Measuring impact – whether human, social or environmental – can feel like an impossible task, but really just requires a step-by-step path.  There are many frameworks that you can draw upon; the key is to start simple, pilot an approach, and then evolve.

At the Opportunity Collaboration in mid-October 2009 in Mexico, organized by MicroCredit Enterprises, the topic of measuring impact was a top discussion topic of many conversations.  Several attendees requested that HIP Investor synthesize the core insights, tools and methodologies that we have observed so far – and how they might be of use.  Here is a simple 5-step approach that includes example frameworks to consider:

1. First, understand the distinctions among Inputs, Process and Results. An input counts how many applications for a micro-loan there are. The process would count how long that process took, and the rate of acceptance. The result of a successful micro-loan would range from re-payment to the benefits of that investment, like educated children or funds for purchasing health or water. Organizations that measure results tend to be the most successful – as they align their select highly targeted strategies and align their resources against them. They might also measure processes and inputs, but only if contributing to maximizing the result.

2. Next, determine what and how aggressively you want to measure. You can go as shallow or deep as you like. Determine how meaningful it is to do so. If you make decisions by intuition, the metrics might be less helpful. Not everything that is measurable is meaningful – at most choose five metrics (the number of fingers on your hand). But if you are deciding among multiple choices with scarce resources, metrics help to identify aspects that best connect with your goals – whether as an organization or an investor (or donor).

3. A range of measurement frameworks exist to learn from, and provide a starting place to build a template:

• Ashoka asks three core questions: How many Ashoka Fellows changed government policy in five years? 50% typically. How many Fellows were replicated by another program in five years? 90% on average. How many people were impacted? This varies by field, and ranges from thousands to millions depending on the topic.
• The Human Development Index by the United Nations covers social, environmental and economic indicators, and rates most of the 200 countries worldwide. These metrics, covering infant mortality, literacy and gender equality, also track year over year performance.
• The Gross National Happiness approach of Bhutan looks at 72 indicators, including how people used the last 24 hours in terms of time. These compile the core “pillars” and go beyond traditional GDP as a measure of success. France is now evaluating how they can do the same with Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen.
• The Balanced Scorecard is used in business and tracks four categories: customers, operations (including employees), learning and financial metrics. It is used by many large companies as a more comprehensive view.
• The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) includes a Social Return on Investment analysis as part of its evaluation for business plans. World of Good won both the GSVC grand prize and SROI prize in 2004. Businesses select the 3 metrics that best drive their venture.
• SVT Group has cataloged more than 30 approaches in a PDF guide, and describes what they are, how they work, how many resources and time commitments are required, and where they have been used.
• Grameen Bank has a set of questions that frame how microfinance families improve their lives.
• The HIP Scorecard. has a comprehensive look at five categories – Health, Wealth, Earth, Equality and Trust – based on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and the UN Human Development Index. HIP has adapted it to publicly listed companies. The HIP 100 Index (and the HIP 500 Index) tend to beat the S&P by integrating these quantifiable human impact factors – and how they drive profit for corporations.

4. Seek out benchmarks to compare against. The U.N. Human Development Index tracks many categories of metrics at the country level over multiple years. Consider how your organization’s metrics might fit those – and demonstrate how it’s more comprehensive, more efficient or faster momentum of improvement.

5. Start a pilot of metrics that seem right for your mission and goals. Don’t overcomplicate it. Go with one, two, or even five metrics (no more than one hand!) – and track the impact you are creating. Compare it to the investment currency – and calculate a ratio. See how that ratio changes by day, month, quarter or year. Then, evolve your approach to use it as a great management and evaluation tool.

For more information, feel free to contact us (Paul @ HIPinvestor.com)

What’s your experience? Any other models or frameworks to suggest? Post your ideas below:

How HIP Is Your Mobile Phone Provider?
BY MARA LUDMER and PAUL HERMAN

With a calendar, music player, internet access, and camera, nowadays your phone does a lot more than just make calls. That’s why your mobile phone should be just as HIP as you are. When choosing a cell phone service provider, it’s important to consider not just the features of your network, but also the company’s HIP (Human Impact + Profit) elements.

The service provider of the iPhone, AT&T, is a telecom leader in EARTH with a top-notch pilot program for wind power in Texas creating a savings of 230 million kWh (the equivalent annual electricity use of over 19,000 households) last year. This conservation beats out Verizon’s 16.5 million kWh savings (even adjusting for ATT being about 25% larger in revenue). It also significantly exceeds Sprint’s “plan to build a team to investigate issues relating to the environment,” or MetroPCS’s lack of any reported eco-savings or plans communicating to do so. Which company do you think is best prepared for another energy crisis?

AT&T and Verizon are neck and neck across EQUALITY. AT&T features one of the strongest supplier diversity networks in the world, purchasing more than $1 billion annually in materials from firms owned by women, minority, and disabled-veterans. AT&T and Verizon each employ more than 40% female employees and more than 35% ethnic employees, serving as a model of diversity in the workforce and poised to tap into new markets by thinking like their customers, and launching new solutions to serve them. Sprint and MetroPCS lag behind, offering little information on employee diversity, and Sprint’s Board of Directors is composed entirely of white men – even in 2009. It’s doubtful that this exactly mimics their customer base, employee diversity or their supplier base.

