Resource ID: INDIGO-ARES-0001
Link: https://acumen.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/BACO-Concept-Paper-final.pdf
The Acumen Fund uses the Best Alternative Charitable Option (BACO) model to quantify an investment’s social impact and compare it to the universe of existing charitable options that address that social issue. The BACO calculation conveys the net cost per unit of social impact and helps an investor to compare the tradeoff between grants and investments.
Rather than seek an absolute standard for social return across an extremely diverse portfolio, it is aimed to quantify an investment’s social impact and compare it to the universe of existing charitable options for that explicit social issue. Specifically, this tool helps inform investors where their philanthropic capital will be most effective—answering the question “For each dollar invested, how much social output will this generate over the life of the investment relative to the best available charitable option?”
Impact goal: Health, Defence, Housing, Agnostic, Democracy, Education, Well being, SDG oriented, Social impact, Local rejuvenation, Sustainability eco, Development poverty reduction, Employment financial well being
Internal/external: External
Leader: Acumen fund, 2004
Method: Attribution, Operational data
Output format: Monetary valuation
Scale: Micro
Sourcing: Self driven, Proprietary in house
Time frame: Prospective
Type: Case study
Used in sectors: Impact investing
Who: Private sector
INDIGO data are shared for research and policy analysis purposes. INDIGO data can be used to support a range of insights, for example, to understand the social outcomes that projects aim to improve, the network of organisations across projects, trends, scales, timelines and summary information. The collaborative system by which we collect, process, and share data is designed to advance data-sharing norms, harmonise data definitions and improve data use. These data are NOT shared for auditing, investment, or legal purposes. Please independently verify any data that you might use in decision making. We provide no guarantees or assurances as to the quality of these data. Data may be inaccurate, incomplete, inconsistent, and/or not current for various reasons: INDIGO is a collaborative and iterative initiative that mostly relies on projects all over the world volunteering to share their data. We have a system for processing information and try to attribute data to named sources, but we do not audit, cross-check, or verify all information provided to us. It takes time and resources to share data, which may not have been included in a project’s budget. Many of the projects are ongoing and timely updates may not be available. Different people may have different interpretations of data items and definitions. Even when data are high quality, interpretation or generalisation to different contexts may not be possible and/or requires additional information and/or expertise. Help us improve our data quality: email us at indigo@bsg.ox.ac.uk if you have data on new projects, changes or performance updates on current projects, clarifications or corrections on our data, and/or confidentiality or sensitivity notices. Please also give input via the INDIGO Data Definitions Improvement Tool and INDIGO Feedback Questionnaire.