Measuring Impact at the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator

Jill Kickul, Zephyr James

Product #:SCG-594

Supplier:Lloyd Greif Center - USC

Discipline:General Management

Setting:Change agents , Gender discrimination , Racial discrimination , Coronavirus , Culture

Details:Case (PDF) • 19 pages • 2022-12-05

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In 2020, the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI)’s CEO, Matt Petersen, announced a first-of-its-kind equity earnback program, by which incubated companies could earn back up to half of LACI’s equity ask. To launch the program, Petersen tasked Alex Mitchell, incoming Senior Vice President of Unlocking Innovation, with creating a robust framework to evaluate companies across difficult-to-measure environmental and social impact goals, along with more standard economic goals.

Simultaneously, LACI is faced with myriad high-pressure challenges—the COVID-19 pandemic required the place-based campus to immediately identify its value proposition in an online environment; the police murder of Black man George Floyd prompted urgent discussions on racial justice; an annual survey of organizational culture and inclusivity indicated declining performance despite targeted efforts.

Learning Objectives

•To examine the factors and trade-offs in social impact measurement
•To illustrate the ways in which organizational context influence leadership decision-making
•To explore how incubators can innovate in their offerings to portfolio companies
•To analyze how companies can be evaluated across environmental and social metrics, in addition to economic metrics
•To understand the context of businesses and organizations within the green technology sector
•To investigate the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in organizational culture and success across strategic goals