Partnerships and Research
Partnerships | Completed and Ongoing Research Work | Technology Based Partners
Data & Analytics
Limestone Analytics (Limestone) is a consulting firm providing rigorous analytical services across all stages of international development projects, social programs, and public policies.
On larger projects, Impact Bridges Group has benefited from Limestone’s academically rigorous approach and yet practical solutions for identifying, designing, financing, monitoring, and evaluating programs and policies in a range of sectors.
The firm and its principals have successfully completed assignments for governments and NGOs around the world, as well as donors including USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), World Bank, and Inter-American Development Bank.
In addition to providing technical and capacity building services, Limestone has been at the forefront of improving and advancing model specification techniques through the development of “Unified Cost-Benefit Analysis (UCBA)” guidelines. UCBA is a set of model specification guidelines designed to improve the flexibility and reusability of models, enable model building by a team, and avoid common modelling errors. The development of UCBA was made possible through the support from QUIP (Queen’s University Industry Partnership).
Limestone Analytics is located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the home of Queen’s University, and a US office in Washington DC. Limestone Analytics maintains a strong relationship with the Queen’s Economics Department; this helps them to source subject area experts and talented interns to ensure all partnership work with Impact Bridges Group is academically sound.
Limestone has prepared some excellent research for USAID and these publications are available on their website. The publication "Integrating Gender in Cost-Benefit and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis" is a particularly useful resource in CBA, especially when the project impact is significantly different based on the participant's gender.
Faith-based Organizations
Historically, faith-based organizations have had a prominent role in the development of communities and perhaps arguably in the nation. Not surprisingly, as recent social needs have begun to rise in many countries the reliance on faith-based groups is increasing. Policymakers are looking to churches, synagogues, mosques, as well as others, to take on a greater role in strengthening communities.
Impact Bridges Group consider these organizations to be, in many cases, the backbone of the community. Still, our work with Assets in Transition has shown that they also need to reconsider the financing model for many of their initiatives.
IBG has strategic partnerships with the following groups:
Faith + Finance is bringing together pastors and impact investors, theologians and social entrepreneurs, and other faith and business leaders to respond with courage and imagination to the most urgent and demanding economic, social, environmental, and spiritual challenges of our day.
The purpose of Faith + Finance is not just to start a new conversation but to launch new collaborations and platforms for impact. We want to have a lasting influence on people of faith and their relationship to money and resources.
FaithTech is a young company and while many others struggled through the global pandemic, it saw unprecedented growth in its community hubs and labs worldwide. FaithTech has a range of professionals working on social and economic challenges in their community. Impact Bridges Group has teamed up with FaithTech on its Assets in Transition work.
Renewable Energy
The Alliance for Rural Electrification (ARE) is an international business association with more than 170 Members worldwide that promotes the sustainable decentralized renewable energy industry for the 21st century.
ARE activates markets for affordable energy services and is creating local jobs and inclusive economies in Africa, Asia-Pacific and Latin-America.
IRENA plays a leading role in the energy transformation as a centre of excellence for knowledge and innovation, a global voice for renewables, a network hub and a source of advice and support for countries.
It is widely known that renewable energy sources and especially solar energy have a great potential in Africa and somehow the market is struggling to pick up steam. Tony Tiyou and Renewables in Africa are the knowledge depository of the sector. Tony and colleagues created Renewables in Africa to “Empower Customers by raising their Technical Knowledge and Awareness of Renewables Solutions”
Umbrella & Membership Organizations
Business Fights Poverty is driven by a belief in the power of purposeful collaboration - the simple idea that when you bring together the right people around a shared challenge, with a focus on delivering a valuable output in a clear timeframe, you create the space for generating powerful insights and deeper relationships.
Since Business Fights Poverty started in 2005, they have learnt a great deal about collaboration. Most important is the understanding of the huge potential that lies in connecting practitioners and experts across sectors, organizations and geographies. Business Fights Poverty has a current network of over 20,000 professionals and close to 100 content partners including Impact Bridges Group.