Verizon heads up the WEALTH category with the most lucrative compensation plans, paying its 223,900 employees typically much more than the industry average (sometimes up to $10,000 more), according to public sources. It’s not always easy to decipher this though – as companies do not always reveal total compensation across the whole firm. For consumers, MetroPCS offers competitive pricing with its pre-paid plans, which is the fastest growing category of the wireless market.

Using the HIP Scorecard methodology, the four largest publicly-listed companies in the wireless industry are listed below. More than 30 metrics go into the HIP scores, and they are used in evaluating these companies for the HIP investment indices.

How HIP Is Your Provider?
(HIP scores incorporate 30+ metrics and
weighted by business value and reliability)

Name (ticker)     HIP Score
AT&T (T)               42%
Verizon (VZ)       45%
Sprint (S)               39%
MetroPCS (PCS)  27%

Disclosure: HIP Investor Inc. analyzes publicly listed companies for its own research, for investors and for inclusion in its HIP indices. HIP Investor and its clients may hold a position in these firms, including part of the HIP 100 Index. This overview is intended to demonstrate the value of sustainability and how it links to shareholder value overall, and is not intended as an investment recommendation. This is not an offer of securities.

How HIP Is Your Revenue Mix?

Will You Be a HIP Conglomerate?

Wall Street analysts and institutional investors examine sales growth, international sales, product mix and business unit ups and downs. All of these are financial in nature, and critically important to an enterprise’s economic prosperity.

But those metrics can also be lagging or incomplete. Customers buy products for a reason. HIP Investor’s research and analysis shows that the most successful companies typically hone in on solving a human problem – health and wellness, financial security, eco-efficient equipment, equal access and increased trust and credibility.

Products that are “HIP” generate both Human Impact + Profit ™, because they are designed that way from the start, screened along those criteria during research, development and launch, and deliver a core environmental, social or human benefit to customers, while making money for shareholders. Yes, they Do Good AND Make Money.

At PepsiCo, CEO Indra Nooyi (BIO) is integrating a business strategy of “Profit With Purpose,” which includes initiatives in health and nutrition, environment and people. PepsiCo is now tracking its product revenue in the categories of “good for you” (like Tropicana, Quaker Oats, SunChips, Naked Juice, SoBe and Ethos Water) and “fun for you” (like Doritos and Mountain Dew). At last count, Pepsi’s “good for you” products represented 30% of its revenue, which it expects to increase over time (though the Q1 2009 earnings presentation highlighted a “maniacal” focus on cash). Pepsi is a top performer in HIP ratings – and Q1 2009 return on equity is over 40% – which has enabled it to outperform the S&P and Dow indices.

At General Electric, the “ecoMagination” strategy has evolved from CEO Jeff Immelt’s self-admitted “good public relations” to real revenue and profit. GE’s wind turbines, fuel-efficient railroad engines and compact fluorescent light bulbs are examples of 70 products in ecoMagination, contributing top-line 2008 revenue of $17 billion, or nearly 10% of sales worldwide. GE expects that to grow to $25 billion by 2010, building off its $1.5 billion ecoMagination R&D budget. GE has also announced they are an anchor R&D partner for Masdar City (the world’s first zero-waste, carbon-neutral, renewable-energy city, based in Abu Dhabi). GE’s leadership in these segments are generating revenue and profit growth as well as energy efficiency and emissions reductions, but the company has been hampered by its un-HIP exposure in financial services and leverage. GE’s management practices (lower carbon is on each executive’s performance goals and reviews) are very HIP and recent ROE is above 10%, but shareholder performance has not lived up to historical norms.

What is YOUR HIP revenue share? Most companies still don’t know exactly. While HIP’s approach examines environmental, social and human impact created for customers by the products and services of the company – and how they generate profit, our interviews with companies have found that there is not yet tracking of this metric systematically like Pepsi and GE.

HIP’s five categories of impact (health, wealth, earth, equality, trust) are based on solving human problems that are highlighted by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Many times the industry dictates a company’s category of primary impact, for example:

= Health: Obviously, the mission of health care is healing patients and encouraging wellness. Data mining technologies help Cardinal Health’s MedMined help track outcomes, and support pharmacies in managing complexity. An example of a Health+Earth product is Hospira Inc.’s VisIV, a new IV solution container resulting in 40%-70% less waste than similar products.

= Wealth: In these times, it’s hard to identify firms that are solving financial challenges in banking or investing. Before the meltdown, Wachovia Bank shared how its CRA (community reinvestment act programs) were becoming a business strategy, to help the poor become richer. (Unfortunately, Wachovia’s toxic assets led to its acquisition by Wells Fargo.) In social investing, State Street and Northern Trust offer mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that enable investors to invest in HIP firms, supporting human impact and profit.

