Opportunity International’s Post

This week, I'm excited to highlight Chapter 3: Impact stories. We profile success stories from five of our nonprofit partner organizations: 1️⃣ Advancing clean water access with charity: water With support from Cisco’s Global Impact Grant program, charity: water developed and deployed a first-of-its-kind IoT-based sensor that remotely monitors water usage and the health of hand pumps. These sensors, designed for remote, low-resource environments, have a battery life of 10 years or more and do not require specialized tools for installation. 2️⃣ Supporting life-saving entrepreneurs with Living Goods Living Goods saves lives at scale by providing digitally enabled tools, data, and resources to community health workers. In rural Kenya, Rosaline, a community health worker supported by Cisco and Living Goods, received a smartphone to track patients, diagnose illnesses, and provide education. She also receives a reliable medication supply to treat common diseases. 3️⃣ Improving access to digital financial services with Opportunity International Cisco partnered with Opportunity International to launch digital banking solutions, including iris and fingerprint scans, and voice-recorded training, promoting financial inclusion among under-banked populations. Devina Konadu from Ghana used these services to start her own business, accessing banking services conveniently and securely from her phone. 4️⃣ Fostering access to math and education with MIND Education Leveraging Cisco products, software, and financial investments, MIND and Cisco created innovative math curricula featuring translation, localization, content management solutions, learning game development, and platform tools. These efforts supported organizational scalability, drove growth within school districts, and ensured financial sustainability 5️⃣ Empowering new careers with Cisco Networking Academy Ernest Wambari, a graduate of Cisco Networking Academy, became the first Kenyan to achieve Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert (CCIE) status. Today, he plays a crucial role in the U.N.’s World Food Programme, using his skills to modernize operations and support millions facing food insecurities. 🌟 These stories illustrate the transformative power of partnerships and innovation in creating meaningful change. Visit our eBook to read them in full: https://lnkd.in/e5vXD_u6

Ever wonder if companies can actually do good? That’s my day job. But Cisco Networking Academy is only one facet of what Cisco does.   In 2016 Cisco pledged to ‘positively impact 1 billion lives’ then worked with PwC for independent auditing.   A new ebook celebrates reaching this milestone ·     impact stories ·     our strategy for social impact ·     transparency about our process and validation methodology   Proud to be one small part of this collective global effort. #lovewhereyouwork #wearecisco https://lnkd.in/gP8RMW-t

For the next few weeks, I’ll be summarizing a chapter of Cisco's One Billion Lives Positively impacted eBook, breaking down our journey and strategies into actionable insights. Follow along to learn how you can replicate success and drive social change. 🌟 Here's a peek into our chapter on strategy and how you can adopt it to drive social change: Our Blueprint for Accelerating Social Impact: 1. Start with "Why" and "Who." Define your organization’s unique mission and the specific populations or regions you aim to support. 2. Think through your "How" and "What." Develop a strategic approach by identifying your unique value add and investing in impactful partnerships and solutions. 3. Clearly Define Your Intended Impacts. Be specific about your goals and how you will measure progress. 4. Build a Rigorous Tracking Methodology. Develop leading indicators to track progress, ensuring transparency and accountability in reporting. 5. Invest in Potential. Balance proven solutions with innovative approaches, accepting a longer horizon for results. 6. Adjust Course as Needed. Be flexible and adaptive, using insights to refine your programs and respond to emerging needs. 🌎Ready to make a lasting impact? Check out our eBook to dive deeper into our journey and discover how you can be part of the change. #SocialImpact #Cisco #SocialInnovation #NetworkingAcademy #DigitalTransformation #CSR https://lnkd.in/guJdVeSU

As we wrap up my snapshots from Cisco's "One Billion Lives Positively Impacted" eBook, let's explore Chapter 4: Validating impact. Cisco engaged PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to perform an independent, limited assurance review of our progress, methodology, and validation processes from FY16 to FY22. We maintained this rigorous approach in FY23 to ensure our path to one billion was sound. As a reminder, we defined a "positive impact" as a measurable, beneficial change in an outcome. This occurs when an individual: 🌍Gains access to a critical resource 📚Learns something new 💼Engages meaningfully in the formal economy We utilized Theory of Change models to understand and evaluate how our activities (programs, projects, products, services, etc.) contribute to a chain of results leading to the intended positive impact. Our methodology was carefully designed to be thorough, detailed, and replicable, focusing on: 1️⃣Validating the positive impact for each individual counted 2️⃣Ensuring each person is unique and counted only once over the goal period 3️⃣Attributing positive impacts to Cisco's comprehensive offerings of funding, technology, and expertise 🌟Curious to learn more about measuring impact? Check out our eBook to dive deeper into our journey and discover how you can be part of the change: https://lnkd.in/gYRQ8ni7

This is a game changer - Work on Climate has received our first major institutional grant of $371k from Cisco Foundation! This grant is one of the *extremely* few philanthropic efforts on the climate workforce, and one of the even fewer (if any?) that includes the necessary focus on systems change, rather than only on direct training of a specific number of people. I'm happy that Cisco recognizes the importance of the climate workforce and of the systems change approach. Here's to other philanthropic funders following suit! If you are a member of Work on Climate, here's what this means for you: we are going to shift our programs from answering "WHERE can I work on climate" to answering "HOW can I work on climate" - putting a greater focus on skill building. The next step will be then harnessing the power of the community to deploy the new skills and practices into the wider professional development ecosystem for different roles. That is harder and more focused work, which is why we will be hiring for two community program manager roles to support it (planning to post them next week)!

Tech companies around the world are working to close the “digital divide” and promote greater accessibility to technology for disadvantaged populations. 👉 Read our perspective on the digital divide and current initiatives working to bridge the gap. https://lnkd.in/e4mrGJ-T