Track Your Metrics

Across developing countries, there exist millions of small NGOs trying to improve living conditions at the grassroots, improve access to health, sanitation and education, working on gender issues, among other causes. No one knows who these not for profits are- by region, sector and location; there exists no centralised database. What is worse is that these not for profits cannot showcase how they have brought about a change; there are no numbers or impact metrics.

At the other end, there exist donors/ funders dispersed across the globe, working towards different causes. They struggle to find the right partners who can guarantee them of efficient fund utilisation and impact creation. Secondly, they find it difficult to track the work of existing grantees, on a monthly basis. Once in a year audit are expensive and can be detrimental to the work progress if timely course correction is not undertaken. 

India is home to roughly 3.1 million not for profits, that’s about 2.5 times the number of public schools and roughly 250 times the number of public hospitals. That is the scale of contribution by not for profits, big and small in India alone. Extrapolating this to the developing world, the numbers should be about 10 times.

On the other side, India receives about 10 billion USD in funds from international organisations and the contribution from domestic donors, philanthropists, corporate social responsibility arms takes these numbers much higher.

The problem is of information asymmetry, NGO don’t know how to contact the funder and the funder cant connect with the informal not for profit, which may or may not have an online presence. There exists no marketplace for the two sides to interact. A marketplace would enable competition on both sides, bring in accountability.

TYM tries to bridge this gap using data points that can be repeatedly used; it builds on surveys and information existing open source, lying dormant with big not for profits by recycling it, collating and compiling it into a neat library of surveys that can be repeatedly used and are connected to internationally accepted benchmarks/indicators.

TYM serves a range of stakeholders in the social sector, helping them strengthen their systems of monitoring and evaluation and encouraging accountability and transparency in organisations. 

1) NGOs- small not for profits that don't have research teams and do not know what surveys will help they demonstrate need for their work/ showcase change as a result of their work. 

2) CSR wings of corporates- They need partners in different locations, close to their factories, or as per their company goals and mandates. They also need to figure impact, appease government bodies and create change within communities from which they hire

3) Funders, Donors and philanthropists- They would like to figure the right partners in alignment with their social goals irrespective of location, language; they would also need partners of different scale and size/track record, and satisfying certain eligibility criterion.

4) Academicians- Universities, professors, post doctoral students often need to run small pilots or receive grants that need data collection, surveys, and other associated surveys

5) Government bodies and Think Tanks- They need to track policies on the ground at very very low cost, using volunteers or existing implementation partners, given the large samples/ huge scale of implementation

Track Your Metrics (TYM) is a web-based platform and android application that will automate thinking for NGOs which lack funds and research capacity while building on resources available in the ecosystem.

TYM will consist of four broad features:

• A survey formulation platform comprising an evolving survey bank consisting of survey tools created by industry leaders across sectors such as Health, Education and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH). A majority of these survey tools are open source or exist hidden away across numerous websites and reports and are hence inaccessible. The platform hosts a reservoir of survey packages benchmarked against indicators including SDG indicators.
• A data collection application that will enable hassle - free, real - time data collection even in remote and offline areas. The NGOs can hand over the survey tools created to their volunteers/ existing staff for zero unit cost data collection to showcase growth or demonstrate need for a certain social program. The funder can get regular updates from its grantees-every month / few weeks allowing for more engagement and course correction i.e. better usage of donor money
• A data visualization dashboard in order to visualize the data collected in the form of graphs and charts.
• A report – generation template that will allow sharing of reports with funders and grantors more easily. Funders can request reporting of specific data points and preset graph formats from each of its grantees across the world.

TYM as an impact assessment tool will provide credibility and accountability to NGOs, making it easier to seek funds, scale-up and widen impact. It will facilitate CSR Wings/funders to find certified/credible NGOs ensuring that there is effective utilization of funds. TYM is a user-friendly low-cost solution for NGOs, ensuring easier adoption and continued usage.It is replicable across other developing countries with a simple language plugin and a scope to incorporate more sectors.

