FAQs on Primary Research on Financial Sustainability

Q. What is the objective of this study and why now?

A. To map diverse revenue streams and financial resilience of impact incubators‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. (over the last 5 years) to surface evidence-based guidance for sustainable financial models.

Q. Who can/should participate in the study?
A. Impact Incubators‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact./accelerators with 5 years of audited financial records, willingness to share their financial data.

Q. What data are we asking for and in what format?
A. Last 5 years’ audited statements in a structured format with revenues by type/year, expenses by activity/year in a Google form.

Q. How will confidentiality & data-sharing work?
A. We’ll use a data-sharing, use, protection, and storage guide and a consent from the participants. Only aggregated results will be presented; raw figures will be stored securely and with limited access. In case your organization is being featured in the final report for the resilience of its financial model, your explicit consent will be sought.

Q. How will we calculate financial sustainability?
A. Grant Dependency, share of non-grant revenue, unrestricted reserves ratio, months of runway, current ratio.

Q. What counts as “self-generated revenue”?
A. Revenue that the organization generated itself, like Service fees, workspace rent, consulting, licensing, equity exits, membership fees, events, sponsorships, etc..

Q. Will you publish organisation-level data or only aggregated/case studies?
A. Only aggregated cross-case analysis will be published along with a few best practice case studies (for which explicit permission will be sought).

Q. What is the timeline and next steps after the pre-survey?
A. Once you’ve responded to the pre-survey, we’ll share the final questionnaire, clean/validate, interview participants, conduct analysis and produce a draft report.

Q. What’s the expected time commitment for participants?
A. Filling the pre-survey (5-10 minutes), filling the survey (0.5-1 hour depending on bookkeeping); interview with 2–3 stakeholders (20-30 mins).

Q. What kind of outputs will participants get?
A. Customized benchmarking scorecards, an opportunity to be featured among the Best Practices case study, Access to Regional and Global Learning Convenings, discounted tickets to Pollinate Impact’s Global Potluck in Manila, Have access to Region and Sector-Specific Insights, Gain Global Visibility, Be Recognized in Pollinate Impact’s Channels

Q. How will you handle currency conversions?
A. Participants will share their data in their local currency and conversion will be done based on yearly average exchange rates.

Q. Who is running the research, and can you share references/credibility?
A. Research team at Pollinate Impact along our Research Advisory Committee.

Q. Why focus on the last 5 years?
A. Capture pre/post-shock trends and comparability across incubators‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact..

Q. Which geographies & sectors are included?
A. Geographical Spread: Global South with a mix of Global North. Sectoral spread: As listed in our pre-survey- Affordable Housing, Agriculture and food security, Circular economy, and so on.

Q. Are we comparing incubators‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. by size or maturity?
A. Yes – we’ll segment by maturity (age/stage) of the incubator‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact., budget size, and sector.

Q. What methodological approach are you using?
A. Mixed-methods – Pre-survey (to gather basic organisational details and willingness to participate), Survey Questionnaire (for comprehensive quantitative data collection), qualitative interviews; validation & cleaning of data, Final Research Report.

Q. What happens if an incubator‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. lacks audited statements for 5 years?
A. They will be excluded for the purpose of this study

Q. What do participants get by participating in this study?
A. An opportunity to be featured in the Final report. Receive a Customized Benchmarking Scorecard. Join Regional and Global Learning Convenings- Discounted tickets for Pollinate Impact Global Potluck in Manila in October 2026. Gain Global Visibility and will be recognized in Pollinate Impact’s Channels

Q. How granular should revenue/expense line items be?
A. As granular as available (we request breakdown by revenue type and expense category).

Q. How do you define grant vs non-grant revenue?
A. Grants = donor/government/foundation awards; Non-grant/self-generated = fees, rentals, consulting, equity returns, etc.

Q. How should multi-currency organisations report?
A. Report original currency and we’ll standardise during cleaning.

Q. Who will have access to raw data?
A. Only Pollinate Impact Research Team.

Q. What are the consent and withdrawal options?
A. Participants can withdraw anytime before the analysis stage starting in March. Withdrawn data will not be incorporated or analysed for the final reporting.

Q. How will missing data be handled?
A. We’ll attempt to follow-up seeking any clarifications, exclude unrecoverable items and document missingness with transparent notes.

Q. Can multiple staff from the same incubator‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. fill different sections?
A. Yes. Although we’re asking for a primary contact, multiple members of the same team can answer different questions.

Q. What qualifies as a “shock” and how will you capture it?
A. Shocks refer to significant events such as donor pull outs, budget cuts, budget over runs, a penalty to be paid such as taxes, severance etc. Opportunities include costs incurred outside of donor funding such as launching/piloting a project without donor funding, expanding to a new geography. We’ll be asking if your organization has experienced such events and your organization’s pre/post revenue mix.

Q. How will you measure whether diversification improved resilience?
A. Compare before/after revenue mix, runway, break-even status and qualitative narratives from the interviews.

Q. Will the study identify “best” revenue mixes?
A. Yes! It will surface patterns and trade-offs, not one-size-fits-all prescriptions but will aim to produce few contextualised recommendations.

Q. What analyses will you run?
A. Analyses by geography/sector/age, indicators (grant dependency, runway), thematic qualitative synthesis.

Q. Will participants receive benchmarking compared to peers?
A. Yes – an anonymised benchmarking report will be shared with all participants.

Q. Will there be reimbursements or honoraria for interviews?
A. No

Q. Who should participants contact with technical issues uploading files?
A. himakshi@pollinateimpact.org

Q. What if an incubator‘Incubator’ refers to any organization whose programs primarily focus on vetting and selecting, promising social enterprises, and providing them with a comprehensive range of support services aimed at building and growing them to achieve maximum sustainable impact. is loss-making but has high non-grant revenue – how will that be interpreted?
A. Revenue mix is only one element; profitability, costs associated with revenue streams, reserves, and qualitative context will be used to interpret financial sustainability.

Q. Will you capture income in-kind or donor-funded services?
A. No

Q. Will you host a webinar to present preliminary findings?
A. We haven’t planned to host such a webinar yet.

Q. Will my organisation be named in the report?
A. Yes but only when recognizing participants of the research and if your organization is being featured among the Best practice case studies. For the latter, explicit consent of the organization will be taken.