Standardized Tools for Impact Market Reporting
Pitch deck for my projects found here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yjCCO-2-ClpKiLTNyijbf0XdHbMqJfCq/view?usp=sharing
Project description
This project is a research initiative to develop a set of principles and guidelines that future projects can use when reporting results - imagine it as GAAP for impact markets.
Just like standards of disclosure have improved trust and reach for financial markets, I intend to help make future impact markets more successful by making it easier for future recipients to inform their investors on the impact of their projects. The tools developed here should also help future investors make decisions about which projects to fund.
The tools developed in this project will be trialled for reporting results from the "Forecast Dissemination Mini-Markets", which are deliberately designed to be similar in order to aid comparison between them.
What is your track record on similar projects?
I’m a professional forecaster working for Amazon (I also won the ACX 2022 forecasting contest). I’ve previously done work in survey research and causal inference, with a focus on evaluating the effectiveness of educational interventions.
I used to work in litigation, where I conducted research projects for expert testimony in labor and accounting-related lawsuits. This gave me familiarity with accounting principles and a great deal of experience reading financial reports.
My recent professional focus has been on automating the use of forecasts in business decisionmaking, and this project is a part of my personal interest in “aligning” institutions and market outcomes with human values.
How will you spend your funding?
Funding received for this project will go towards supporting the development of standards for reporting that future impact markets might adopt. I will publish the results of this work by September, on Manifold if possible, and otherwise on my own website. The amount of time spent will vary based on funding, but I will commit at least one hour of dedicated work to this project for each $50 of funding received. At project completion in September, I will also publish a breakdown of my research process, with the time spent on each component.
Thanks Austin! Here are my answers to both of your questions (I'm going to try to add the pitch deck to the project descriptions as well):
How did you settle on these three areas (college students, earthquakes, and hurricane forecasts?)
I’m specifically selecting areas where I think there are lots of people making decisions that would benefit from having a forecast available. This particular set of areas is selected to maximize the contrast in impact durations (better hurricane information helps outcomes immediately, while most of the impact of choosing a college major happens years in the future).
For a project with $500 to spend on ads, how many people would you expect to reach?
After pricing out a few options, I expect to get around 5,000 impressions per $100 spent (this isn’t an exact number and will depend on the exact demographic targeted among other factors). I’m planning to use a portion of the money to do a second round of ads for a survey to estimate impact, so a good estimate would be around 20k impressions for $500.
Hi Ryan, I really love the innovative way you've chosen to use Manifund (as a bidding mechanism between three different projects to allocate ad spend!) And naturally, we're super interested in guidelines to help inform future impact market rounds.
A couple of questions for you:
How did you settle on these three areas (college students, earthquakes, and hurricane forecasts?)
For a project with $500 to spend on ads, how many people would you expect to reach?
Hi folks!
I'm holding a 30-minute pitch call for my projects this Thursday at 5:00 pm Pacific time. This call will include more information on the work I plan to do and why I think it's important, as well as an opportunity for direct Q&A.
You can send any questions you'd like me to address to impact@ryankupyn.com (or ask them here of course).
Meeting link: