Impact readiness for your ventures and your programme

Organisations we work with

What you get

• Investment-ready on impact

  Ventures learn to make their theory of change, impact metrics and impact risks concrete, in the language impact investors and funds use.

• Portfolio and programme impact

  A common framework across your cohorts, so you can report programme impact to funders and partners and still show what each venture does differently.

Why we do what we do

Read the film as text

1. We all want to know
2. our place in the world.
3. Thin grey lines join dots into a web.
4. We like to believe that what we do is part of something larger.
5. It is.
6. Together we make our surroundings, our brands, our communities.
7. We shape the work of others, as they shape ours.
8. The web grows dense.
9. We live in one web of cause and consequence.
10. Each path tells a story, part of a larger narrative.
11. A system of meaning.
12. So what is our impact?
13. Whose lives do we touch?
14. What changed? For whom? How much? And what part was ours?
15. Intended or not, for better or worse.
16. Knowing that changes what you do next.
17. A dark line draws a path through the web. Impact management helps you see it, steer it, and use it.
18. A large word: Lead. A purple path runs through the web. Lead with purpose, and fund your mission.
19. A large word: Improve. A green path runs through the web. Learn what doesn’t work and design for better.
20. A large word: Engage. A blue-green path runs through the web. Share your story, and bring others into it.
21. A large word: Account. A blue path runs through the web. State your claim, and prove it.
22. A large word: Discover. A yellow path runs through the web. Find your next impact before it happens.
23. “How do you measure impact?”
24. It sounds hard.
25. It isn’t.
26. It’s not about the how.
27. It’s about
28. Portraits of people fill the screen.
29. A large word: Who.
30. About rights-holders, whose lives are touched.
31. And stakeholders, whose choices shape them.
32. The people stand side by side, at the same height. A wave of colour runs through the web. Every voice, every perspective, equally weighed.
33. The web turns many colours. Pluriform and equivalent.
34. Who determines what.
35. And what determines how.
36. That’s it. No more, no less.
37. We count what can be counted, and listen to the rest.
38. Coloured paths wind across the web. We find the stories that connect the dots, and make sense of the whole.
39. We love our craft:
40. to ask the questions,
41. to measure what matters,
42. and narrate what works.
43. One dark path remains. Let’s reveal your path.
44. The word narrate, with the line: impact in numbers and stories.

What we often hear

• “Our start-ups find it hard to measure impact this early. There are no results yet.”

  We help you work with milestones and leading indicators that suit early-stage ventures, so they validate their theory of change rather than waiting for outcomes.

• “I can’t bring together the impact of our whole portfolio.”

  Together we choose a few shared metrics across ventures: standard enough for reporting, with room for what makes each venture different.

• “Founders see impact measurement as a distraction from growth.”

  We show ventures how impact data strengthens their pitch, customer story and investor due diligence, so it supports growth rather than slowing it.

• “We have too few mentors who know impact.”

  We join as impact mentor or resident expert, run workshops for your cohort, or train your coaches to cover impact themselves.

What you may be wondering

• Isn’t impact measurement too early for young startups?

  No, if you work with milestones and leading indicators that fit their stage. They test their theory of change instead of waiting for results.

• Won’t it distract from growth?

  It strengthens their pitch and investors’ due diligence. We saw that with the entrepreneurs at Impact Hub.

• How do we bring together the impact of a whole portfolio?

  With a few shared indicators, and room for what makes each startup different.

To read

• From crickets to a stadium: seven years with Impact Hub Amsterdam

  Since 2018 Jeroen Wilms of Narrate has been resident impact expert at Impact Hub Amsterdam. He worked there in local and global programmes. Startups, SMEs, corporates and regenerative entrepreneurs came through. What they had in common, and what we learned.