Strengthening Impact Management CohortImplement a comprehensive impact management approach
The next deadline to confirm participation is January 31, 2023, with an expected launch on March 15.
If your organization is interested, reach out to us here.
Impact Frontiers and the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business are partnering to offer a program in which participants will develop and strengthen impact management approaches tailored to their organization’s context, strategy, and goals.
The program will include monthly meetings over a twelve-month period, with workshops, case examples and exercises, structured peer sharing and feedback, guest expert sessions, and coaching.
Program Curriculum
The program is divided into three sequences: Foundations, Scaffolding, and the Roof. The Foundations and Scaffolding sequences build on one another to lay the groundwork for the impact-financial integration tools and processes we develop in the Roof sequence.
foundations
1. Impact Management Diagnostic
Evaluate and discuss current strengths, process gaps and priorities in impact management.
2. Stakeholder-informed Impact Strategy
Map your different stakeholders, evaluate their priorities, and determine how to integrate their perspectives into your impact strategy.
3. Articulating Dimensions of Impact Goals
Articulate your high-level impact goals in terms of the 5 Dimensions, thresholds, and ABCs of impact.
scaffolding
4. Impact Ratings, Part 1: WHAT, WHO & How Much
Build preliminary scoring criteria for three dimensions of impact to evaluate the relative expected impact of prospective investments.
5. Impact Ratings, Part 2: Contribution & Risk
Build investor contribution and impact risk scoring criteria into your preliminary impact rating.
6. Preparing for ImpactFinancial Integration
Consolidate learnings from the first 5 months of the program, and create a change management and tool development work plan for the second 6 months.
roof
7. Intro to the Efficient Impact Frontier
Explore the Efficient Impact Frontier as a framework for optimizing impact and financial return, and construct a portfolio using real data on the impact and financial performance.
8. Financial Risk and Return Day!
Select a risk-adjusted financial return metric for your integratedscatterplots. Consider how social equity may influence risk adjusted financial return, in perception or in reality.
9. Integrated Analysis & Decision Making
Use integrated analysis to assess the relationships between impact financial risk adjusted return. Consider implications for investment decisionmaking rules.
10. Optimizing your Process to Optimize Performance
Design an investment process that optimizes portfolio performance by integrating impact alongside financial considerations at the screening, prioritization, and approval stages.
11. Advanced Topics in Impact Management
Consider how to assess and integrate counterfactuals atthe investor- and enterpriselevels, and how to value multiple outcomes in your impact rating.
12. Conclusion*
Reflect on program takeaways, celebrate accomplishments, and set sights on your next frontier in impact-financial integration and performance optimization.
foundations
1. Impact Management Diagnostic
Evaluate and discuss current strengths, process gaps and priorities in impact management.
2. Stakeholder-informed Impact Strategy
Map your different stakeholders, evaluate their priorities, and determine how to integrate their perspectives into your impact strategy.
3. Articulating Dimensions of Impact Goals
Articulate your high-level impact goals in terms of the 5 Dimensions, thresholds, and ABCs of impact.
scaffolding
4. Impact Ratings, Part 1: WHAT, WHO & How Much
Build preliminary scoring criteria for three dimensions of impact to evaluate the relative expected impact of prospective investments.
5. Impact Ratings, Part 2: Contribution & Risk
Build investor contribution and impact risk scoring criteria into your preliminary impact rating.
6. Preparing for ImpactFinancial Integration
Consolidate learnings from the first 5 months of the program, and create a change management and tool development work plan for the second 6 months.
roof
7. Intro to the Efficient Impact Frontier
Explore the Efficient Impact Frontier as a framework for optimizing impact and financial return, and construct a portfolio using real data on the impact and financial performance.
8. Financial Risk and Return Day!
Select a risk-adjusted financial return metric for your integratedscatterplots. Consider how social equity may influence risk adjusted financial return, in perception or in reality.
9. Integrated Analysis & Decision Making
Use integrated analysis to assess the relationships between impact financial risk adjusted return. Consider implications for investment decisionmaking rules.
10. Optimizing your Process to Optimize Performance
Design an investment process that optimizes portfolio performance by integrating impact alongside financial considerations at the screening, prioritization, and approval stages.
11. Advanced Topics in Impact Management
Consider how to assess and integrate counterfactuals atthe investor- and enterpriselevels, and how to value multiple outcomes in your impact rating.
12. Conclusion*
Reflect on program takeaways, celebrate accomplishments, and set sights on your next frontier in impact-financial integration and performance optimization.
Curriculum Overview
Impact Management for Investors
(First term: 6 months)
set strategy
1. Introduction and Background to Setting an Impact Strategy
2. Setting Impact Strategy
integrate
3. Integrating Impact into Diligence Process
4. Evaluating Impact of Potential Investments
Optimize
5. Optimizing Impact
Reinforce
6. Reinforcing Impact
Impact-Financial Integration
(Second term: 6 months)
set strategy
7. Why Impact-Financial Integration Enables Impact for Decision-Making
integrate
8. Creating Custom Impact Preference & Financial Preference Rankings
9. Advanced Topics
Optimize
10. Interpreting Your Impact-Financial Scatterplot
11.Optimizing Investment Decision-Making
Reinforce
12. Setting and Achieving Integrated Impact and Financial Portfolio Goal
Our Partner
CASE at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business
The Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) is an award-winning research and education center based at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. Since 2002, CASE has been a leader in the field of social impact and impact investing, serving as a hub for research, teaching, and practitioner training.
CASE has worked with thousands of impact organizations, funders, and field-builders to connect theory to practice. CASE specializes in developing practitioner-friendly training and tools to equip impact leaders to succeed and scale their impact. CASE Smart Impact Capital is a professional impact investing program that has been in continuous use since 2016 by over 95 accelerator, fund, and university cohorts. CASE partnered with the UN Development Programme to launch a Coursera course that has trained over 8000 enterprises and investors to enhance their practices around Impact Measurement and Management for the SDGs.
Cathy Clark
Cathy Clark is Faculty Director at CASE at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and Founding Director of the CASE i3 Initiative on Impact Investing. Cathy is globally recognized as a collaborative visionary and pioneering influencer in the fields of social entrepreneurship and impact investing. She has been named a B the Change Champion, Social Innovation Thought Leader of the Year in 2020 by the World Economic Forum, and one of 2021’s top 12 Agents of impact by ImpactAlpha.
Previously, Cathy was an investor at Flatiron Partners, a philanthropist at the Markle Foundation, and a policy convener at the Aspen Institute. She holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BA from the University of Virginia.