= Earth: Innovative materials companies are pioneering environmental breakthroughs: PerkinElmer’s suite of sensor products (in industrial, auto and safety) annually reduce 22 million tons of carbon emissions. Allegheny’s grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) is used in lightweight and eco-efficient equipment, saving energy and emissions. Ball’s award-winning 100% recyclable, lower-weight-than-glass wine bottle that uses both product and process innovations to drop the overall footprint and cost over its lifecycle. Juniper’s new routers save 30% energy and half the data-center space, and Tellabs 5500 digital cross-connects drop energy usage 85%.

= Equality: Whether gender, ethnic, income-level, or species, HIP products seek to equally serve the full range of society. BB&T Financial is increasing its support of community-development corporations to better serve the full diversity of customers. Cosmetics firm Estee Lauder is seeking the elimination of animal testing in its product development.

= Trust: Technology helps provide new lenses into great deals for customers. eBay provides competitive and transparent pricing (though buyers need to validate quality), Progressive Insurance compares prices to its competitors for consumers, and Amazon enables a competitive marketplace against its own retail products.

This strategic view about solving human problems focuses innovation and R and D on the most pressing opportunities – which also creates loyal customers, engaged employees, and committed suppliers. These products also tend to be first to market, higher margin, market-share grabbers and have the potential for long-term profitable lines of business.

Can you be a HIP Conglomerate? One example of a multi-impact company is McGraw-Hill. While many recognize its affiliation with textbooks, McGraw Hill (a multi-generational family controlled company) owns several lines of business across all five HIP human impacts.

= Health: Harrison’s Practice is a mobile resource that provides doctors and nurses with the latest medical advances and knowledge via the web and hand held devices, which can be used with patients more easily than books.

= Wealth: Standard and Poor’s, author of the S&P500 and other indices, tracks daily changes in stock prices around the world, and provides timely information about the state of portfolios – and makes it easy to diversify as well as be used as a platform for firms that manage customer wealth.

= Earth: Platts’ energy commodities price assessments are now incorporating info about emerging emissions, biofuels and liquid natural gas markets; and McGraw Hill’s construction industry media, product information, market trends and forecasts are incorporating details on green and sustainable building projects.

= Equality: iSpeak is a device that turns an MP3 player into a portable translation device, while Acuity is an accountability testing program for public schools.

= Trust: Customer satisfaction surveyor (and consultant) J.D. Power and Associates’ creates a deeper understanding of what customers want – and showcases it with awards that increase transparency about who’s a top performer. Increases in customer satisfaction scores also correlate with higher revenue growth, profit growth and shareholder value.

How much of YOUR revenue is HIP? How is your company solving human problems for profit? What is your strategy for creating Human Impact + Profit?

= Share your successes with us at HIPrevenue@HIPinvestor.com – or contact us to advise you on how to create more HIP products and generate more HIP revenue. =

Finally, THANKS! To all the HIP portfolio research associates who have contributed to the 500+ companies that HIP Investor has researched across Products, Human Impact (health, wealth, earth, equality, trust), Management Practices — and how they drive Profit.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, likely the most customer-friendly in the industry, is positioning itself to make more money. How? By appointing Pamela Nicholson, who’s worked her way up from the front-line ranks when the company was only 200 people over 27 years ago, to the role of President in this family-owned private company.

Does adding women leaders make companies more money? The research of Catalyst.org, a non-profit based in New York, has consistently shown that the top 25% of companies with the largest share of women Directors on a public-company Board beat the bottom quartile companies with a return on equity 53% higher (13.9% for Boards with more women; 9.1% with fewer or no women). For public-company Boards with 3 or more women (the upper echelons of the top quartile), the return on equity skyrockets to 16%. Read more details about higher financial returns when women are represented in leadership which is not yet close to the 50% of women in the population, or the 47% in the workforce. At HIP Investor, we evaluate how companies that represent the population in Boards, executive teams, managers and staff drive higher “Human Impact” which tends to increase “Profit” and financial returns. This Human Impact + Profit, or HIP, correlation can be tracked and a useful measure for both companies and investors. Read more >

Enterprise Rent-A-Car, likely the most customer-friendly in the industry, is positioning itself to make more money. How? By appointing Pamela Nicholson, who’s worked her way up from the front-line ranks when the company was only 200 people over 27 years ago, to the role of President in this family-owned private company.

Does adding women leaders make companies more money? The research of Catalyst.org, a non-profit based in New York, has consistently shown that the top 25% of companies with the largest share of women Directors on a public-company Board beat the bottom quartile companies with a return on equity 53% higher (13.9% for Boards with more women; 9.1% with fewer or no women). For public-company Boards with 3 or more women (the upper echelons of the top quartile), the return on equity skyrockets to 16%. Read more details about higher financial returns when women are represented in leadership which is not yet close to the 50% of women in the population, or the 47% in the workforce. At HIP Investor, we evaluate how companies that represent the population in Boards, executive teams, managers and staff drive higher “Human Impact” which tends to increase “Profit” and financial returns. This Human Impact + Profit, or HIP, correlation can be tracked and a useful measure for both companies and investors.

Read more >