035. Chasing impact - ever more elusive? One more exchange with Chris of MZN

Tosca is in conversation with Christian Meyer zu Natrup, Managing Director of MzN International, a boutique consulting firm that focuses both on nonprofits in international development, and on businesses that wish to do good, in this final episode of our 3 part joint podcast series. The other 2 episodes cover ‘Chasing innovation’  (episode #33) and ‘Chasing funding’' (episode #34).

Summary

Nonprofits are here to solve complex problems. But can they? 

Where is the impact? 

And why do some organizations spend so much time and money to achieve what some might typify as relatively little? 

And are we as NGOs actually interested in measuring and knowing our impact? And how do we build data-informed cultures?

In the final episode, I discuss with Chris of MZN NGO impact and what are some NGOs' mental models around impact.

Christian’s Bio

• Managing Director of MzN International
• Disaster relief and assessment coordinator at European Union (2006 – 2013)
• Senior Executive at Ernst and Young Management Consultants

We discussed:  

• The dangerous seduction of being embedded in a charity architecture (see Tosca's co-authored book)
• Cost-effectiveness of program interventions: why do NGOs not seem more interested in this? Is it difficult/impossible/too expensive to measure? 
• How to create learning and evidence-driven cultures

Resources:

LinkedIn profile of Chris

MZN International's Website

Twitter profile of Chris

Tosca's Virtual Team Leadership Essentials Course

Youtube video of this episode

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