Currently most of the stakeholders in the development arena, either conduct impact assessment with a team of researchers (provided they have the resources, researchers and funds for the same), hire third party evaluators (CSR wings/funders), hire volunteers (bottom of the pyramid NGOs) or do not conduct impact assessment of any kind (most NGOs), which is exactly the problem that we are trying to address via our tech-based platform and app.

There are a number of data collection apps that satisfy purely the data collection needs of organisations- but to get organisations data collection ready is the problem that TYM solves.  Step 2 is data collection, step 1 entails looking at stakeholders, finalising indicators, building survey tools which needs time, money, energy and skill.  We are focusing on step 1 to enable organisations to jumpstart impact metric building, using technology for automation.

TYM caters to the demand for showcasing metrics and becoming funding ready for small NGOs. It also equips big funders with a low cost solution to 1) engage with existing grantees 2) find new, more efficient grantees 3) enable course correction and monitoring

Our product is a SaaS based Web platform and Android Application. In the next 3-4 months, TYM will evolve into a marketplace for NGOs and donors to connect with one another on the basis of micro datasets.

Our USP, the survey bank, consists of open source questionnaires which are often lost in the resources section of various reports, articles, and journals. We have collated these surveys and curated them on the platform which can be easily accessed as they have been tagged sector, sub-sector and indicator wise. This will help NGOs to formulate surveys easily, thereby automating thinking

Often while creating surveys the researchers have to go through the rigorous process of entering various parameters required to create a survey. On TYM users can easily select a template from over 600 preset survey templates as per their desired Sector, Sub Sector and Indicators.

With the Offline data collection feature researchers can reach out to remote areas for data collection and collect data from their respondents even without a working internet connection. The collected responses will be stored in the device's local storage and can be later synced with the database.

Outline India, the parent company, has worked intensively on the ground with both funders/ donors that finance social programs and with local NGO partners that implement these funds /are recipients of grants. We have therefore been at the forefront of the problem for 6+ years.

However, not everyone can afford large scale evaluations i.e. millions of NGOs across the developing world.

And not all funders/donors can build their own platforms at a low cost to track existing grantees, onboard new grantees or fund well deserving NGOs.

 TYM changes all of that !

We also realised that there isn’t enough expertise for data collection that is done on the ground level and everyone - Corporates, donors and not for profits need good surveys and household data. And research design is expensive and time taking. A majority of these survey tools are open source or exist hidden away across numerous websites and reports and are hence inaccessible. The platform hosts a reservoir of survey packages benchmarked against indicators including SDG indicators. By compiling and collating this information and linking it to indicators we can automate survey building and capture programmatic impact (to a large extent) for NGOs and donors and save on huge amounts of money.

Quick and dirty self-reported numbers will allow for regular course correction and monitoring. It will also remedy the fear of wrong or miss-reporting.

As of now, in our pilot testing phase, we are working with around 10 NGOs across India in Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Bangalore, Gujarat etc. helping them with survey tool creation, hand-holding of the product and reviewing their reports. We are also in talks with a few big Not for Profit organisations that have hundreds of grantees.

In the coming months over a period of one year, we aim to onboard more than 20 big Not for profits and 100s of more small NGOs. We also aim to on-board government officials that conduct regular monitoring of their projects in various districts - helping them go paper-free and digitize their data allowing them to make data-driven decisions. 

In the next 5 years, we hope to be the go-to solution for NGOs, donors and funders along with CSRs and government bodies across the world starting with South-East Asia, and later expanding to Africa, building an ecosystem of evaluations and assessments. 

Within the next year we aim to on-board a number of NGOs, donors and funders. We also wish to add more features to the platform and the application thereby developing it further and ensuring that the data that has been collected is verifiable and authentic. 

Over the next five years, we plan on creating a marketplace for good performing NGOs to meet with donors ready to fund NGOs. We hope to make it big! 

Existing barriers

1) TYM has just about started looking for external funding as we are now hiring to build out and expand our tech team and set up a sales team

2) User adoption of the product will be crucial for growth

3) Our marketplace feature will be built within the next 2 months but will need a number of users for us to see the play between users and funders.

