Exploring Innovative Approaches to Measure and Manage Outcomes in relation with the SDGs
Purpose: Promote strong outcomes measurement and management by financial service providers, investors, and other mission-driven organizations, through the sharing of good practices, development and dissemination of resources and tools, and direct support to mission-driven organizations to measure outcomes on their clients and beneficiaries against the Sustainable Development Goals’ metrics. Learn more below!
Team: Célia Fernandez, Head of Impact Program (Cerise), Cécile Lapenu, Executive Director (Cerise), and Amelia Greenberg, Deputy Director (SPTF).
Languages: Most resources are available in French and English.
Members: Open to all. Join our thematic working groups!
Meetings & Events
Outcomes Management & the Voices of Customers in Financial Inclusion: The Experience of Alterfin with Voices That Count.
In a context of a growing demand for more transparency on the actual outcomes of financial inclusion, we intend to value customer-centric approaches to make informed decisions and adapt products and services to customer needs and constraints. This webinar was dedicated to share the innovative experience of Alterfin using SenseMaker with the assistance of Voices That Count. SenseMaker is a mixed methodology for data collection that considers the narratives of customers – and not just a standard closed survey – and combines those first-hand narratives with the statistical authority of quantitative data.
WATCH THE RECORDING | DOWNLOAD PRESENTATION
Date: April 16th, 2025.
Language: English
Speakers:
- Pallavi Hariharan, Environmental & Social Impact Manager at Alterfin.
- Caterina Giordano, Chief Impact Officer at Alterfin.
- Steff Deprez from Voices That Count.
- Claudia Van Gool Maldonado from Voices That Count.
Moderators:
- Cécile Lapenu, Executive Director at Cerise+SPTF
- Célia Fernandez, Head of Impact Program and Communication at Cerise+SPTF.
Project description
Background
The Sustainable Outcomes Management Project contributes to building local capacities and international knowledge for efficient outcomes measurement and management in connection with the SDGs.
The world has rallied behind the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), a set of 17 goals that provides a roadmap for environmental health and human flourishing. Impact organizations need a strategy and good practices to measure achievement and adapt their operations.
Today, outcomes measurement and management is getting more and more traction. It is a useful approach to support strong customer protection and empowerment, ESG risk management, SDG contribution, and for impact investors to differentiate from mainstream investors.
Impact organizations – particularly financial inclusion and social business stakeholders – value support on customer outcomes measurement and how to use outcomes for business intelligence. Our collective work aims at building support to implement strong outcomes management that will improve resilience and impact – at organization and end-customer levels – as well as transparent measurement of our contribution to the SDGs.
Objectives
The SOM Project aims to strengthen outcomes management of financial institutions, social businesses and impact investors in relation to targeting vulnerable populations (SDG 1), improving their living conditions (SDG 2, SDG 8), gender equality (SDG 5) and environmental issues (SDG 13, SDG 15).
Cerise+SPTF and its partners provide guidance through the sharing of good practices, development and dissemination of resources and tools, and direct support to impact-driven organizations to measure outcomes on their customers and beneficiaries against the SDGs metrics. In the end, the project will contribute to creating a resilient and sustainable financial system.
Specific objectives:
- Strengthen local capacity to collect and analyze data at beneficiary level, using simple household survey methods and focusing on environmental issues (focus on SDGs 13 and 15).
- Enhance the digitization of data collected, in particular on the SPI Online platform, so that impact organizations can better understand the changes experienced by beneficiaries and use this data and relevant dashboards to adapt products and services in favor of the achievement of the SDGs.
- Capitalize on and disseminate knowledge and analyses for a better contribution to the SDGs, in particular by sharing good outcomes management practices based on standardized approaches.
Scope
Duration: 3 years (March 2024 – December 2026)
Locations: France, United States, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.
End-beneficiaries: The project will indirectly reach around 5 million people connected with the local organizations involved in the project.
Working Groups
The working groups are bodies to co-create, exchange, and inform about the project advancement. They are moderated by Cerise+SPTF with strategic partners.
Members are both partners and beneficiaries of the project. They are involved in carrying out support activities with field partners and capitalizing on results.
Click on the chart to read content.
