Written by ANDE's Director of Research and Impact, this article gives an overview of why to measure impact, what to measure, how to collect data, and practical considerations for putting impact data into practice.
"Corporate venturing has gained much attention due to challenges and changes that occur because of discontinuous innovations - which seem to be promoted by digitalization. In this context, open innovation has become a promising tool for established companies to strengthen their innovation capabilities. While the external opening of the innovation process has gained much attention, the internal opening lacks on investigations. Especially new organizational forms, such as Internal Corporate Accelerators, have not been investigated sufficiently. This study, which is based on 13 interviews from two German tech-companies, contributes to a better understanding of this new form of corporate venturing and the resulting effects on the organizational renewal."
"This guide leads the reader through the process of observing, analysing and visualising the entrepreneurial ecosystem - meaning the entrepreneurs' environment including the surrounding institutions, actors and prevailing culture - a process referred to as 'mapping'. Such mapping enables the exploration of gaps and constraints and facilitates decisions on measures that are most relevant to improve the entrepreneurial environment in a given context.
This guide explicitly addresses those implementing development programmes that are operating in, or intend to conduct activities in, the field of entrepreneurship and the promotion of growth-oriented MSMEs."
"The following report builds upon desk research as well as key observations from the workshop, "Financing Renewable Energy in South East Asia" workshop held in Phnom Penh in December, 2017. The event was an opportunity to address the current challenges entrepreneurs face when trying to access finance in SEA (with a geographic focus on Cambodia and Myanmar). We hope that this work will educate entrepreneurs on the type of financing available to them as well as serve as a reference for donors on why certain financing schemes are relevant and more successful in the RE sector and in the SEA region."
"The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are an ambitious and universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. The SDGs also present a tremendous opportunity for investors to support this global agenda by deploying increasing amounts of capital to high-impact projects that address these critical societal challenges.
These case studies show the increasingly sophisticated and targeted ways in which impact investors are directing capital towards the SDGs, designing products to address one or several goals, by incorporating them throughout the investment cycle: during sourcing and due diligence, investment selection and structuring, investment management, and exit."
"Entrepreneurs play a critical role in cities and nations as they create new jobs, generate economic growth, and spread the
development of new innovations. When local entrepreneurship communities are productive, their cities and regions are more
likely to thrive, but when entrepreneurship communities struggle, cities and regions can become trapped in decline.The following pages will share five critical lessons on entrepreneurship communities and productivity. They will also offer practical recommendations that decision makers can use to implement Entrepreneur-Led Economic Development in cities across the world."
"In 2018, the ANDE South Africa team completed an in-depth snapshot of programs supporting entrepreneurs in Gauteng. This snapshot builds on previous efforts to identify support for entrepreneurs in South Africa."
"In this brief, we respond to a question from the Argidius Foundation about the return on investment for accelerators: At the Argidius Foundation, we assess the return on total investment (ROTI) of the capacity development programs that we support. What can your data tell us about the return on investment for accelerator programs?"
"Gender discrimination in Latin American societies significantly reduces the effective participation of women in the development of new businesses; therefore, it limits their possibilities for professional advancement, as well as development opportunities for their families. In an even broader context, inequality prevents women from efficiently contributing to business development in countries of the region. The possibilities of undertaking new ventures are diminished by this reality. Most of the women surveyed for this study mentioned that they have suffered discrimination while doing business because of their gender. In fact, the results of this research paper show that women perceive greater inequality in opportunities to create companies and face more barriers in accessing resources, mainly financial ones, to develop their enterprises. These barriers have a negative effect on the outcomes and growth prospects of businesses created by women. Indeed, they prevent women, who represent more than 50% of the population, from efficiently contributing to the creation of wealth and jobs in Latin American countries."
"This article presents an innovative method of engaging MBA students in a capstone course by offering a customizable project with businesses that are currently progressing through a regional, independent incubator, or accelerator program. We include various project options but focus on customizable capstone project alternatives to traditional business strategy simulations and case study methods. Namely, our innovative learning solution is a mock consulting project which drives innovation and fosters strategic collaboration between small business owners, university faculty, and MBA students while providing business strategy experience and generating positive exposure for both the university and the small businesses involved. Our method includes pairing MBA students with participating startup businesses and allowing the soon-to-be MBAs an opportunity to garner consulting experience while simultaneously serving the needs of the businesses in the accelerator. Accordingly, MBA students act as consultants to business owners and prepare detailed weekly briefings to inform stakeholders within the university and the constituent businesses. By breaching the typical capstone project parameters, the mock consulting option provides for experiential and applied learning experiences for MBA students and develops higher order strategic thinking by challenging them to work hand-in-hand with real startups."