Tool 01 - Bullseye Model
A Bullseye Model helps visualise what the community in control of democratic money will, and won’t, accept for where it is put to use. For example, in the example of BD Giving, the community steering group decided that it wanted to target money at charities and social enterprises delivering social impact in Barking and Dagenham (the centre of the bullseye for them).
It’s an intuitive way of thinking about the impact communities want to have with the money they control. What’s at the centre, the bullseye or sweet spot? What’s good but not as close? What’s off-target? And what’s off-limits? A bullseye helps communities have that conversation and, later, measure how much money is in which tier; which leads to a conversation about how to move more and more money towards the centre.
BD Giving added another layer (something called sliders) to help make their community conversations richer. You can see how that works in the example, and on pp7 of their investment policy (which will come up again later).
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The Access Foundation exists to support charities and social enterprises in finding the finance they need to grow their impact. It does this in part by investing and spending a £60m endowment, and where that endowment is invested is how it uses its own bullseye model. In a circular economy move, the centre of Access’s bullseye is to invest its endowment in UK charities and social enterprises (usually the bigger ones) to generate a return to spend on UK charities and social enterprises (usually the smaller ones). Access call this their Total Impact approach: creating the same impact by investing their money as they do when they spend it. You can find out more here.
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Snowball is an impact investment management company that invests money from individuals and organisations, using a bullseye model, at the centre of which is funds “with a track record of high-intensity impact leading to improved outcomes”. Interestingly, the outer two circles of Snowball’s bullseye (there are 5) are descriptions of what we might call ethical and ESG (environment, social and governance) investment… and they have no money in them because Snowball wants to invest in better impact than that.
Here you can find more information about their Impact Intensity approach
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VocTech Trust uses the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to identify themes most closely related to its mission of vocational technology and skills for work.
Here you can find their latest report about Investing for Impact. Skip to pp12 for a discussion of how they used a bullseye to direct their money at their mission.