How to  Steer your Impact and make it Tangible   

Impact Management and Measurement

Impact man­age­ment is a journey—and we are your part­ner along the way. Use our resources to steer, mea­sure, and opti­mize your impact. This will not only help you to drive long-term change but also gain the trust of investors, cus­tomers, and part­ners. 

What is Impact Management?

Impact man­age­ment is the key to turn­ing your vision of a bet­ter world into con­crete results. The point is to pur­sue soci­etal and envi­ron­men­tal goals as much as eco­nomic ones. While tra­di­tional man­age­ment focuses on opti­miz­ing processes and max­i­miz­ing prof­its, impact man­age­ment com­bines these approaches with the pur­suit of mea­sur­able and sus­tain­able change. 

Impact man­age­ment means: 

  • Setting your focus: What are the social or envi­ron­men­tal chal­lenges that your startup aims to address? 
  • Measuring impact: What valu­able insights can you gain from your work? 
  • Adapting strate­gies: Use the data from your mea­sure­ments to con­tin­u­ously improve your impact. 
  • Motivating sup­port­ers: Whether it’s your team or project part­ners, com­pelling impact sto­ries help you engage peo­ple and win them over to sup­port your vision. 

Why it mat­ters:

  • It helps you to set clear goals and to mon­i­tor your progress. 
  • It enables per­pet­ual learn­ing and improve­ment. 
  • It shows investors and part­ners that your enter­prise does not just have good inten­tions but also deliv­ers results. 
  • It makes your work tan­gi­ble and under­stand­able— and sets you apart from other star­tups. 

Why Measure Impact? 

Impact mea­sure­ment is not just a “nice-to-have”—it’s an essen­tial part of any impact-ori­ented strat­egy. It allows you tounder­stand your startup’s impact and to make it vis­i­ble to cus­tomers and part­ners. Impact man­age­ment—the coor­di­na­tion and struc­tured imple­men­ta­tion of impact prac­tices within the organization—makes a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence beyond mea­sure­ment. Integrating learn­ing and iter­a­tion into your processes becomes a core form of qual­ity man­age­ment. 

The ben­e­fits of impact mea­sure­ment: 

Identifying areas for improve­ment

Data and insights from mea­sure­ments show what works well—and where is room for growth. 

Creating trans­parency

Provide reli­able evi­dence how your work con­tributes to soci­etal or envi­ron­men­tal goals, for exam­ple, the amount of CO₂ your busi­ness has saved or how many peo­ple gained access to edu­ca­tion. 

Building trust

Investors and part­ners look for com­pa­nies that don’t just tell com­pelling sto­ries but also back them up with tes­ti­mo­ni­als and data. 

Improve Self-Reflection and Quality through Agility

Self-reflec­tion is a key com­po­nent of Lean Impact. Ask your­selves reg­u­larly:

  • „Are we reach­ing the peo­ple we want to sup­port?“ 
  • „How can we bet­ter uti­lize feed­back from our tar­get group?“ 
  • „What resources do we need to max­i­mize our impact?“ 

Starting March 2025, use our self-assess­ment tool to eval­u­ate your pro­jec­t’s matu­rity level and find con­crete approaches for fur­ther devel­op­ment.

Methods and Tools for Impact Management

Impact man­age­ment is not based on guesswork—it’s a strate­gic process rooted in proven meth­ods and tools. These help you to ask the right ques­tions, set clear goals, and achieve mea­sur­able results. 

Key meth­ods and frame­works: 

Theory of Change

This frame­work helps you visu­al­ize your impact. What steps will it take to trans­form your idea into long-term change? The Theory of Change shows the path. 

Output-Outcome-Impact Framework

This model dis­tin­guishes between direct results (out­puts), the changes achieved (out­comes), and the long-term soci­etal impact (impact). 

Indicators and Metrics

Without mea­sur­able indi­ca­tors, impact remains abstract. Choose met­rics that make your progress visible—for exam­ple, tons of CO₂ saved, the num­ber of teach­ers trained , or the amount of waste reduc­tion. 

Lean Impact Guide

Our Lean Impact Guide pro­vides a step-by-step approach to inte­grat­ing impact into your busi­ness model from the out­set.

Whether you’re just start­ing out or look­ing to refine your con­cept, our play­book guides you through key top­ics, start­ing in March 2025.

Good Practices – Learning from the Best 

Successful impact-dri­ven enter­prisesstrate­gi­cally mea­sure and man­age soci­etal change. These exam­ples can be a source of inspi­ra­tion to you: 

Too Good To Go

This startup fights food waste while help­ing restau­rants and super­mar­kets cut costs. Through a clever app, sur­plus food is passed directly to consumers—a win-win model for every­one involved. 

Tomorrow Bank

This bank offers sus­tain­able finan­cial prod­ucts with a trans­par­ent impact approach, ensur­ing that your money con­tributes to pos­i­tive social and envi­ron­men­tal change. 

Boreal Light

Boreal Light uses solar-pow­ered water treat­ment sys­tems to deliver clean drink­ing water to remote regions, achiev­ing sus­tain­able and life-chang­ing impact. 

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