Hosted by trusted advisor to Maanch, Lord Stone of Blackheath, on the afternoon of 10th September 2018 Maanch was first introduced to an engaged room of stakeholders. In the spirit of the business we are building, community and technology were brought together to form a Maanch vision of the future that the attendees were invited to join.

Darshita initially presented the room with her plans and ideas for Maanch, and the milestones we have set ourselves for the coming year. She explained the Metrics by which we aim to assess projects, and why we believe the UN Susutainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a great starting point when creating a global impact assessment framework. We were delighted to be joined by diverse stakeholders from business, B Corp, philanthropy, government and not for profit sectors in attendance, which made for a lively Q&A and discussion around the SDGs, the relationship between sectors, individual giving behaviours, and the crisis of sustainability across people, planet, prosperity, peace and partnership.

We were delighted to host a panel of representatives across our diverse stakeholder groups to further inspire and provoke our attendees to think about the world they would like to live in in 2030. Chaired by Morgan from Team Maanch, we heard from Chris Robinson, CEO & Co-Founder of Lend Send, Leslee Udwin, Founder & President of Think Equal, and Andrew Macleod, Chairman, Non-Executive Director, Visiting Professor, Author & Speaker. The panel each gave their perspectives on prevailing inefficiencies in philanthropy and grantmaking, from transparency issues, to mismanagement of funds, to there being no available technology to effectively compare organisations according to their impact.

The team were overwhelmed by the panel’s assertion that a technology and community such as Maanch might be able to truly revolutionise and create efficiencies in philanthropy. Andrew Macleod focused on the transparency and universality that the SDG lens and Maanch Metrics can give donors when making decisions on their giving. This in turn, he asserted, would start to break down the “dark side of aid delivery” and make sure that only the most impactful projects would receive funds. Leslee Udwin remarked that Maanch is a rare technology that works for all stakeholders, and within the context of her charity Think Equal, the team can spend less on fundraising and bid writing as the third party impact assessment from Maanch creates an efficiency for them. Not only that, Chris Robinson added that there is no reason why the algorithms Maanch uses to assess impact need to be confined to philanthropy and grantmaking.

The team left the event inspired by the attendees, the panel, and the response to Maanch. The event was the first of many we hope to hold to convene diverse stakeholders with a shared vision of a sustainable 2030 and beyond.