Adriana Mata

Sometimes Stories Are Not Enough

The stories behind social impact businesses—the rural farmer empowered thanks to new equipment, the inner-city school renovated with community funds—tug at the heartstrings and connect supporters with a business’s purpose.

When it comes to growth, however, numbers rule. Potential funders want data. Lack of metrics turns off investors and leads to higher failure rates, but many startups and NGOs don’t know what or how to measure. Nearly three quarters of organizations in Latin America do not quantify their impact. Those that do often use non-standard indicators so it’s hard for them to gain the insight necessary to improve their processes. Even organizations that set out to address the most critical social problems are more prone to fail without data.

Making a Difference Through Data

“I have seen so many projects fail because they don’t have the data to make good decisions,” says Cuantix founder Adriana Mata. Without data, businesses allocate resources to failing initiatives or are blind to necessary course corrections. Adriana started her company in July of 2018 to make it easier, even painless, for businesses to measure their social impact.

Too often, Adriana says, “Organizations doing social good just say ‘oh, we want to do this, and God will help with it.’” She has personal experience with the perils of failing to gather metrics. As a corporate social responsibility manager for a Venezuelan company, Adriana needed more funds for a project. “I talked to the president about all the good things we were doing. He said, ‘Adriana, you seem very happy but you haven’t shown me any numbers.’ Even as an engineer I didn’t see the importance of data. It was frustrating. They cut off the project because I couldn’t show the good we were doing.”

Cuantix first helps businesses understand what indicators to measure. Every new customer is assigned an online consultant to guide him or her in understanding what’s relevant and what data similar projects use. Then, the Cuantix software reduces the cost of data collection—one of the most expensive parts of measurement—through technology and social networks. Organizations can gather beneficiary data through online social apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook. The Cuantix platform automates reporting and displays results in a dashboard.

The impulse to make a difference has been with Adriana since 2001. “I liked to complain a lot,” she says, “but I wondered, what am I doing to help?” She joined a volunteer organization and continued volunteering as she got an engineering degree and launched a career in science. “It’s one thing to know poverty exists. It’s another to see children suffering… it had a big impact in my life to see that reality.” A few years later, she quit her job to apply her corporate expertise to helping social organizations.

Understanding What Matters in Measurement

Cuantix now has 45 clients in nine countries. Adriana describes a small organization working on construction projects in low-income communities in Venezuela. “They would build a new wall or floor... When I asked how they would measure their impact, they said, ‘in meters of structure built.’ I said, ‘No, you’re building a community. You are creating a new space for people to communicate and interact.” The staff was astonished to learn that the real impact was their effect on beneficiaries’ lives—and that they could attach numbers to that impact.

Making Impact Measurement as Common as Marketing Metrics

Adriana sees Cuantix’s future as nothing less than completely changing the way social impact is approached and managed. “My vision is so big sometimes I cannot explain it.” Beyond simply helping organizations raise more funds to address a broader range of social challenges, she says, “I want to make impact measurement accessible to all organizations so people don’t have to struggle. I would like someday for everyone to talk about impact measurement the way they talk about marketing metrics.”