The Canada Forum for Impact Investment and Development (CAFIID) is a platform for members to learn, share, collaborate and act as a collective voice to strengthen the value and the volume of impact investment in developing countries. Impact Bridges Group has been a member of CAFIID since 2019.
Our Future, Our Business (Manifesto)
Canadian Business Youth Council for Sustainable Development is Canada’s largest youth-led movement to change the way we do and teach business!
20 statements.
8 Months of co-creation.
60 youth organizations.
Despite recent efforts, the way we do and teach business is still far from allowing Canada to achieve sustainable development. While the social and environmental crisis will affect all young people, business students are not given the opportunity to shape their own education and their own future. This needs to change. This is Our Future, and it's Our Business.
We invite you to read the manifesto and spread the word on the urgency of changing how the future business leaders are being taught today.
Learn more and sign the Manifesto at https://lnkd.in/ezraQw4
The Ontario Nonprofit Network works to create a public policy environment that allows non-profits to thrive. They engage the ONN network of diverse non-profit organizations across Ontario to work together on issues affecting the sector and channel the voices of the network to governments, funders, and other stakeholders. Impact Bridges Group has been a member since 2019.
The Save Our Future campaign, supported by Impact Bridges Group and hundreds of other organizations worldwide, is driving awareness and emphasizing the connection between education and advancing the other UN Sustainable Development Goals; showcasing education solutions and innovations backed by evidence-based research; bringing together youth, their communities, and a wide range of stakeholders to promote collaboration; and engaging people around the world on the scale of the education crisis and the urgent need to respond.
Universities
Impact Bridges Group is working with the Ormond Center at Duke University on the Assets in Transition program. The Ormond Center describes its mission as being “to foster the imagination, will, and ability of congregations and communities to be agents of thriving. Impact Bridges Group contributes to this work by “equipping practitioners with the mindsets, skillsets, toolsets, and soulsets they need to serve their field, place, and neighbors.”
April 30, 2019
George Washington University Institute for Corporate Responsibility announces the launch of the Investing for Impact Lab (i4iLab). The i4iLab expands and accelerates impact investing in addressing the local, regional, and global needs of underserved communities.
Investing for Impact Lab (i4iLab)
A common challenge facing the impact investing space is connecting investors looking for projects to invest in and investment-ready projects. The i4iLab brings together the worlds of finance and development under one roof to help solve this problem.
We create expanded opportunities to mobilize private finance towards the Sustainable Development Goals (Financing the SDGs) by advancing innovative financing instruments and project structures.
Too many opportunities for financing the SDGs go unfunded due to an incomplete understanding of the full social and financial potential of impact investing.
i4iLab provides the space for learning, collaboration, creating new partnerships and projects that provide better value-for-money, higher social impact, lower risks, and greater accountability: 21st Century impact investing strategies to solve 21st Century problems.
We provide participants with a vision for the full spectrum of impact investing modalities and their prospects (Awareness); show how to align and integrate financial instruments, project structures, partnerships, performance management systems and value creation techniques to suit the unique attributes of each project (Toolkit); and provide “learn-by-doing” assistance in actual project design, to build, finance and operate (Make it).
We feature blended financing, adapted to each project’s risk profile, linked to performance metrics and measurement frameworks through transparent blockchains.
Founding Members of the i4iLab are the George Washington University Institute for Corporate Responsibility (ICR), Impact Bridges Group, Incitāre, and Otherdots Foundation.
For more information and/or to learn how to participate, please contact John Forrer, Director, ICR by email (jforrer@gwu.edu), visit the GWU website or contact IBG at info@impactbridgesgroup.com.
i4iLab Founding Members:
+ George Washington University Institute for Corporate Responsibility (Washington DC, USA)
The George Washington University Institute for Corporate Responsibility conducts research, education, and engagement activities examining how businesses can have a positive impact on society while maintaining their competitiveness. Our goal is to help translate scholarship and practice into practical and actionable business strategies and programs. Impact investing is topic of growing interest and importance among scholars and practitioners, particularly focused on financing the SDGs. We have launched several initiatives exploring how to expand and accelerate scalable projects that will yield significant social impact and attract impact investments.
