Bill English co-founds Wellington start-up that measures impact of philanthropic investment

Impact Lab founders Emily Mason, Kylie Reiri (right), Todd Nicholson and Bill English. Photo / Supplied

Former Prime Minister Sir Bill English has teamed up with two former colleagues to launch a start-up designed to measure and compare the impact of philanthropic investment.

Wellington-based Impact Lab uses data to aggregate dashboards that display social service providers that have been invested in, the aspects of people's lives they are trying to change, and how well each perform in terms of social value return on investment.

The web-based application breaks up the improvement and change made in people's lives into regions, ethnic groups and populations to "help philanthropists make better investment decisions".

Impact Lab has been in business since April, founded by Emily Mason, who is chief executive of the company, Kylie Reiri, chief technical officer, Dr Todd Nicholson, chief analytics offer and English, who chairs the company.

They began working on the business in December last year, and together have invested just under $1 million to get the company off the ground.

Frances Wyborn, ex-wife of Auckland property investor Mark Wyborn, holds a 25 per cent stake in the company.

Mason and Reiri worked under English during his time as Prime Minister and Minister of Finance for the National Party, at the Social Investment Agency.

"We truly believe that we can use data and technology tools and evidence of what works to make a difference in people's lives to serve New Zealand better," Mason told the Herald.

"Like [philanthropists] invest their money into the rest of their lives and know what return they can expect, we wanted to do a much better job of helping them make investment with their philanthropic dollar."

Impact Lab is focused on rolling its analytics tools out to social service providers in New Zealand, before it looks to take the business offshore into Australia, United States and the Pacific Islands.

Mason said the tools could be used in foreign aid, philanthropic spending, corporate social good and responsibility, ethical investing and Government spending.