LeapFrog’s decade of experience in impact measurement led to the co-creation of and support for the Operating Principles for Impact Management issued by the IFC and World Bank Group. The nine principles were created to set a basic market standard for impact investing. They serve as a guide to deployment of capital by institutional investors – including pension and sovereign funds, insurers and banks, endowments and family offices.

The Operating Principles for Impact Management arose from the need to have common disciplines for management of investments for impact, helping to ensure authenticity and high standards of measurement by creating guidelines against which impact management systems of funds and institutions are assessed.

LeapFrog was one of the external members of the consultation group that designed the Principles and became a founding signatory to the Principles in April 2019. An independent impact verification was completed by Tideline, a leading impact investing consultancy, in September 2019. Tideline concluded: “LeapFrog’s IM system demonstrates an advanced level of alignment across all of the Impact Principles.”

Globally, LeapFrog’s was the first independent impact audit ever completed and announced against these agreed principles. The audit applies across every LeapFrog fund, rather than to one or another fund in a larger suite of funds not dedicated to impact investing.