+ Incitāre (Geneva, Switzerland)
Incitāre is a "global trans-national collaborative" - an open and inclusive platform of individuals and institutions promoting strategic foresight and anticipatory leadership, brokering innovative partnerships (SDG purposed, technology enhanced, creatively financed) with accountability for transformational impact. We are driven by a sense of obligation to use our time, talent and treasure to make the world a better, safer and fairer place.
+ Impact Bridges Group (Toronto, Canada)
IBG is involved in reducing poverty through improved efficiency and distributive justice and partnering with others to maximize the net social benefits of community development programs. IBG is a not-for-profit professional services organization focused on impact investing. IBG builds bridges with leading actors in innovative financing, management consulting, and others to improve the benefits of local and international development programs for the poor and marginalized. It also builds bridges with governments, foundations, and implementing organizations that prioritize program efficiency, thereby maximizing the impact of existing and future programs.
+ Otherdots Foundation (London, UK)
A UK foundation that aims to handpick and empower the most ambitious and brightest entrepreneurs from rural areas and emerging countries from all corners of the globe, to merge mindsets and cultures, to think the unthinkable and build startups from ground zero, that will enable financial inclusion and improve human conditions in underserved global communities. A fascinating double-bottom line initiative, the first-ever social impact fund on the blockchain, to deliver a digital identity and voice to the unbanked through inclusive mobility as a conduit for SDG Service delivery, with venture-capital returns to investors and backers.
The University of Waterloo WISE believes in clean energy that is accessible and affordable for all. Their mission is to conduct original research and develop innovative solutions and policies to help transform the energy system for long-term sustainability.
Partners for Action (P4A) is an applied research network advancing flood resiliency in Canada in the face of a changing climate and extreme weather. P4A's collaborative approach brings together diverse stakeholders to create and share knowledge, address information needs, and drive action. P4A is based out of the Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo, with founding support provided by The Co-operators Group Ltd. and Farm Mutual Re.
Impact Bridges Group is participating through its expertise in cost/benefit analysis and project appraisal including risk analysis.
Become a Certified Professional Impact Analyst
One way to improve the effectiveness of international development programs is to equip professionals with the skills of impact analysis: assessment, finance, and evaluation. The Impact Bridges Group has a strong working relationship with the faculty members at Queen’s University in charge of the design and delivery of a training program that focuses on these skills.
The program, referred to as CPIA (Certified Professional Impact Analyst), offers three courses: Discover Impact, Finance Impact, Measure Impact. Individuals who complete all three courses and a qualifying exam, are eligible for the designation of Certified Professional Impact Analyst (CPIA).
Three Courses. One Designation.
The three CPIA courses are designed for all professionals involved in designing, financing, implementing, monitoring, or evaluating social interventions, public policies, or international development projects. The next two courses (Foundations of Impact, beginning in September 2020 and Evaluating Impact, beginning in January 2021 will be online courses), and the May 2021 course will be held for one-week and consist of lectures, in-class discussions, and applied case studies to ensure that participants can apply the concepts they learn to practical projects. See the description below for more details.
Impact Analysis Capstone
Learning objectives
Theory of change and social justification
Cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis models
Recommendations regarding the use of innovative finance
Monitoring, evaluation, and learning plans
Communications platforms and institutional strategies
Delivery method
This is usually a residential course that is delivered through a one-week hands-on session. For 2022, the course will be delivered on-line for the week
Requirements
We welcome participants of different academic and professional backgrounds. The course is designed so that individuals at any level of an NGO, foundation, international development, finance institution, or municipal and local government will advance their knowledge of project finance.
