PPI Blog

An interview with Tara Murphy Forde, Senior Vice President, Research & Impact, Global Partnerships

Global Partnerships (GP) is an impact-first investor dedicated to expanding opportunity for people living in poverty. At GP, we create and manage funds that make loans and early stage investments in social enterprises that serve people living in poverty throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa. Five years ago, we spun out our Research and Impact Team to strategically define, measure, and strengthen the impact of our investments. As part of this effort, we developed a poverty measurement methodology that helps us understand whether our investments are reaching those we aim to serve.

Today we use poverty data to screen, select, and monitor the outreach of our social enterprise partners and our analysis informs our investment decisions; not only whether to invest, but on what terms. We continue to iterate and strengthen our approach, but there have been some key steps and learnings along the way, which I will attempt to distill here in the event they are of service to others embarking on a similar pursuit.

The Poverty Probability Index (PPI^®) is a simple poverty measurement tool. Even so, using the PPI incorrectly can lead to erroneous conclusions. In this third installment of the PPI Practitioner Guidance Series, we will talk about common errors that PPI users make, and how you can avoid them.

Editor's note: This post originally appeared on the American Evaluation Association's AEA365 blog.

It’s no surprise to me that the first Sustainable Development Goal is “End Poverty in all its forms everywhere’’ as so much of our international development work is designed with this objective in mind.  But how does an organization – social enterprise, NGO, corporation, impact investor – understand and report its contribution to this goal?

This is a question that many PPI users grapple with. As an organization that serves the poor, what is the measurable metric related to reaching the poor that we must aim for? To paraphrase the well-known Goldilocks fairy tale – how do I ensure that it is neither too high, nor too low, but just right?

This first installment of the PPI Practitioner Guidance Series demonstrates how applying the PPI to your customer base and determining who you already serve before setting targets will generally ensure that your poverty goals are realistic.