Ventures at the Helm: a guide for for SPO-centred impact measurement
What is Ventures at the Helm?
Ventures at the Helm is a guide co-authored by Laura Budzyna, Karim Harji, Heather Hachigian and Penny Hawkins. The guide contains learnings, tools, and worksheets to help ventures and impact investors design and build impact measurement and management practices well-suited to the needs of the ventures (which we often refer to as SPOs, meaning charities, non-profits, cooperatives or for-profit social enterprises) that they invest in. Impact measurement that centres the needs of SPOs… sound familiar?
The Ventures at the Helm guide is the result of collecting “journeys, insights, and perspectives” from real ventures on their impact measurement and management strategies. These strategies were then mapped into four phases: orienting, navigating, sailing, and tacking. As laid out on page 9 of the guide, orienting is “an international, defined moment of framing and goal setting,” navigating is “a continuous period of exploring new opportunities and testing questions,” sailing is “a continuous period of moving and managing towards a streamlined and optimized set of goals,” and tacking is “an intentional, time-limited pivot or adaptation to a new opportunity, need or question.” Each phase is characterized by its own set of pressing questions, and so each requires its own approach to impact measurement.
Ventures do not pass through the phases in the same order. Like Common Approach, the guide highlights the need for flexibility, as ventures will “enter, exit, and revisit phases in response to their needs, inflection points, resources, and changing contexts”.
What we love
- A worksheet for ventures to find their phase, rather than working off of an assumed starting point. The goal is not to find yourself in the “right place at the right time”, but to align the IMM approach with the phase in which a given venture finds itself.
- An adaptive and iterative approach that includes changing metrics and methods as the “context, resources, and mission & strategy” change.
- A focus on flexibility at every turn.
- A focus on SPO-led impact measurement and management.
Who should use the guide
- Investors and funders who want to encourage impact measurement that is useful for their investees and grantees.
- Social Purpose Organizations that want to take more control over their impact measurement and management practices rather than simply responding to funder metrics.
Interested in learning more about Ventures at the Helm? Click here to watch “Learning with Common Approach: Exploring Ventures at the Helm” now on the Common Approach YouTube channel!
Join the Common Approach community to stay up to date on our efforts to make impact measurement better, and help shape impact measurement standards!
📣 Follow us on LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.
📬 Subscribe to our mailing list below.
📌 Check out the latest Common Approach bulletin!
Published February 27, 2024
More like this
Creating Flexible Standards: Construct-Based Equivalence
The best approach for impact measurement will be to balance uniformity and flexibility rather than choose one over the other. To achieve this middle ground, Common Approach uses construct-based equivalence.
Meet the Technical Committee
The Technical Committee works to ensure that the Common Impact Data Standard and Common Form are driven by community and meet the needs of social purpose organizations, social financial institutions, and software organizations.
Meet the Social Purpose Organization Council
Common Approach is pleased to introduce the Social Purpose Organization Council! Council members will ensure that the needs of operating charities, nonprofits and social-purpose businesses and those they serve are centered in the ongoing development of Common Approach’s impact measurement standards.
