I am thrilled to announce today the launch of ImpactMatters, an exciting new organization started by our founder, Dean Karlan.

ImpactMatters is a new nonprofit organization that conducts "impact audits," short-term engagements with two objectives: to guide nonprofits in strengthening their use and production of appropriate evidence of impact and to certify to donors that an organization is appropriately evidence-based. Much of ImpactMatters' work will rely on research from IPA, so IPA is incubating it, but ImpactMatters will soon be an independent entity as our missions are distinct: IPA will continue to test ideas and then work to scale effective solutions, but unlike ImpactMatters, IPA does not conduct reviews of nonprofits nor systematically certify specific nonprofits for donors. IPA sees ImpactMatters as filling a critical gap in the field, helping donors know how to be most effective in their giving, and we are delighted to support their launch and will continue to partner going forward.

Some have asked us how ImpactMatters is different from the Goldilocks project which we have piloted in 2015 and will launch within IPA in 2016. ImpactMatters is similar to a finance auditing firm, conducting audits, while the Goldilocks approach is a consulting one. The Goldilocks project will provide technical assistance to organizations to help them design better M&E strategies and internal data collection strategies, and help them decide when to do impact evaluations – but Goldilocks, unlike ImpactMatters, will not rate organizations. We will be sharing more widely about details of the Goldilocks project in the first few months of 2016, so stay tuned.

Congratulations to Dean and Elijah Goldberg for getting ImpactMatters to this point, and we look forward to many productive future collaborations between IPA and ImpactMatters.