“If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it!’

It’s a classic saying that drives entrepreneurs to improve profit and performance. It rings true to everyone without exception; If you don’t know how to measure your impact then how can you improve it? The same principle applies to the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which has seen a surging participation from the corporate world.

With the world facing an annual USD 3.3 trillion gap in financing SDGs, the role of the private sector has provided a welcome relief to complete the challenging task. Being the main custodian of the SDGs, UNDP has a pivotal role in ensuring standards are met by impact businesses and small medium enterprises (SME).

Staying true to its mission, UNDP Indonesia, under its Innovative Financing Lab, recently held the first online training session on Impact Measurement and Management ( IMM) for Impact Aim Cohorts. In partnership with UNDP’s SDG Innovative Finance (UNSIF) and IMM advisor Pratigya Khurana, the training attracted cohorts from diverse practices such as medical technology, agriculture lending, crowd-funding to name a few.

ImpactAim Indonesia is the brainchild of UNDP Indonesia and Silicon Valley venture capital seed fund and accelerator 500 Startups. It was set up with a core vision to boost the development of social entrepreneurship and startups in Indonesia.

In a way, Indonesia provides a perfect learning laboratory for business impact and measurement practices. Just take a look at its burgeoning SME landscape! According to the Cooperatives and SME Ministry, in 2014 57.9 million of Indonesian’s SMEs contributed 58.92% of the GDP. Online market centric platforms such as Tokopedia and Go-Jek have successfully integrated these SMEs into their businesses, connecting them with Indonesians across the country.

During the one-day training, cohort learnt:

1. Theory of Change as a dynamic guiding framework to encourage self awareness through the problems cohorts are trying to address, their activities and outputs and what kind of outcomes or impacts would occur as an additionality to their work.

2. Mapping their indicators and metrics along the various Sustainable Development Goals as they try to redefine and monitor their activities including short, medium and long term outcomes.

3. Developing their monitoring and evaluation plan towards an impact report to encourage accountability to their funders, investors, beneficiaries and respective companies. In addition to also continually shifting their outlook towards a sustainable and measurable impact.

The participants said the course helped them to sharpen their immediate business goals and impact.

‘This program is helpful in defining our impact goals well and clear for the long run. We’re grateful to participate in this training, so we can set up the right outcome and impact, also to monitor and evaluate it regularly", said Jim Oklahoma, Chief Business Development Officer and Co-Founder of iGrow. Anda Waluyo, COO and Co-Founder of Sehati TeleCTG also said, “Giving the opportunity to participate in IMM Training is truly a blessing for us at Sehati, easing us to measure our own performance as well as communicate and describe the purpose of our company”

Another participant said the course has provided a crucial link to put business theory into practice.

“IMM training session is helping us to look back at our theory of change and making it more relevant to our current business activity. Through the deep-dive session, UNDP gives us great feedback from an outsider's perspective. We will use this framework to create an impact deck that helps us to communicate our impact to the public, customer, or investor”, said Adi Reza Nugroho, CEO and Co-Founder of Mycotech.

The second online training session involved the global UNDP family from India, Thailand, Vietnam and Armenia. Taking the opportunity to landscape the various methods of IMM for business advisory and country offices. UNDP Istanbul’s Rabayl Mirza also introduced the Business Call to Action platform and methodology.

The IMM provides a perfect vehicle to measure the scale of impact and activities across all business sectors. Furthermore, it also allows us to level the ground by taking a look at various areas with a smaller impact and connect them to the bigger picture. Truly, it serves as an important component in bridging the development and private sector, a key cog in the wheel of financing the SDGs.

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Writing by Cindy Colondam and Inez Stefanie

Edited by Ranjit Jose and Tomi Soetjipto