Impact calculator: How does your mission compare?

“Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something then you're more willing to take risks.”
― Yo-Yo Ma

Kick start

🧮 It’s not always simple to weigh up impact opportunities, dealing with comparisons that are rarely like-for-like. To help, we’ve released our impact calculator and benchmarks that Giant Leap uses in due diligence. It’s built on a framework compiled by 1000’s of impact investors that provides industry-recognised standards for assessing impact.

🐸 The calculator produces a score out of 300, which categorises impact missions as either (A) Avoid Harm, (B) Benefit Stakeholders, or (C) Contribute to Solutions. Typically, Giant Leap seeks to invest in companies that score above 120, placing them as a B or C.

📈 How does your impact mission compare?

Check out Giant Leap's impact calculator

What we’re thinking about

🔓 Privacy please. A study of the 23 most downloaded women’s health apps found that 20 of them shared information with third parties and only half provided users with information about data security. This is in the context of rumours that the US Supreme Court could overturn Roe v Wade, a precedent protecting women’s rights to choose, and several experts have expressed concerns that data from period-tracking apps could be used to identify users that have previously had an abortion. It’s a huge alarm bell for startups holding sensitive data to take privacy seriously.

✈️ Advice for turbulent times. Empathetic advice for getting through tough times as an entrepreneur from James Beshara, former entrepreneur and angel investor in mental health startups including Mindset. In a rapidly changing environment, setting realistic expectations, managing your mental wealth, and questioning assumptions are all key currencies.

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New paths

👩🏽‍💼The Paul Ramsay Foundation is on the lookout of an Impact Investing Analyst

👨‍💻 Future Super is looking for help with Tech Support

💊 Perx is on the hunt for a Customer Program Manager

🧠 Seer is seeking a Clinical Technologist

🧻 Who Gives A Crap is chasing down a Video Editor

🧾 Are you interested in working for an impact business? Fill in our expression of interest form and we’ll put you in our database of impact interested people that we share with our portfolio companies.

🔥 Also, check out our Giant Leap Fund jobs board for over 90+ available positions. There’s even more jobs at ethical companies on the global B-Work job board.

Giant leaps

🎙️ Our Managing Partner Will Richardson featured on the Humans of Purpose podcast discussing the history of the fund.

🗳️ Will also appeared on StartUp Daily TV to discuss the result of the Federal Election and its impact on the startup ecosystem.

For the road

🪃 It’s almost National Reconciliation Week. This year’s theme is ‘Be Brave, Make Change’, asking all Australians to tackle the unfinished business of reconciliation. The week starts May 27 and runs till June 3. Get involved via the Reconciliation Australia website.

🏆 Awards for impact founders:

• Cartier Women’s Initiative supports outstanding entrepreneurs leading early-stage businesses that are solving our world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges. Apply before June 30.
• Fishburners Tech For Good Awards has seven categories, with each winner receiving a $5000 cash prize. Entries close July 31.

📈 Accelerators on the move:

• Startmate, apply here by May 29.
• Skalata, apply here for rolling intakes.

🌏 A “correction” correction for Climate Tech. ClimateTech VC makes the case that while there’s a been a correction on climate tech valuations over the past six months, it isn’t the same as the cleantech crash of ‘08-‘09. Their view is that there’s still plenty of funding available for climate tech companies with strong fundamentals, with over 50 funds launched in the past year.

📖 Dr Data will see you now. Prevention is always the best medicine, but can you predict mental health episodes? Researchers have created a model that uses electronic health records to flag for the likely onset of a mental health disorder. It currently correctly predicts 58% of patients who will develop an illness, but is much clearer (85% correct) in specifying what mental health condition is affecting the patient.

🤖 The problem with blaming robots for taking jobs? They’ve been doing it for more than two centuries.

🪙 Donations done right. Daniel Petre has set up a new service which helps founders structure their business towards philanthropy and donations, allowing it to scale alongside the business. The service, StartUp Giving, is launching soon.

🧮 There’s a formula for that. Farnam Street shows how maths takes scary things, like plane turbulence or dating, and makes them more approachable and logical.

🍽️ And finally, the most honest restaurant.

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