We invite you to review the background and then share your views on the questions below.

On the topic of impact performance report verification broadly,

1. What  are the key aspects of a report that should be independently reviewed in order to provide a report consumer with confidence that the report is fair, balanced, and accurate?

2. How can we ensure that investor-level verification is interoperable and non-duplicative with company-level impact verification? Should investor-level verification focus only on the investor’s actions and/or areas in which the investor is responsible for data collection and analysis?

3. Does the term ‘verification’ appropriately connote to the market how similar or different verification is to audit and assurance? Should other terms be considered (e.g., assessment)?

4. Should verifiers be expected to validate the data provided in impact performance reports? If so, how might they do so, and who has the willingness and appetite to pay for the additional cost? If not, what is the best way to ensure that verification consumers understand what aspects of impact performance reports are verified, and which are not?

5. Should smaller or emerging managers be held to a different standard for impact performance reporting than large and established managers? Why or why not?

In response to ‘Raising the Bar 2.0:  Introducing BlueMark’s Framework for Evaluating Impact Reporting’ :

6. What is your overall feedback on the proposed approach?

7.  Specifically with regards to the Ratings Schema on pages 10 - 15, what would you want to add, change, or remove? Do the ratings descriptions and criteria strike the right balance between providing clarity for consistent and comparable application by verifiers, while leaving appropriate flexibility for fund managers?

Lastly, we invite you to sign up for our Quarterly Newsletter as we will be sending out information regarding huddles on this topic in 2023. Sign up here.

Discussion Questions:

• How do you think investors’ impact management practices stand to benefit from evaluation methods such as those described in these videos?
  • Evaluation and Impact Investing (video): Veronica Olazabal, Jane Reisman, and John Sherman
  • The Mis-measurement of Impact, and What Investors Might Do Instead (video): Ken Scheffler and Laura Castro, Innovations for Poverty Action, Right-Fit Evidence Unit 
• What can evaluators learn from the impact management practices developed by investors?

Please see Our Work “What can impact investors learn from evaluators (and vice versa)?” for more details.

Discussion Questions: 

• What formulas are your organizations using in your impact ratings?
• What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of these different approaches?
• What other approaches have you seen?
• In which contexts is each approach most appropriate?

Please see Our Work Impact Rating Math for more details.

After reviewing the background on Investor Contribution 2.0, we invite you to share your view on the questions below.

In response to the initial draft investor contribution metrics on pages 7-13 of the Discussion Document:

1. What changes would you suggest to the metrics already in the document?
2. What additional metrics would you suggest?

On the topic of investor contribution more broadly:

3. What else should we be reading and incorporating into this effort, to amplify great work that has already been done?
4. Who are the leading voices on different aspects of this topic that we should reach out to?
5. Who might have views on these issues that contrast with or constructively challenge the project direction?
6. The prototype will likely consist primarily of activity and output metrics at first. Is it possible (or desirable) to go past activity metrics and disclosures towards outputs / outcomes / impacts?
7. What project outputs will be most actionable and decision-useful to asset owners and allocators, as well as asset managers?

Lastly, we invite you to email the investor contribution metrics your organization uses (or ideas for potential metrics) to info@impactfrontiers.org. We will anonymize, de-duplicate, and organize these into an initial metric set for industry stakeholders to review and provide feedback on. We welcome any and all submission formats (e.g. Excel, Word, email text, etc.).