Imp-Act began in 2002 as a three-year global project funded by the Ford Foundation.  At the project’s completion, Imp-Act reorganized as a consortium of five organizations whose collective mission is “to see a growing number of microfinance institutions actively managing, and reporting on, their social performance.” Together, these organizations work to mainstream social performance management (SPM) by “building capacity for SPM training and support, documenting evidence and learning to advance good practice in SPM and promoting an enabling environment for SPM.”  In particular, the Consortium developed and now offers a SPM training course that can assist a variety of organization types to implement SPM systems.

Freedom from Hunger began working with Imp-Act during its initial project period.  In addition, Freedom from Hunger’s partner implementing organizations—CARD in the Philippines and CRECER in Bolivia—played significant roles in Imp-Act’s early action research that led to the development of its SPM training.  Now, as one of the members of the Imp-Act Consortium, Freedom from Hunger continues to contribute to the SPM training—testing it with partners and developing training-of-trainer materials that will accompany it. Freedom from Hunger plans to distribute the SPM training through its Reach network in Africa, India and Mexico.