On 20 and 21 February, Catalyst Co-Labs convened more than 20 experts and practitioners from Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, New Zealand, Rwanda, South Africa, Sweden, Uganda and the US, in a hybrid event held online and locally in Nairobi. Together, in two interactive co-design sessions, they convened to help Collaborative Value Partners Africa (CVPA) come closer to identifying metrics for their ecosystem development model that enables social enterprises to scale their impact.

Measuring the impact of collaboration between different organisations is hard. But that didn’t stop Catalyst 2030 member and Ashoka fellow Dr Wamuyu Mahinda.

Dr. Mahinda is the founder of Collaborative Value Partners Africa. CVPA is based on her Collective Enterprise Model for African Homegrown Solutions aimed at achieving systems change. The organisation currently supports 16 local social entrepreneurs in six African countries and CVPA now faces the need to measure the impact of their model so that they can manage, evolve, and replicate it for impact.

Enter Catalyst Co-Labs

And that’s where ­­Catalyst Co-Labs comes in. A Catalyst Co-Lab is a carefully curated collaboration between a broad community of stakeholders and experts, many of them Catalyst 2030 members, around a specific, tangible challenge faced by a social entrepreneur. The co-design process to solve the challenge, or problem, leads to exciting new ideas, relationships and insights from across the world. Co-Lab participants and anyone who wishes can carry these forward, all in the name of collaboration to advance the SDGs.

In two dynamic co-creation facilitated sessions, the teams were able to tease out a number of measurement approaches to help track performance and impact between social enterprises, the community, private sector partners and government, within CVPA’s Collective Enterprise Model. The Model envisions a three-pronged impact approach measuring the Individual, the Community and the Enterprise.

Outcome

One of the main outcomes was the recognition that collaboration metrics needed to address systemic impact and be multi-dimentional. For CVPA, this means being able to assess the transformation impact of collaborations, as well as being able to track Collaboration, Ethics/Operating Principles, Sustainability, Shared Value (but not always equal value), Clarity of Roles, Transparency & Accountability, Shared Story/Narrative and Formal Communications.

As is intended for all Catalyst Co-Labs, many of the participants are interested to stay involved with CVPA’s next steps as they leverage their shared learning from the Co-Lab. In summary, it was a smashing success!

Getting involved

Are you interested in sponsoring a Co-Lab, participating in a Co-Lab or being the lead Social Entrepreneur with a Challenge for a Co-Lab? If so, reach out to the Co-Lab team at info@catalyst-colabs.org.