Greg Berry’s post today highlights the need for better metrics in the social finance sector. He cites a recent post by Kevin Jones describing how one social venture fund refused to cooperate with another because it would mess up it’s metrics for the project it was investing in by making it hard to tell what factors were most important. Greg not only agrees with the absurdity of this situation, but also proposes an extremely interesting solution. The solution involves developing better standards for venture metrics, which his group has already at least partially achieved and tested. (Entrepreneurial Standards Forum.)
Good posts and good solutions. My limited experience is very similar: This type of uncooperative blindness is about a) competition for social investment “deal flow” which in turn helps attract more resources to invest, and b) simple self-absorption, sometimes confused with the need for “focus”.
It is interesting to see competition and self-absorption combined with idealism. As idealists, we always hope that … Continue reading ‘Ratings for Entrepreneurs and Investors’
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