The ability to track and measure social impact is critical as social impact investing grows in its ability to compete with traditional investments. App-X, a B-Corporation in Colorado, has developed two cloud-computing solutions, PULSE and AIM, to help track criteria, benchmark and manage investment portfolios. App-X has integrated IRIS (Impact Reporting and Investment Standards) into their PULSE product.
The Rockefeller Foundation, Acumen Fund, and B Lab began developing IRIS in early 2008. In 2009, IRIS became a program of the Global Impact Investing Network. IRIS defines standards against which non-financial criteria can be measured. By creating this standard, social impact can be evaluated across organizations to determine goal achievement and to help evaluate corporate value for investors. This is critical if social impact investing is to compete with traditional investments on Wall Street.
For socially conscious investing to grow into Board Room decisions, standardization is crucial. App-X is helping by providing an application, PULSE, that takes these standards defined by IRIS, incorporates them into a database that runs on the SalesForce platform, integrates with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) functions and with App-X’s other application, AIM. AIM is another cloud application that provides front-office tracking and reporting functions. PULSE and AIM together track and report criteria for investment portfolio decisions and fund management as well as non-financial, social impact business strategy decisions.
Beth Busenhart is the Product Manager for PULSE and works with organizations in the Impact Investing Sector to improve their effectiveness and efficiency through innovative technology solutions. These organizations include the Acumen Fund, Inter-American Development Bank or IDB, Accion International, Microvest and Next Street. To learn more about how IDB has applied App-X solutions, look at this IDB case study.
For additional information about social impact investing, visit:
NextBillion.net
Read:
Social Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference
by Anthony Bugg-Levine and Jed Emerson
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