3. Access
Target: Equitable access to healthcare for the elderly, people of colour and women
→ Metric: Increase and improve last mile healthcare delivery
→ Metric: Provide links between the healthcare network to healthcare delivery and the entire system of people
→ Metric: Link personally generated healthcare data (wearables, etc.) with and between providers, and people.
Target: Reduce the maternal mortality ratio by 2030 to less than 70 per 100,000 live births
→ Metric: Access and reliable transport to facilities with skilled personnel (# of people, km)
Target: End preventable deaths of newborns and under 5-mortality to at least less than 25 per 1,000 by 2030
→ Metric: Access and reliable transport to facilities with skilled personnel (# of people, km)
Target: Reduce 1/3 of the premature mortality ratio from non-communicable diseases
→ Metric: Treatment of mental health and substance abuse
Target: Universal access to health facilities, including sexual and reproductive health
→ Metric: Universal health coverage (financial risk protection), access to quality health services and access to safe and effective medicines and vaccines
Target: Universal access to safe water and sanitation; Safe and sustainable fresh water supply
→ Metric: Implementation of water resource management and water-use efficient systems
Target: Well-being in the workplace
→ Metric: Ensuring mental and physical health and well-being of employees
Investing in impact startups
Nathan, please introduce us to your work and how it intersects with the impact space.
I've spent most of my career helping leaders and practitioners design their organizations for the qualities of trustworthiness. In 2020, I co-founded Greater Than Learning, a community-governed social learning platform and collective of ethical change-makers redesigning organizations for positive social impact. Right now we're preparing to incorporate as a platform co-op. Over the last four years, I've been putting my impact investment thesis to the test.
Positive social impact
How do you define “impact”?
Impact typically relates to the effect or influence on someone or something. I prefer to think more explicitly about "positive social impact". Meaning the net positive effect on the health and wellbeing of people, non human animals and the natural world, as they're all connected.
Changing the goals of the system
What do you believe is one of the most important issues that needs to be solved over the next 10 years?
Wow. There's a long laundry list to a question like this. Perhaps the most critical thing for us (as a species) to focus on is changing the goals of the system. I imagine a world where the limiting views of the neoliberal ideology and primary metrics like GDP become far less important and impactful than other goals or metrics, like Well-being Adjusted Life Years. We need to take the systems approach and find the highest impact areas to intervene and better the systems we rely upon.
Within your sector, what do you think are some of the biggest challenges in the impact space that stand in the way of providing solutions faster?
Putting on my impact investment hat here, I think one of the big challenges is that most startups - even when they're impact focused - lack maturity. It's hard for them to effectively design for and evidence the current and potential for positive social impact. This makes it hard for investors, and can elongate due diligence or lead to lower confidence decision-making. If we could make it easier for early stage ventures to adopt better approaches to positive social impact - more consistent and shared approaches - it'd help the entire ecosystem of stakeholders work better together.
Sustainable organizational practices
Nathan, please elaborate on the long-term vision you have for your work and how you measure & quantify your impact.
Better approaches to positive social impact for startups
Impact as a marketing ploy
Throughout your work, have you noticed any misconceptions regarding what “impact” is all about?
I may be speaking out of turn here, but I often feel that "impact" is tacked onto initiatives as somewhat of an afterthought. It isn't the primary focus. I see this constantly in work relating the "ethics". Virtue signalling and ethics washing is rife. Impact is almost becoming a marketing ploy. I also see a lot of very narrow, poorly defined definitions of impact design and measurement. I prefer to take a systems view, and think that's where this movement needs to focus most of its efforts.