How can we measure impact and outcomes from social programmes that work for business? Our Social Impact Pioneer today believes that ESG initiatives need a unified impact measurement scale – impact per dollar.
Meet Gilad Tanay, Founder and Chairperson of the ERI Institute. “Impact per Dollar gives investors a tangible percentage figure or impact unit of a particular initiative, i.e. how many people lifted from poverty per $10k invested.” Says Gilad.
Gilad founded the ERI - which stands for the Effective Research for Impact – and that is what they do. ERI is a pioneering research organisation dedicated to identifying and maximising “Impact per Dollar” in philanthropy, ESG investing, with business and global development initiatives.
With a background spanning academia and high-impact consulting, Gilad’s work has informed strategies for governments, major NGOs, and philanthropic funds worldwide.
Before establishing ERI, Gilad co-founded and served as a director of Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) and lectured on the Global Justice Programme at Yale University.
Recognised for his insights on global inequality and poverty alleviation (including a TEDx talk at Yale – see below for links), Gilad left a traditional academic career to solve tangible, high-stakes problems.
His approach centres on creating unified, evidence-based impact measurement frameworks—tools that empower investors, companies, and donors to truly understand the return on their social investments.
In this conversation, we’ll unpack why the current ESG landscape often fails to deliver systemic change, and how “impact per dollar” can revolutionise social impact. Gilad discusses how unified metrics—similar to a financial ROI—let funders identify which initiatives genuinely lift communities out of poverty. He highlights the importance of direct cash transfers, skill-building programs, and fair labour practices to break the poverty trap, emphasising that businesses can become powerful agents of change when they address root causes rather than apply superficial fixes.
Get ready for a thought-provoking dialogue on aligning profits with purpose, the urgent need for standardised impact metrics, and how the business sector can seize its unique position to tackle the world’s most devastating poverty-related diseases and inequalities. If you’ve ever wondered how to make social impact capital more transformative, this episode is your roadmap to higher-impact social investments.
Links:
• ERI Institute - https://eri-institute.com/about-2/
• Gilad’s TedX - https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=hchXtBPSAZ4
• Gilad Tanay’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gilad-tanay-798b8a/
• 14 million people die a year from poverty-related diseases - https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/noncommunicable-diseases
• ERI Institute Unified / Systemic impact per dollar method - https://eri-institute.com/impact-per-dollar/
• Robber Baron mentality – business zero-sum game & Adam Smith liberal democracy - https://www.economist.com/interactive/essay/2024/10/31/when-politics-is-about-hating-the-other-side-democracy-suffers
• Additional link - https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/11/21/the-opportunities-and-dangers-for-trumps-disrupter-in-chief