Date of Course
May 16 - 20, 2022
Cost
$2,995 - check to see if you are eligible for an IBG 50% tuition discount
Foundations of Impact
Learning objectives
Justify the need for social projects and public policy
Analyze theory of change and measure impact
Conduct cost-benefit and cost-effectiveness analysis
Integrate gender and environment into impact analysis
Integrate financial and social analysis
Define the role of pay-for-results and blended finance, and impact investing
Conduct cost analysis and outcome pricing
Define impact in the context of economic growth and fiscal & monetary (macroeconomic) policy
Delivery method
Online
Requirements
We welcome participants of different academic and professional backgrounds. The course is designed so that individuals at any level of an NGO, foundation, international development institution, economic development agencies, or municipal and local government will advance their knowledge of monitoring, evaluation, and learning
Date of Course
September 8 to December 2, 2022
Cost
$1,200 - check to see if you are eligible for an IBG 50% tuition discount
Evaluating Impact
Learning objectives
Set up “right-fit” monitoring, evaluation & learning frameworks
Use project monitoring to track and manage performance
Design evaluations using RCTs and other experimental & quasi-experimental methods to assess impact
Combine rigorous qualitative and quantitative methods
Develop surveys and assessment instruments
Use advanced data collection and analysis techniques
Identify learning opportunities to improve future impact
Consider impact performance systems for organizations
Use evidence to identify efficient indicators for innovative finance
Delivery method
Online
Requirements
We welcome participants of different academic and professional backgrounds. The course is designed so that individuals at any level of an NGO, foundation, international development institution, economic development agencies, or municipal and local government will advance their knowledge of monitoring, evaluation, and learning
Date of Course
January 10 to April 8, 2022
Cost
$1,200 - check to see if you are eligible for an IBG 50% tuition discount
PLEASE NOTE
- for those eligible the CPIA Exam will take place on May 21, 2022
Exciting New Opportunity:
Take the Certified Professional Impact Analyst (CPIA) courses with financial support from Impact Bridges Group
Impact Bridges Group is committed to helping organizations maximize the impact of their social development projects and improve efficiency and distributive justice.
To that end, we’re proud to partner with the Certified Professional Impact Analyst (CPIA) program at Queen’s University, in order to support select industry professionals in pursuing this exciting educational opportunity. Impact Bridges Group will cover 50% of the cost of tuition for one selected participant in each of the three CPIA courses.
The CPIA program provides participants the opportunity to learn to rigorously identify, design, finance, implement, monitor and evaluate social interventions, public policies and international development projects.
The program consists of three courses:
Impact Analysis Capstone. Learn how to identify, define, and value sources of impact.
Foundations of Impact. Learn about project finance and how to enter the world of results-based financing and impact investing.
Evaluating Impact. Learn how to rigorously collect evidence and analyze data.
Those who complete all three courses are eligible to write an exam and receive the designation of CPIA-I. More details about the program and course dates are available at https://cpia.queensu.ca.
Social and international development professionals intending to pursue a CPIA course or the complete certification are eligible to apply for the Impact Bridges Group seat and the 50% reduction in tuition. Applications will be evaluated based on relevant experience, the anticipated benefit of the course to your or your institution’s projects, policies, or programs, and demonstrated interest in enhancing the impact of your initiatives.
Application Questions
To apply, please submit a maximum two-page response to the following questions, along with a C.V. and a letter indicating organizational support (if applicable), to info@impactbridgesgroup.com with “CPIA Tuition Support” in the subject line.
Name:
Phone Number:
Email Address:
Address:
Position and Organizational Affiliation:
Please list the CPIA course(s) you are planning to apply to and for which you are seeking Impact Bridge’s Group’s support.
What is your experience with social or international development work? Please include other experience you feel is relevant to your application here.
Why are you interested in the CPIA program? What do you hope to get out of the course? How do you see the skills gained in this course as contributing to your current or future initiatives? Please include evidence of your or your organization’s commitment to pursuing impact in your activities and/or evidence of your intention to move in this direction.
