Balancing the social and financial in microfinance has always been a particular challenge to the microfinance sector. In recent years, this balance has come dangerously close to tipping towards financial performance only, and overlooking the impact on clients’ lives.

To counteract this development, the microfinance sector is being challenged to be responsible in its practices and to be effective in serving its clients and improving their lives. The MIX as well as all major microfinance rating agencies have now integrated social performance measurements into their reporting frameworks.

The Imp-Act consortium has demonstrated over the last 10 years that SPM works and that MFIs can improve their services with relatively small and affordable changes. The commitment is expressed in the SPM principleswhich are endorsed by 75 MFIs around the world.

TheImp-Act Consortium has pioneered the development of practical approaches to assist MFIs in ‘applying a social lens’ to their work and to manage their social performance.  We would like to invite you to access these resources free of charge on our website www.imp-act.org

The resources include:

• The SPM film “Fulfilling the promise: Managing social performance” provides a practical introduction to SPM and why it makes sense, as well as guidance on first steps. It is available in two versions and in four languages (Arabic, English, French and Spanish), accessible on our website or it can be ordered as DVD.
• The SPM Practice Guide“Putting the ‘social’ into performance management: A practice-based guide for microfinance”. This is a practical step by step guide that will help MFIs building social performance management system in a practical manner referring to other MFI’s concrete experience.  The Guide is available in English, Spanish, French, and Arabic.
• The on-line SPM Resource centregoes beyond the Practice Guide to include a self-assessment tool, additional practitioner experience, discussions and a guide to a wide range of online resources on social performance.
• The SPM Networkis the go-to place on the net to engage with practitioners, support organisation, investors and donors active in supporting SPM.
• A series of seven case-studiesfrom leading organisations in SPM have recently been completed and are show-cased on our website. These case-studies are based on a two year action-learning programme.
• A training courseoffered to Directors, Board members and senior management to develop your organisations strategy for SPM, and supported by a network of certified trainers worldwide

Imp-Act is a Consortium of nine organisations working globally - for more information see here.  As well as producing these publically available resources the Consortium is well equipped to provide tailored support to individual MFIs, networks, support organisations and investors and donors globally. If you would like further information, please don't hesitate to contact the consortium