Yukonstruct Society aims to cultivate an inclusive space and diverse community for collaboration, shared ideas and knowledge, and opportunity for growth for Yukon-based innovators, entrepreneurs, non-profits, makers, creatives, and more.
Focus Area: Entrepreneurship and innovation
Headquarters: Whitehorse, Yukon
Organization type: Nonprofit
SDG Alignment: 8 - Decent work and economic growth
SDG Sub-Target: 8.3 - Promote development-oriented policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation, and encourage the formalization and growth of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises, including through access to financial services.
Project Type: Impact investment research
Year: 2021
When Yukonstruct Society approached us, they were developing their strategy to support the capital needs of local Yukon entrepreneurs and connecting them to resources and investors. Our immediate role, and where we were most useful, was in collaborating directly with a local software tech startup within Yukonstruct’s programs identified as one of the companies furthest along in their investment readiness journey.
Our work with this tech startup was to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their brand, define an impact thesis and metrics for tracking progress, and identify their gaps within the investment process.
We started understanding the innovation ecosystem as a whole, analyzing the stakeholders, policies, and programs that exist in regions inside and outside of North America. We then assessed the Yukon’s geographic, economic, political, and regulatory landscapes against our greater findings.
Using our knowledge about various impact measurement frameworks - the UN Sustainable Development Goals, IRIS+, and the Impact Management Project - we determined how they could be applied to our client. Through these learnings, we stressed the importance for the startup to track their impact metrics for both their own benefit and to appeal to impact investors.
In the end, we created a comprehensive toolkit for the startup, where we helped to:
For Yukonstruct, one of the most impactful outcomes of this project was the creation of a framework for how to approach impact measurement with our community. As we run annual startup bootcamps and workshops for our community of 200+ entrepreneurs, this work will support our team to further support and educate our community in this area.
To learn more about Yukonstruct’s services and community, visit yukonstruct.com.
“Working with SIA on this project was incredibly helpful for the startup to learn about different approaches to impact measurements, and which ones might work best for their company. It also gave our organization a framework that we can use to support other companies in our ecosystem.”
