that would otherwise not receive adequate exposure. They are composed of 80+ member organizations that are seeking to end global poverty and promote social justice around the world.
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Global Compact Canada: An agreement made by a number of private sector companies that have signed copy the global compact regarding corporate social responsibility.
Impact Measurement Vital Signs: CFC’s Vital Signs report is a program that was first started by the Toronto Foundation as a report card of how the community is doing in regards to housing, the wealth gap, arts and culture, health and safety and food security, but is not limited to those indicators. Their goal is to create a quick and short report that can be easily digested. There are a number of indicators in this report that relate back to the SDGs and CFC is working on how to gather this data in order to tie their reports through an SDG lens. Certain cities have actually already started their reports around the SDGs Winnipeg 2017, Montreal 2017, Victoria 2018 and Clayquot Sound 2018 have all begun to incorporate their indicators along the SDGs. Their goal is to create a number of similar indicators that can be incorporated within their annual reports for impact measurement.
Challenges & Recommendations Lack of Federal Framework: As a large collaborative organization, it would be ideal to focus their local impact measurement and align their goals along an internationally recognized framework. While they understand that the relevant government departments are still developing their Social Innovation/Social Financing Strategy, a greater framework around the SDGs would be immensely helpful when creating a plan for impact measurement. Smaller organizations would greatly benefit from leadership and guidance from their relevant government departments. It would also be relevant to engage in discussions around which indicators are less relevant within a Canadian context. Given their global focus there are a number of indicators that do not have the same level of urgency or priority in a Canadian context. This discussion can certainly be facilitated by actors at the federal level, but it will need to include cross sector partner, various key players and industry leaders in order to provide a complete view from both business and charitable communities. Data Collection and Indicator Proxies: At the federal level, a bulk of data collection work around the SDGs is derived from Statistics Canada’s Sustainable Development Data Hub. However, that information isn’t necessarily done in collaboration with local municipal data sets and the lack of communication between these necessary actors can create inconsistencies between the indicators. Most of the research for Vital Signs is conducted locally with municipal and provincial datasets, but there exists an opportunity to standardize that information and provide consistent information that is facilitated and curated by federal actors through coordination.
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Lack of Awareness: Many local organizations and community foundations have yet to learn about the global goals. As organizations with limited resources, they don’t yet understand the potential that the SDGs can provide around impact measurement or how an international set of goals can apply to them local or how those indicators can be adapted to meet their needs. This provides a great opportunity for building awareness and educating individuals around the ineed for impact measurement at all level of community building. 
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References SOCAP Voices: The UN’s Achim Steiner on the SDGs as a Framework for Impact Investing. Retrieved from: socialcapitalmarkets.net/2018/02/socap-voices-the-unsachim-steiner-on-the-sdgs-as-a-framework-for-impact-investing Reisman, J. & Olazabal, V. (2016): Situating the next generation of impact measurement and evaluation for impact investing. Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation. Retrieved from: www.jreisman.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/ ImpactMeasurementLandscape_LR_Rev1_6.12.pdf Toniic T100 Impact Portfolio Tool: www.toniic.com/t100/impact-portfolio-tool “Investing Alongside the United Nations to Achieve the SDGs”, SOCAP 18 Panel Discussion, October 25th 2018 Impact Management Project: impactmanagementproject.com SDG Impact: sdgimpact.undp.org O’Flynn, P and Barnett, C. (2017): Evaluation and Impact Investing: A Review of Methodologies to Assess Social Impact. Evidence Report No 222. New Frontiers in Evaluation. Retrieved from: opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/12835/ ER222_EvaluationandImpactInvestingAReviewofMethodologiestoAccessSocialImpact.p df?sequence=1&isAllowed=y So, I. & Staskevicius, A. (2015): Measuring the “impact” in impact investing. Retrieved from: www.hbs.edu/socialenterprise/Documents/MeasuringImpact.pdf IRIS: iris.thegiin.org B Impact Assessment: bimpactassessment.net GIIRS: b-analytics.net/content/fund-ratings Examples of outcomes or theme-based metrics: ● Food Loss and Waste Protocol: www.flwprotocol.org ● Greenhouse Gas Protocol: ghgprotocol.org ● SDG Compass: sdgcompass.org/business-tools
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SROI: carleton.ca/3ci/wp-content/uploads/IM-TF-Action-Plan-Report-ENGLISH.pdf Lean Data by Acumen: acumen.org/lean-data/ Poverty Probability Index: www.povertyindex.org/about-ppi Social Progress Index: www.socialprogress.org/index IRC Outcomes and Evidence Framework: oef.rescue.org/#/home?_k=2v58ty Smallholder Theory of Change: static1.squarespace.com/static/ 565cca2ae4b02fbb0a550169/t/568421905a5668c115ead659/1451499920607/ Smallholder-Impact-and-Risk-Metrics-A-Labyrinth-of-Opportunity1.pdf Sustainable Livelihoods: carleton.ca/3ci/wp-content/uploads/IM-TF-Action-PlanReport-ENGLISH.pdf Sinzer: www.en.sinzer.org Vera Solutions: www.verasolutions.org Taro Works: taroworks.org
Further Resources Country Level Indicator or Strategies: ● European Union: ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/276524/7736915/EU-SDGindicator-set-with-cover-note-170531.pdf ● Germany: www.destatis.de/EN/FactsFigures/Indicators/SDG/SDG_Total.pdf? __blob=publicationFile ● Switzerland: sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/ 20152Country_Report_Switzerland_2018_web.pdf ● Costa Rica: sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/ 15846Costa_Rica.pdf ● Mexico: www.agenda2030.mx & sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/ documents/20122VOLUNTARY_NATIONAL_REPORT_060718.pdf & www.un.org/ development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2018/05/16-1.pdf
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