Collecting
social data is not the objective; rather it is selecting those metrics that
best support the Board's ability to design and oversee social strategy and
management's efforts to execute that strategy in progressively more efficient
and effective ways.
Studies, surveys, institution data, client
data… there is a lot of data being collected.
The financial industry is
constructed around data and the availability of data. The information that this data provides
allows financial institutions to scale, increase outreach, manage risks and enhance
profitability. Although MFIs have
multiple bottom lines, their approach to data should be no different than a purely
profit-maximizing institution. This importance of data in enhancing performance
in each bottom line has been acknowledged in microfinance and motivates, in
part, the significant time and effort expended to develop the social
performance data collection tools that have launched over the past few
years. The MIX Market plays a large role
in increasing the transparency of the industry and other initiatives like the forthcoming
SPI4 self-assessment and the
GIIRS Rating will continue to provide
platforms which support social data collection.
These platforms, plus companies’ proprietary collection methods, provide
the means for gathering comparable data suitable for bench-marking in a relatively
efficient way. BUT in many cases, the data are not being used to manage and
improve social performance, but almost exclusively for communication with
external stakeholders.
