Stories of Impact Investors in Community

Overview

Name: Investors in Community
Founder: Philip Webb
Country: United Kingdom
Website: InvestorsInCommunity.org

Pain/Problem: Many businesses operate in an altruistic manner, believing that being a good community citizen is just the right thing to do. Sadly, many don’t capture the value created and see their CSR initiatives cut during difficult economic times. Showing and communicating the value of CSR initiatives was disjointed. The ecosystem was broken.

Impact Innovation: Innovation is not synonymous with CSR and the charity sector due to the perceived lack of monetary potential. IIC wanted to change that, and turn the world of Social Good matchmaking on this collective head. The end-to-end ecosystem of CSR was ripe for transformation.

IIC’s innovation was to tackle the issues from a platform perspective ➝ automate the tracking, CSR validation and reporting, while enabling businesses and charities to align on interests, values and impact scope. Improve funding outcomes to charities by reducing financial charges for donations.

Before engaging with Cognition Foundry, IIC had an application that ran into issues. The initial build could not scale nor easily evolve to satisfy the demand from early adopters. The app needed to be replaced. The new platform acted as a marketplace and clearing house, connecting business and causes by values, interests and impact. Donations became fee-free transactions. The concept of standardizing the measurement of giving across multiple areas created the “Community Credit” trustmark.

Ah-Ha Moments

Systems thinking uncovered the gaps between CSR initiatives and the causes that deliver the impact.

Philip Webb

Founder and Managing Director, IIC

CF Contribution

Solution Design

User Journey specialists co-created with the IIC team the needed journey maps and wireframes needed to get the platform back on track

Application Development

Blockchain-as-a-Service, Hyperledger, Mobile App

IT Strategy and Architecture

Guidance to the founders on how to start small, prepare to scale when needed, without sacrificing enterprise grade availability and data security

Social Investment

IIC could have given up on the Dream. By reaching out to Cognition Foundry, IIC kept the dream alive. Cognition Foundry provided a Social Investment to get the MVP to market

Infrastructure

Designed and maintained a hybrid cloud hosting infrastructure, including incorporating IBM LinuxONE with industry-leading 99.999% availability, scalability, resiliency and security

Ongoing Application Support and Development

Cognition Foundry continues to work with IIC to evolve platform for unique stakeholder processes and reporting

“With Cognition Foundry and IBM in our corner, we know that we have both the technical and commercial scaling, there and ready, as we expand the business.”
— Philip Webb, Managing Director, Investors in Community