Acumen Case Analysis

Case in Impact Investing:

Acumen Fund and Measure in Impact Investing

Driven by the accelerating globalization and the unstoppable heat of entrepreneurial practices in the world market, social responsibility has been put on an ever-more critical value point for multinational organizations that envision an impact not only based on financial margins, but rather, a positive power of the enterprise. This vision, however, requires strategic and measurable actions, in order to recycle the most out of the scarce resources. Acumen Fund, an philanthropically vanguard in impact investment, has provided us an insightful process in valuing social and financial impacts of enterprises. Based on the information provided in the case of the two businesses and Acumen Fund’s value statement, I recommend investing in Ecotact, which would meet Acumen’s mission and provides a more positive development vision, for which reasons will be discussed below.

I. Comparing the two options: How, how much, is it cost-effective?

“Impact evaluation: Determining if and to what extent the change in a Result-level indicator can attribute to a particular intervention, project, program, or policy… and if the amount of change was cost-effective.”

---Larry Dershem, Save The Children.Org

Potential for Significant Social Impact (How): From the starting point of business, Ecotact had a social-responsibility-driven mission to provide accessible toilets and shower facilities for BoP market, as well as the extended markets in other social classes. The demand in the market has been ensured from Kuria’s prior facilities practices. Even though there is a potential market for business-central areas and the city, the target market and benefiting group are straight forward. The social impact is direct to the BoP market and could be easily measure based on the number of paid uses of the facilities.

Meridian Medical Centre, on the other hand, is a...