OutcomesX, a First-of-Its-Kind Social Outcomes Marketplace, Receives Early Foundation Support
Media Alert
April 11, 2023, NEW YORK, NY:
OutcomesX, a first-of-its-kind social outcomes marketplace today announced it has received grants of $1.1 million from Google.org and $300,000 from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to launch a platform this month that will quantify the “S,” the social impact spend, in ESG, much as the carbon credits market values the “E,” or environmental spend.
The platform aims to transform social impact into a tradable good that impact investors, corporations and philanthropy can purchase from vetted nonprofits and social enterprises.
OutcomesX creates the infrastructure to standardize, price, trade, and report on social impact credits, providing a means to guarantee and verify the impact of social spend. Above all, OutcomesX brings efficiency and equity to the business of social impact, allowing any organization, large, small, global or community-led, to compete for funding based on their results.
Said Andrew Dunckelman, Google.org’s head of impact, insights and innovation:
“Corporations, investors and governments have ramped up their investments in social impact, but it’s often difficult to know how those investments translate into real outcomes. The concept of purchasing outcomes changes the game. Purchasers both de-risk their investments and can account for their impact.”
OutcomesX was co-founded last year by two Harvard Kennedy School classmates, Jason Saul and Phyllis Kurlander Costanza, who both dreamed of using the power of capital markets to solve social problems.
In 1994, Saul cofounded the Center for What Works to benchmark and measure social programs. Ten years later, Jason founded the consulting firm, Mission Measurement, to advise funders and nonprofits on the best ways to measure their social impact. That led to the creation of the Impact Genome Project, which developed the world's first registry for verifying social outcomes.
Costanza, who helped to build one of the world's largest private philanthropies and became head of social impact at the largest bank in Switzerland, was looking for a way to help her banking clients "buy" social outcomes using an international standard. Jason, it turned out, had been working on solving that very problem. So began a series of conversations that led to their co-founding OutcomesX.
Said Saul:
“OutcomesX allows social investors to report impact, transparently, track ROI on social spend with the same rigor as business expenses, and reduce time spent on diligence and administration.”
Added Costanza:
“The marketplace brings social innovators together, empowering them in their pursuit of social impact through new financial instruments.”
For more information on the OutcomesX marketplace and how to participate in it, contact Costanza at phyllis@outcomesx.com
For reporter inquiries, contact MilwayPLUS advisors at Katiesmith.Milway@gmail.com
OutcomesX is a social outcomes exchange whose mission is to transform social impact into a tradable good that impact investors, corporations and philanthropy can purchase from vetted nonprofits and social enterprises. OutcomesX creates the infrastructure to standardize, price, trade, and report on social impact credits, providing quantifiable means to measure the “S” in ESG. Outcome buyers benefit from price discovery and verified data to inform social spend, and impact producers get access to liquidity and a reduced reporting burden. Above all, OutcomesX brings efficiency and equity to the business of social impact, allowing any organization, large, small or community-led, access to capital based on their results.
