We recently had a great discussion with our friends at Ecotone and one of their clients, Carl Phinney of Opportunity Construction, about how the SROI analysis and Impact Overview they created has enabled his business to reach new levels of success.
Carl has built his business to address a need he himself had to solve: how to become a full member of society again, in a society that doesn’t welcome you back from prison. How did he do it? He started his own business in construction; one that has become about far more than roads and highways. Opportunity Construction is about giving those returning from prison a place to come back into their own lives once they have paid their debts to society, and to not only make ends meet but achieve dignified, stable work that rests on a stable living situation, financial and other skills development, and a group of peers who see their full potential and are there to invest in it.
But banks don’t see that investment, they only see profit margins. That’s why having a skilled firm assess the social return on his investment was so crucial. Opportunity Construction’s analysis has a beautiful, compelling Ecotone cover summary, and is back-ended by a 40-page analysis that enables critical readers to dig into the data, assumptions, sensitivity analysis and more. It was this substantive analysis underneath the pretty cover that attracted a top manager to join the firm and help Carl grow to the next level.
Carl’s experience is one any other enterprise might have when it is investing for a mission bigger than solely profits. Hear more from him and Ecotone about how impact management plays a role in their work in this video summary of our session.
Photo credit above: Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
