Social Impact: Social Performance Indicators
This note summarizes results of the social impact review conducted by Grassroots on its portfolio MFIs.
The paper emphasizes Grassroots commitment to developing effective tools for measuring and monitoring social impact in its portfolio MFIs, and the industry in general. Grassroots tested its revised social impact assessment tool on four portfolio MFIs, and incorporated the results into its dialogues and action plans for its MFIs. This paper presents a summary of the review, breakdown of the scores by indicators and description of the indicators. The five social indicators used were outreach, scale, consumer protection, innovation and financing.
The review confirmed some of Grassroots assumptions about the social performance of its MFIs. The MFIs:
- Employed truth-in-lending strategies and were transparent;
- Measured the social impact of their business on clients using the PPI or similar in-house tools;
- Placed meaningful emphasis on social outputs as an integral part of their operations.