Partners & Cofunders
In collaboration with the European Microfinance Platform (e-MFP). Learn more
With financial support from
Recent Publications
Toolkit
Data Collection Methods for Outcomes Measurement & Management
Beyond environmental, social, governance (ESG) compliance reporting, to ensure actual customer protection and to understand what works and what does not work, the voice of the users counts! This toolkit is aimed at guiding stakeholders in selecting, using and sometimes combining the most appropriate data collection methods to measure customer outcomes from using financial services.
It starts with general guidance on the effective use of data collection methods, applicable across all types, to maximize the quality and relevance of the data collected.
Then it presents summaries around the main categories of data collection methods:
- Quantitative Data Collection
- Qualitative Data Collection
- Mixed Approaches
For each methodology, this toolkit describes how it works in general, discusses its pros and cons, and makes recommendations for when to use it.
Research Paper
Doing Good and Avoiding Harm
Cerise+SPTF, in collaboration with MFR and 60 Decibels, conducted a research study to explore the correlations between Social Performance Management (SPM) practices and customer outcomes. Through this research, we sought insights into what management practices are critical to making financial services beneficial to customers while avoiding customer harm, to guide future improvements in the sector.
The research combined data from 72 unique financial services providers (FSPs). Specifically, the data sources were:
- Cerise+SPTF: SPI Full and ALINUS3 audits, which assess SPM practices.
- MFR: Social audit (assessing SPM practices) and Impact Assessments (assessing outcomes).
- 60 Decibels: Microfinance Index data, which capture customer outcomes.
The dataset included 73 different variables on different management practices as well as a wide range of customer outcomes.
The analysis tested two main hypotheses:
- Stronger SPM practices are associated with better customer outcomes.
- Weaker customer protection (CP) practices are associated with worse customer outcomes.
Blog Post
From Outcomes to Impact
How strong outcomes management systems can help financial service providers make the right decisions for their customers
Through a blog post with FinDev Gateway, we discuss how financial service providers like Juhudi Kilimo in Kenya use outcomes management to assess and improve customer impact. By regularly collecting and analyzing customer data, FSPs can adapt services, improve customer resilience, and align with the Sustainable Development Goals, leading to new funding opportunities.
Previous initiatives by Cerise and SPTF
For the last 10 years, through agile and collaborative approaches, Cerise, SPTF and their partners have been working to answer the needs of financial service providers and their stakeholders for practical guidance and support in outcomes measurement and management to reach their impact goals.
In October 2020, drawing on previous experience through SPTF’s “Outcomes Working Group” – which has developed practical guidelines for credible measurement and reporting of outcomes – Cerise pushed a step further with a multiple-phases project, called at forst the “LabODD” (ODD is the French acronym for SDGs). This initiative is co-financed by the French agency for development (AFD).
In 2024-2026, Cerise+SPTF operates under this common project “Sustainable Outcomes Management” and organizes the work through strategic and operational working groups.
Webinars y Materiales en Español (2014-2017)Archives from SPTF Outcomes Working Group (2014-2018)
Briefs
Webinar 1 – Introduction to the issues for the Outcomes Working Group.
Webinar 2 – Theory of change: how it helps us think about what to measure and when.
Webinar 3 – Selection of Outcome Indicators.
Webinar 4 – The CGAP Ford Social Indicators Project.
Webinar 5 – Sharing the experience of IDEPRO *EN ESPANOL.
Webinar 6 – Sharing the experience of Cashpor *EN ESPANOL.
Webinar 7 – Sharing the experience of Friendship Bridge *EN ESPANOL.
Webinar 8 – Towards recommended core indicators: 1 Business Outcomes.
Webinar 9 – Towards recommended core indicators: 2 Assets, Housing, Economic Poverty.
Webinar 10 – Towards recommended core indicators: 3 Resilience and Vulnerability.
Webinar 11 – Sharing the experience of Women’s World Banking *EN ESPANOL.
Webinar 12 – Opportunities for Outcomes Management in MSME finance.
Webinar 13 – Building the System for Outcomes Management, Komida (Indonesia).
Webinar 14 – FINCA Experience with Outcomes Management.
Webinar 15 – Indicators of Financial Stress, Including Over-indebtedness.
Webinar 16 – Fundacion Paraguaya’s Poverty Spotlight Tool and the Truelift Initiative.
Webinar 17 – MIX Discusses Results from Voice of the Client Research.
