Funders & Investors
Common Approach helps you get the impact data you need without imposing additional burdens on the organizations you fund or invest in.
Common Approach is a set of Standards designed around the needs of the businesses, nonprofits and charities that you support. Our Standards are not funder- or investor-focused—but they will complement what you are already using in ways the organizations you support will appreciate.
As a funder or investor, we encourage you to align with our Standards.
How to align with the Common Approach
As a funder or investor, you are considered fully aligned with the Common Approach when your funding practices are aligned with the appropriate stages. It is not required that you offer funding or financing at every stage.
Ready to align?
Common Approach is supporting the impact measurement of the Government of Canada’s Social Finance Fund
Alignment versus adoption
Organizations that adopt a Standard have confirmed that their own impact measurement practice meets that standard.
Organizations that have aligned with a Standard have integrated the requirements of the standard into how they work with other organizations.
Structuring your alignment
Each Standard has stages of alignment, ranging from a simple, low-barrier starting point to a more robust commitment that will likely take some effort. How you structure your alignment will depend on the types of organizations you are working with or the funding you are offering. Not all of the investments or funding you offer have to align at the same stage—we encourage you to consider recipients’ specific needs and capacities so as not to overburden them.
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Stage 1 |
Stage 2 |
Stage 3 |
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Enables fund recipients to adopt (starting point for all funding; stage for small/short funding) |
Encourages fund recipients to adopt (suitable for medium size/length funding) |
Requires fund recipients to adopt (suitable for large/long-term funding) |
Common Approach believes this staged structure gives an appropriate level of flexibility. Funders and investors can align in a way that fits the varied needs of the organizations you support. The flexibility of this structure also leaves room for it to evolve.
Stage 1
You ask all recipients to complete the Common Foundations self-assessment and to submit the results to you by the conclusion of your financial agreement or another mutually agreed-upon timeframe.
Stage 2
You ask all recipients to adopt the Common Foundations, by answering “Yes” to all questions on the self-assessment, by the conclusion of your financial agreement or another mutually agreed-upon timeframe.*
Stage 3
You require all recipients adopt the Common Foundations (answering “Yes” to all self-assessment questions) by the start of the grant, loan, or investment.*
*For Stage 2 and 3, consider providing capacity-building support to adopt the Common Foundations.
Stage 1: Basic
You are able to receive the following data from recipients using the Common Impact Data Standard:
Classes included are:
- Organization (legal name)
- Outcome (name, description)
- Indicator (name, description)
- IndicatorReport (name, value, comment)
- Theme (name)
Note: Any aligned software can support this reporting.
Stage 2: Essential
You request recipients be able to report on Stage 1 requirements using the Common Impact Data Standard, plus the following:
Classes included are:
- All Basic Tier classes, plus:
- Organization (Org ID, issuedBy)
- Outcome (code, theme)
- Indicator(code)
- IndicatorReport (baseline, time)
- Theme (code, description)
- Stakeholder (description, location)
- Characteristic (name, value, code)
- StakeholderOutcome (Name, Code, isUnderserved, hasImportance, description)
- Impact Report (name, time, ImpactScale, ImpactDepth, comment)
Note: Any software aligned at least at the Essential tier can support this reporting.
Stage 3: Full
You require recipients be able to report on Stage 1 and 2 requirements using the Common Impact Data Standard, plus the following:
Classes included are:
- All Essential Tier classes, plus:
- ImpactModel (all)
- Outcome (canProduce, canEnable)
- Indicator (usesOutput, threshold, generatedBy, dataset)
- IndicatorReport (all)
- StakeholderOutcome (fromThePerspectiveOf, IntendedImpact)
- Impact Report (hasReportedImpact, ImpactRisk, ImpactDuration, hasExpectation, Counterfactual)
Note: Any fully aligned software can support this reporting.