4) Resistance of NGOs towards technology will necessitate a change in behavior

Anticipated barriers in the next 5 years

1) Numerous data collection applications, resulting in high competition in the market

2) While basic survey tools can be used anywhere, contextualisation at country level maybe needed for certain research assignments. 

3) As we add to the sectors, indicators and hence survey bank, an information overload may overwhelm certain partners (Defeating the purpose of TYM)

User adoption and resistance to tech: Since impact assessment is a long process, it becomes tedious for NGOs who are conducting an assessment for the first time. Thus, our team is diligently hand holding NGOs and guiding them through the entire process. We are parallel-y setting up instructional videos and documents and will assign one-on-one help (for a small fee) going further.

We are also giving away free trial periods and freebies to comfort initial discomfort. 

Funding: We are currently bootstrapped and are funded by the parent company's profits. We have however received interest from certain impact investors and are in the initial days of discussions. 

High competition: We are focusing on our USP- survey packages set against indicators on sectors of Health, Education and WaSH. As mentioned, data collection is step 2, one has to know what to collect, TYM enables that. 

• Prerna, who is the founder Track Your Metrics
• Nayantara ensures that the product is user-friendly and is the bridge between the developers and the clients.
• Pooja works on outreach, and communications.
• Archana works on preparing pre-packaged survey tools. She leads applications for Challenges and works on on-boarding of users.
• Suraj is the Product Lead and works on developing the web platform and application together with his tech team. 
• Rachit is our full stack developer 
• Some of our back end work was outsourced to a coder in Bangalore

We are currently hiring for tech and marketing roles    

Currently most of the stakeholders in the development arena, either conduct impact assessment with a team of researchers (provided they have the resources and funds for the same- what our parent company Outline India does), hire third party evaluators (CSR wings/funders), hire volunteers (bottom of the pyramid NGOs) or do not conduct impact assessment of any kind (the most common scenario), which is exactly the problem that we are trying to address via our tech-based platform and app.

There are a number of data collection apps that satisfy purely the data collection needs - but to get organisations data collection ready is the problem that TYM solves. 

As the parent company has been working on the ground for about 7 years, we know exactly the problems funders face and the issues small not for profits have to deal with. We have done 100+ evaluations across 2 countries in over 8000 villages showcasing our understanding and deep rooted love for the work. We have also done all of this as a boot strapped, single founder driven for-profit social enterprise. TYM was borne out of a need, from looking at small Not for profits who could not afford us, but deserved to grow and expand. We also understand the conundrum facing bigger funders who must firstly demonstrate impact and justify fund spend and secondly find the right partners. 

TYM does all of this with a clean solution 1) automating surveys 2) connecting potential grantors to grantees based on small datasets.

We have a few users who are helping us test the market validity of the product and beta test the product. These are mostly small not for profits that came to us through referrals, certain social media posts, parent company networks.

We commenced our outreach to big funders on March 15 and have given demo access to a few. We are also in the process of building a customised version of TYM for a 2 big Corporate firms (their social value arms).

We are helping them with their study design and tool building process. We are also holding multiple demo sessions to handhold the product, especially for smaller NGOs. 

We cater to small not for profits, academics at one end and big funders, donors/ philanthropists and big corporate social responsibility (CSR) arms together with government bodies at the other end. Our clients will be based across the developing world, while the funders/ donors/ philanthropists and CSR arms can be based anywhere across the goal.

A part of our mandate is to create a level playing field and bring stakeholder with funds in conversation with those who can absorb the funding efficiently and show impact through datasets. 

The platform and app allows small / inefficient organisations to become funding ready, by helping them build surveys that are benchmarked to international standards.

For bigger organisations, that may not have developed research arms/teams or have social mandates, TYM makes their due diligence incredibly easy and cuts time and money spent by massive margins.

Our platform also allows us to connect newer funders to the same set of not for profits that have done well, thereby allowing us to improve upon our profitability. It also creates competition in the development sector, thereby encouraging newer small not for profits to jump onto the platform by creating a strong incentive structure (potential funding at the end of the tunnel).

