Surrounding the COVID19 pandemic, we have taken stock of what the impact management movement’s future is. Thanks in part to a referral from our colleagues at 60 Decibels, we had the privilege of doing a project for the systems innovators at Rural Opportunity Institute whose purpose – to transform the root of poverty in rural North Carolina – is close to the one that inspired our business originally. Their system map of the root cause of generational poverty in rural North Carolina, and the human-centered design approach they take to innovate sound solutions that can be sustained, inspired us to team with them to explore the system conditions that explain why innovations that have soundly demonstrated their ability to deliver results do not command the sustained resources to realize their full potential.

The rise of blockchain, AI and other technologies; human-centered design; 21st century multiculturalism; the climate crisis; looming authoritarianism; and the impact management profession, all point to opportunity to update what impact management is, and how it serves the ultimate purpose of a world with well-being for all. Our effort to collaboratively define, test, improve, and scale this way of working is called the RIDER Challenge: Rural Innovation Done Right. Its ramifications we believe go far beyond rural.

If you are interested in learning more about RIDER please reach out. If you’d like to see a history of our work prior to RIDER, read on!