Impact metrics

How Salad Africa is measuring social impact in SME financing

Social impact refers to significant or positive changes that solve or address social injustices and challenges faced by individuals and businesses.

Lady Kay

28 Mar 2025 — 3 min read

Photo by Jeff Siepman

Social impact refers to significant or positive changes that solve or address social injustices and challenges faced by individuals and businesses.

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Social impact focuses on the direct positive consequences that businesses, platforms, and organizations, of any size, offer society.

At Salad Africa, we believe that measuring our social impact is equally as important as tracking our financial goals. We are committed to achieving at least 50% of our targeted metrics by 2025. Our thinking is: if we aren't making a difference in the SME financing sector, then what's the point?

We want to do more than just close the SME funding gap in Africa—we are committed to transforming lives, economies, and underserved communities and businesses.

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Let's take a closer look at the metrics we are currently tracking and the SDGs we are committed to tracking in 2025:

Metric #1: Financial inclusion

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We currently track the total value of credit unlocked & number of SMEs funded.

Metric #2: Job creation (direct and indirect)

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We currently track jobs created within Salad Africa and we are committed to creating new jobs indirectly by funding more SMEs and supporting their business expansion targets.

Metric #3: Gender inclusion

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We currently track the number of women in leadership positions in the company and in our advisory team.

Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Metric #4: Value chain prosperity

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By providing accessible funding, we’re enabling businesses to increase their revenue, invest in better infrastructure, and improve overall financial stability.

We are committed to tracking the increase in business revenues and financial stability for the SMEs and lending partners in our funding portfolio and ecosystem.

Creating social impact requires entrepreneurs and founders to slow down and deeply consider the "why" behind their startup, product, and business goals. However, startups move fast, and many entrepreneurs find themselves going after a new milestone, tackling another challenge, and chasing a bigger goal on the horizon.

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For early-stage startups that want to solve system issues, measuring impact from the beginning is more than a "nice-to-have," it's a necessary and commendable decision.

By tracking social and sustainable impact in the early stage of our growth, Salad Africa is also setting itself up for long-term success. A growing number of investors and partners are looking beyond financial metrics—they want to see real, measurable contributions to economic and social progress.

Scaling impact with purpose

Measuring our social impact keeps us accountable, helps us refine our embedded lending services, and validates that what we are building is working and making a real difference for our SME clients, lending partners, and the digital platforms we work with.

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Furthermore, it ensures that we stay true to our mission to make credit accessible for underserved SMBs so they can grow, create new jobs, and strengthen their local economies.

To everyone who has supported us—our team, investors, partners, and most importantly, the SMEs trusting us with their growth—thank you. Your belief in what we’re building fuels our mission every day.