Our revenue stream comes from 1) small subscription fee of about USD 7 /month charged to small not for profits 2) subscription fee of about USD 250/month charged to bigger organisations 3) The connect feature, wherein we connect a grantor to a potential grantee, herein the fee can vary from USD 5000-1000 per connect depending on the request of the donor

We have previously won at two accelerator programs, (Alchemist at Stanford, California and at Startup Oasis supported by UKaid and Government of India). We did not take these up, since we thought we could do better.

We are currently in conversation with a new fund set up by ex-employees of Iron Pillar and are (nearly) sure of raising USD 1 million by end of 2019 given certain conversations. 

Our financial sustainability will kick in, in about 3-4 years based on our marketplace feature performance. We might also grow faster if we have buyout/investment offers from big corporate firms, who may need TYM for their mandatory corporate social responsibility work to be carried out throughout the year. The product could also be bought out by a bigger funds with global networks. 

Our product, TYM is at a nascent stage at the moment and thus requires guidance from experts from the industry who can help us move in the right direction. We believe that having a strong mentor from MIT Solve's wide network will keep us on the right track and help our product grow and achieve new milestones.

In order to grow exponentially over the next few years, we would need to market the product and attract users working within the development space. This would require us to set aside a budget specifically allocated towards outreach and product development. Hence, receiving funding from MIT will help in moving one step closer to our goals. 

We would like to partner with 

1) Philanthropists who are looking for newer avenues across developing countries to invest in to create social change at the ground level. The platform allows them to track their work and enable course correction.

2) Big Corporate social responsibility arms with operations in multiple countries. For example, Coca Cola Foundation that might work in water purification in areas close to its factories or Hersheys that might work to improve nutrition for children in areas where it has base operations. Basically, any big firm that undertakes social value projects at scale in the developing world can benefit from the usage of TYM and can benefit us. 

3) Portals or aggregators of not for profits and funders, including crowdfunding websites that work with small NGOs to spread about the existence of TYM

India is home to roughly 3.1 million not for profits according to some estimates which is about 2.5 times the number of public schools and about 250 times the number of public hospitals. The quantum of work undertaken by NGOs is massive. But no one knows who they are, where they work and who is doing a good job and hence changing lives at the community level and who is the bad guy. 

If we are extrapolate the number of not for profits across developing countries the numbers will be even bigger. But there is NO centralised database that allows us to understand the movement of funding to not for profits big and especially to the small ones. 

Often, the small not for profits (NGOs) are 4-5 member run voluntary organisations, run by members of the community for its upliftment, but they struggle to procure funding. Also, they do not have data points to prove impact and hence struggle with no metrics~no growth. 

TYM allows these small (and in certain cases medium to big not profits) build datasets collected from direct beneficiaries and hence become funding ready. We also connect them to CSR/donors located across the world based on these small datasets. This is done in real time and repeatedly. 

A funder is given the option of more than one not for profit to fund, thereby creating a strong incentive structure for community set up for profits to strive for better results and impact.

India is home to roughly 3.1 million not for profits according to some estimates which is about 2.5 times the number of public schools and about 250 times the number of public hospitals. The quantum of work undertaken by NGOs is massive. But no one knows who they are, where they work and who is doing a good job and hence changing lives at the community level and who is the bad guy. 

If we are extrapolate the number of not for profits across developing countries the numbers will be even bigger. But there is NO centralised database that allows us to understand the movement of funding to not for profits big and especially to the small ones. 

Often, the small not for profits (NGOs) are 4-5 member run voluntary organisations, run by members of the community for its upliftment, but they struggle to procure funding. Also, they do not have data points to prove impact and hence struggle with no metrics~no growth. 

TYM allows these small (and in certain cases medium to big not profits) build datasets collected from direct beneficiaries and hence become funding ready. We also connect them to CSR/donors located across the world based on these small datasets. This is done in real time and repeatedly. 

A funder is given the option of more than one not for profit to fund, thereby creating a strong incentive structure for community set up for profits to strive for better results and impact.