Our vision on impact management
We can have the greatest impact by making the right choices. This impact report presents figures and stories that illustrate the positive change we’ve achieved so far. And below we’ll explain how we managed to make that change.
It all starts with our theory of change
The Rabo Foundation strategy revolves around our theory of change. It guides all of our activities and serves as a foundation for our decisions. In the theory of change, we describe which changes Rabo Foundation wants to contribute to, by whom, and how we aim to realize the changes through our interventions. The theory of change describes how financing, knowledge transfer, collaboration and innovation contribute to positive changes in accordance with our mission: offering vulnerable people the opportunity to grow, flourish and stand on their own two feet.
Forecasting impact for every project
We review every new initiative or project to determine whether they tie in to our theory of change by applying the Potential Impact Performance (PIP) model developed by Rabo Foundation. By answering a series of questions, we identify each project’s goals and expected impact. That helps us determine whether the project organizers are working towards the same strategic goals as we are. And what kind of impact the project has: for example, how does the project influence the lives of the people involved? Finally, we consider our added value as an impact lender, and what we can offer aside from financing. That may include assistance in finding other lenders, coaching, or access to new buyers.
Constantly monitoring and adapting
We constantly monitor and manage our impact to make corrections as needed. To that end, we send all of our partner organizations a survey based on the PIP model each year to monitor the progress of their projects. We can also compare projects and their impact, such as coffee cooperatives in a specific region, to see which of our interventions are more successful. To go more in-depth into the subject, we also conduct impact studies. In 2021, for example, we began a study together with 60Decibels into the impact of a guarantee program that we set up together with financial institutions in India.
Stories complete the picture
In addition to the impact data, we also collect stories about people whose lives were positively influenced by a project, and about the organizations that help them. That’s because it’s hard to illustrate changes using number alone, such as the price a farmer’s organization receives for its crops. Change is also about how a smallholder dairy farmer makes himself more resilient to a changing climate. Or how new immigrants in the Netherlands feel happier after finding a job.
Focus on impact in 2022
Our impact is constantly growing, in part thanks to the development of our PIP model. The model will help us better forecast our impact and make better decisions. We are also refining our monitoring activities with a more custom-tailored approach: we will collect more targeted information for each project to help with our interventions. We will also involve our stakeholders and target groups in our monitoring activities as well. And starting in 2022, we will constantly monitor the projects’ impact to consider the impact of new interventions and to make corrections as necessary over the course of the year.