impact-modeling cases
ProAbility first impact-modeling
“After two years of studying the accessibility and working in the area it was difficult to admit that someone can ask me questions which flip my mind". Rod Pope, CEO at ProAbility
Impact-modeling is a mindset and a set of tools that allows organizations to get control over side effects which before that they preferred to hide or simply did not notice.
In the middle of March we welcomed ProAbility - mobile maps for tourists with disabilities - among our first clients. We knew the founder Rod Pope for quite a while thanks to his excellent work on Global City Hackathon in 2019. He also successfully completed Philtech-accelerator (acceleration program designed specially for social ventures) and attracted impact-investments in 2018. So we were intrigued by what would come next.
The request was: "By our previous product we did an availability assessment of commercial real-estate, and everything was pretty clear. Now we plan to assess the availability of public spaces in touristic cities, and wish to see what else your approach can tell us in the area where we already know quite a lot (and honestly, we had some doubt)".
We do our impact-modeling in several steps. First one is a simple schematic visualization (we adore Miró as a tool for this). The very first approach looked like this and didn't seem to delight the ProAbility team. Except for the fact that no one thought this way about their product before us.
The request was: "By our previous product we did an availability assessment of commercial real-estate, and everything was pretty clear. Now we plan to assess the availability of public spaces in touristic cities, and wish to see what else your approach can tell us in the area where we already know quite a lot (and honestly, we had some doubt)".
We do our impact-modeling in several steps. First one is a simple schematic visualization (we adore Miró as a tool for this). The very first approach looked like this and didn't seem to delight the ProAbility team. Except for the fact that no one thought this way about their product before us.
First step is a simple schematic visualization
The logic behind the scheme is as follows: as a result of organization's Activities (white post-its) we get direct products/deliverables (Outputs, yellow), by using/consuming them people get direct benefits (Outcomes, blue), and in a long run this changes their lives in some qualitative way (Impacts, green).
Besides such simple schematization, we also gather studies, researches and data about quantitative effects. It can be both direct consequences of products and services being used or consumed as well as surprising points like externalities. So we found that traveling helps people with disabilities spend less on medical services, and how much money tourists bring to local economies.
ProAbility is special because beneficiaries of their products are both cities and travelers with disabilities. So we also thought of how to balance their interests to make an offer better for both sides. Who will be more interested in buying the mobility maps?
Besides such simple schematization, we also gather studies, researches and data about quantitative effects. It can be both direct consequences of products and services being used or consumed as well as surprising points like externalities. So we found that traveling helps people with disabilities spend less on medical services, and how much money tourists bring to local economies.
ProAbility is special because beneficiaries of their products are both cities and travelers with disabilities. So we also thought of how to balance their interests to make an offer better for both sides. Who will be more interested in buying the mobility maps?
Balance of quantifiable benefits shows that both cities and tourists with disabilities will win
Our estimates show that both travelers with disabilities and cities' administrations will benefit a lot on a scale. And here, together with the ProAbility team, we started to understand how to build and measure availability of public spaces.