Common Form
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Stage 1 |
Stage 2 |
Stage 3 |
| At all stages, you allow for the Common Form to be uploaded/submitted as part of the initial screening process instead of identical questions elsewhere in your intake process. You may ask for more information, even in the early stage, but you have done the work to ensure the information covered by the Common Form does not need to be submitted in an alternate format. Any aligned software can support this—or we are happy to work with your existing software provider to get this set up. | ||
Common Framework
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Stage 1 |
Stage 2 |
Stage 3 |
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At all stages, you follow these steps: Step 1: You do not require specific metrics of the organizations you support. Instead, you encourage them to measure what is useful to them. Step 2: Flexible framework. Working with the Common Approach, you build a flexible framework specific to your funding. This allows you to roll up dissimilar indicators into a portfolio-level analysis. Step 3 (not yet available): Common Approach is still working on our Common Framework. We invite you to share your experiences with the Common Approach as we create a common, flexible framework. |
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As a funder or investor, you are considered fully aligned with the Common Approach when your funding practices are aligned with the appropriate stages. It is not required that you offer funding or financing at every stage.
Ready to align?
Common Approach believes that investors & funders are in the best position to determine the appropriate thresholds for each stage. Criteria for determining appropriate stages might include things such as duration or size of funding.
Example of how a funder or investor might structure their alignment:
- Stage one: Funding under $50,000 with a duration of 12 months or less
- Stage two: Funding over $50,000 with a duration between 1 and 2 years.
- Stage three: Funding greater than $200,000 and with a duration exceeding 2 years.
Still not sure how to decide? Here are some other elements to consider.
The 10% principle
Consider the cost of alignment of each stage. Ensure the funding or investment is enough that 10% of the amount received could reasonably be allocated to monitoring and evaluation. Another way to look at it: Is this funding sufficient to cover the expenses of meeting the impact measurement expectations associated with this alignment stage?
Reasonable runways
Ensure that the funding or investment agreements are for a length of time in which it would be reasonable for the recipient to undertake and benefit from any capacity building (staffing, training, learning software) required to meet the expectations associated with that stage.
More on the alignment structure
The staged approach ensures that investors and funders do not need to impose excessive burdens on those they fund in order to align with the Common Foundations standards. Instead, this approach allows you to set your own thresholds based on your knowledge of who you are funding or investing in.
In addition, we encourage you to support your recipient organizations’ capacity to measure what is relevant to them. This may mean additional funding, additional time, or both.
Stages 2 and 3 are more rigorous. Funding of larger amounts or longer duration should be aligned at the appropriate level. Mid-sized or mid-length funding may stop at Stage 2. Larger, longer-term funding should align at Stage 3.
Funders and investors with a diverse portfolio would benefit from assigning a stage to each size, level or other categorization of funding for Common Foundations and the Common Impact Data Standard.
The Common Form has only one step: be willing and able to accept submissions in the Common Form format. We can help you understand what that means. We can also talk to your Grant Management software to take the task entirely off your plate.
The Common Framework has three steps, but only the first two are ready today. The first step is to simply not impose common metrics on recipient organizations. The second steps ask you to create a flexible framework to map how recipient organizations’ impact measures can be rolled up to create a portfolio-level analysis. We can guide you through that process. The third step, still in development, involves creating a common, flexible framework. That will take some time, but we are working on it!
It is possible that all of a funder or investor’s portfolio will fall within a single stage. Some may only offer funding they feel is best suited to stage 1. Some may only offer funding or investments that are stage 1 and 2. Others may have funding in their portfolio that varies from stage 1 through stage 3.
You may wish to revisit your alignment structure every couple of years. As more and more Social Purpose Organizations adopt the Common Foundations and the Common Impact Data Standard, you will be able to move more of your fundees into Stages 2 and 3.
As a funder or investor, you are considered fully aligned with the Common Approach when your funding practices are aligned with the appropriate stages. It is not required that you offer funding or financing at every stage.
Ready to align?
Moving forward, funders and investors who align with any of the Common Approach’s standards will be welcome to participate in our community-driven governance. If you’re interested, get in touch or join our mailing list to stay up to date on opportunities to participate.