Completed and Ongoing Research Work
RWANDA SELENIUM SUPPLEMENTATION CLINICAL TRIAL
This three-year randomized controlled trial, involved 300 HIV-positive patients, who had not begun antiretroviral therapy (ART). The results showed a 48 per cent decrease in the rate of CD4 decline. CD4 cells are a type of white blood cell that plays a crucial role in protecting the body from infection. The HIV virus attacks and destroys the CD4 cells of a person’s immune system. CD4 counts are a strong indicator of the progression of the disease. A low CD4 count is one of the ways to tell if a person living with HIV has progressed to stage 3 infection (AIDS). Funded by Global Benefit Canada, now IBG, the study was conducted by medical professionals in Rwanda, and supported by Canadians Dr. Don Warren, ND. Dr. Ed Mills and Dr. Dugald Seely.
Selenium is an essential trace mineral known for its antioxidant properties and for its role in preserving immune competency. The main source of selenium in the body comes from food; the amount of selenium in food depends on where the food is grown or raised. The level of selenium in soils varies significantly around the world. Dr. Harold Foster, a medical geographer, theorized that the reason AIDS was so prevalent in East and South Africa was because of the low levels of selenium in the soil. The study shows that selenium supplementation may be a positive way to slow the progression of the disease in HIV positive persons.
Technology Based Partners
Use of Diagnostic Technology to Improve Impact
Sci-Bots
Sci-Bots Inc. is developing the next generation of tools to automate and miniaturize biology and chemistry. Their portable and easy-to-use DropBot platform uses a technology called digital microfluidics to transform lab experiments into digital objects that can be optimized, shared to the cloud, and replicated anywhere in the world with perfect fidelity.
DropBot is an open-source Digital Microfluidic (DMF) automation system developed in the University of Toronto’s Wheeler Lab. It can be used to manipulate discrete droplets on the surface of an array of electrodes coated with a hydrophobic insulator. DMF has many applications in the fields of biology and chemistry, including diagnostics, cell-based assays, and chemical synthesis. The DropBot features a modular and extensible design, an intuitive user interface, and is capable of driving up to 120 independent channels. It also provides dynamic impedance sensing which enables closed-loop control and real-time measurement of:
drop position
instantaneous drop velocity
electrostatic driving force
DropBot is built around an Arduino-based instrument and is controlled by a custom software interface called Microdrop. Users can activate/deactivate electrodes on the DMF device by clicking their mouse on the webcam video overlay, providing an intuitive interface with real-time visual feedback. Sequences of actuation steps can be pre-programmed and run automatically, enabling fully automated operation. The system is designed as a loosely-coupled set of modules, which means that it is relatively easy to extend the hardware and/or software capabilities.
DropBot was featured in a recent article (Ng. et al., "A Digital Microfluidic System for Serological Immunoassays in Remote Settings" Sci. Trans. Med. 2018, 10) describing our 2016 field-study in a Kenyan refugee camp where we tested droplet-sized blood samples for measles and rubella antibodies. The story got picked up by severalnews outlets and even made national TV. This story is of particular interest, because the instrument developed for this project formed the basis for the new DropBot and ultimately led to the founding of Sci-Bots!
Fio Corporation
Fio Corp and IBG partnering to combat Covid-19
Embed data capture into routine workflow
Fionet connects mobile companion devices that guide diagnosis, treatment and record-keeping with web-based tools for remote oversight and reporting.
IMPROVE FIELD PERFORMANCE AND OVERSIGHT OF RAPID DIAGNOSTIC TESTING
The Deki Reader provides step-by-step guidance for performing rapid diagnostic tests and delivers an objective analysis of results. Meanwhile, Fionet provides test-by-test traceability.
The Deki Reader is a rugged, in vitro diagnostic device for use with commercially available lateral flow immunoassays (commonly known as rapid diagnostic tests) and Fionet mobile software.
The Deki Reader provides:
Step-by-step guidance for performing rapid diagnostic tests
Quality checks for rejecting misprocessed tests
An objective analysis of test results
Test-by-test traceability via records uploaded to Fionet
Feedback from remote managers using Fionet two-way messaging
Configurable workflows for standardizing care delivery and data capture