Webinar 18 – IPA shares what is new with the PPI
Webinar 19 – Fundación Genesis Empresarial shares its client outcomes management system
Webinar 20 – Findings from the SIDBI-funded study on gender integration in microfinance
Webinar 21 – Findings from an impact study on KWFT’s housing microfinance product
Webinars
Between 2014-18, SPTF hosted a series of Outcomes Working Group webinars that started by introducing key concepts and then featured expert interviews that shared how different types of stakeholders collect outcomes data and use it to make strategic decisions that ultimately drive better outcomes for both providers and their clients.
WEBINAR 1 – Introductory session, October 2014
Recording
PowerPoint
Apuntes
WEBINAR 2 – Theory of change: how it helps us think about what to measure and when, December 2014 and March 2015
Recording
PowerPoint
Bamboo Finance reports that it has been using impact maps/theory of change for a while, and is happy to share its Impact Report 2014 with you. On page 15 of this report, there is a full map for a deposit-taking FSP. Download the report here.
Presentación PowerPoint
Apuntes
WEBINAR 3 – Selection of Outcomes Indicators, February 2015
Recording
PowerPoint
Notes
Presentación PowerPoint
Apuntes
Click here for Freedom From Hunger’s paper on Health Outcome Performance Indicators (HOPI) Project Report (2015)
WEBINAR 3 (repeat) – Selection of Outcomes Indicators, April 2015
Recording
PowerPoint
SEEP and Microcredit Summit co-hosted, “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: How FSPs Can Track the Health of Clients.”
Blog: Health Outcome Performance Indicators will help us “understand clients”
WEBINAR 4 – CGAP/Ford Foundation Social Indicators Project, September 2015
Recording
PowerPoint
The following technical notes were developed by SEEP based on the experience of the Social Indicators Project:
SEEP Microfinane social indicators in practice
SEEP sampling methodology for social indicators
SEEP why use social indicators?
WEBINAR 5 – Sharing the experience of IDEPRO, October 2015
Due to technical difficulties, our recording for this session here has about 9 minutes of space after minute 21:47. Please forward to minute 30:56 to continue listening. We apologize for the inconveneince and thank you for your understanding.
PowerPoint
IDEPRO case study *EN ESPANOL
Apuntes
MIX Market’s webinar on their “Voice of the Client” project, November 2015
Read the paper: An Analysis of Client Satisfaction and Consumer Protection Across Four Microfinance Institutions in India
WEBINAR 6 – Sharing the experience of Cashpor, November 2015
Recording
PowerPoint *EN ESPANOL
WEBINAR 7 – Sharing the experience of Friendship Bridge, January 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 8 – Indicators to track business outcomes, March 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 9 – Indicators to track Poverty/Assets/Housing Outcomes, March 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 10 – Indicators to track Resilience and Vulnerability Outcomes, April 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 11 -Sharing the experience of Women’s World Banking, May 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 12 – Opportunities for outcomes management in MSME finance, July 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 13 – Building the System for Outcomes Management in Komida, Indonesia, July 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 14 – FINCA’s Approach to Outcomes Measurement and Analysis, October 2016
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 15 – Early Signs of Client Stress and Over-indebtedness, February 2017
Recording
PowerPoint
Working list of outcome indicators in several outcome areas – in English en español
Client Outcomes Report – in English en español
WEBINAR 16 – Poverty Spotlight Tool of Fundacion Paraguaya and the Truelift Initiative, October 2017
Recording
PowerPoint presentations:
– Poverty Spotlight Tool
– Truelift
Other resources:
– Evaluation (Sep 2017). Changing aspirations through poverty measurement – the Poverty Spotlight tool [Hammler and Burt]
– Evaluation (June 2014). The Poverty Spotlight: Does personalized coaching in microfinance help clients overcome poverty? [Accion]
– Evaluation (December 2013): Measuring the Social Impact of Fundaction Paraguaya [EAConsultants]
– Appendix to evaluation (December 2013): Measuring the Social Impact of Fundaction Paraguaya [EAConsultants]
WEBINAR 17 – MIX Discusses Results from Voice of the Client Research, November 2017
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 18 – IPA Discusses What Is New with the Poverty Probability Index (PPI), December 2017
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 19 – Fundación Genesis Empresarial client outcomes management system, January 2018
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 20 – SIDBI-funded study on Gender Integration in Microfinance, May 2018
Recording
PowerPoint
WEBINAR 21 – Findings on the Impact of KWFT’s Housing Microfinance Product, Developed in Collaboration with Habitat for Humanity
Recording
PowerPoint