Impact

Prosperity Candle is committed to having a positive and sustainable social impact. The company was created for this purpose, and we will measure our progress in many ways.  The narratives are as important as the numbers.

Listening to the women share their stories, give voice to their visions, and express candid opinions about how Prosperity Candle is affecting their lives will be the first measure of our work. We will then pair careful data collection with these stories and opinions to better understand the whole picture, because looking at whether the women are able to increase their incomes is only part of our work. We also want to see whether or not nutrition is improving, if women’s safety is enhanced, if more of their children are in school and receiving medical care, and how the women feel about their futures – are they hopeful? Are they taking leadership roles in their communities? Are their voices heard?

Our approach to measuring social impact must take into account all of these factors. And as a business that cares deeply about its environmental impact, we will be vigilant in assessing this area as well to minimize as much as possible our carbon footprint. We are committed to tracking and evaluating triple-bottom-line progress in ways that allow us to make better decisions and continually improve our model for broad and sustainable impact.

At Prosperity Candle, we often say that if we have trained a thousand women in candle-making and those thousand women are earning a supplemental income, we have failed in our mission. This is because we seek to empower as many as possible to build thriving businesses that can offer employment to others in their communities. This is the impact we seek to have. The diagram below illustrates the path we hope many women entrepreneurs will choose with ongoing support from us and other organizations.

As we grow and establish our systems for measuring impact, we will share the results with you and our partners. And here on this page, we will post useful information and lessons learned for supporters and others who are pursuing similar goals.

We welcome your comments and suggestions.  Please send us a message at Contact Us.