Return On Inclusion

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My Sustainable Encounter with Shailja Sachan

by Albert Schiller

The modern impact sector is built on a foundation of data. Metrics are the currency of progress, and quantifiable outcomes are the prerequisite for investment. This data-only doctrine promises clarity and accountability. It provides a native language for a complex world. Yet, what if the most critical indicators of human progress, such as dignity, agency, and social cohesion, resist quantification? Shailja Sachan’s professional philosophy is directly engaged with this paradox. Her work challenges a limiting numerical worldview, arguing that a ledger that can only measure profit and loss is blind to the community's most valuable assets.

The Data Trap

Sachan operates within a system she identifies as being caught in a state of paralysis, a "chicken and egg situation" that stifles the growth it is meant to enable. The vast and largely informal craft sector lacks the comprehensive, centralized data investors require to make decisions. This absence of hard data creates a steep barrier to entry capital. Yet, the mapping, formalization, and research required to produce that data are not accessible without significant investment. The system demands proof of value before it will invest, but it withholds the resources needed to generate that proof of concept. This cycle traps communities and entrepreneurs, leaving them unable to meet the entry requirements of a financial world that speaks only one language. To break this paralysis, a leader must find a different way to articulate value that transcends the two-dimensional spreadsheet.

The ROI

Sachan presents a more human-centric ledger. In this, qualitative, story-driven evidence is not a sentimental flourish. It is an "empirical codified tool" used to demonstrate a return on investment that conventional models fail to see. Her primary example is the story of weavers in Chhattisgarh. Before a social enterprise created consistent work, the weaver profession had so little social standing that "nobody wanted their daughters to marry a weaver". The intervention’s most tremendous impact was not just a measurable increase in income. The "restoration of dignity and social standing" allowed these men to be once again seen as viable partners within their community.

This outcome ROI represents the revival of a community’s future and strengthening its social fabric. It is a metric of resilience and health invisible to a purely financial lens. An impact investor focused solely on the numbers would miss the asset being built: a sustainable human ecosystem. Sachan's insistence on this story is an argument that the data-only doctrine, in its pursuit of objectivity, overlooks the purpose of impact investment, which is to create tangible and positive change in human lives.

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Her focus on the unquantifiable does not make Sachan an idealist who rejects metrics. She is a pragmatist who seeks to amend a flawed doctrine, not abolish it. She openly acknowledges the operational reality that "if you can't quantify something, you can't really solve that problem". Her work with her organization, 200M, directly attempts to solve the sector's data deficit by creating "data-led evidence". Her argument is against biased or incomplete quantification, not quantification itself. She accepts that impact investors have difficulty capturing financial and social returns. Her role is to ensure the social returns are not reduced to simplistic or misleading metrics that ignore the mechanics of a deeper context. In her model, numbers are not the final answer. They are one part of a much larger, more complex story. Her doctrine is a critical amendment to the prevailing mindset, asserting that a solution measured only financially will inevitably miss the human value it is meant to create.

So what can we take from her approach?

Questions for Audience

1. Sachan’s story of the weavers demonstrates a powerful "Return on Inclusion." How can leaders and organizations systematically present this kind of unquantifiable, story-driven evidence to skeptical, numbers-driven investors in a way that is perceived as credible data, not just sentimental anecdote?

2. The "chicken and egg" problem is a significant barrier to capital. What practical, first-step intervention could a funder or policymaker implement to break this cycle and generate the "seed data" needed to attract larger, more traditional investments?