In my past few Medium posts on Acumen Ideas, I’ve shared the high level principles of Lean Data, Acumen’s new approach to measurement for the social enterprise sector. Now it’s time to dig deeper.

Last week, Stanford Social Innovation Review published “The Power of Lean Data,” a feature I co-authored with Acumen’s Director of Impact Tom Adams and Alnoor Ebrahim of Harvard Business School.

If you’re a practitioner, I’d recommend you read that piece together with the new report Acumen just published together with Root Capital, Innovations in Impact Measurement.

The report is full of case studies and detailed examples of how both Root and Acumen are leveraging the power of mobile phones and tablets to gather data from end customers in some of the most remote locations in the world. The future is about connecting to these customers to amplify their voices.

This report focuses on the “how” of data collection, exploring the possibilities (and limitations) of using low-cost technology to quickly and inexpensively gather meaningful data directly from end customers of social enterprises.

What’s become clear is that collecting impact data doesn’t have to be expensive or a big burden. It’s high time we recognized that the cellphone revolution means we have an opportunity to open up a channel of communication with a new generation of low-income customers.

Impact investing and social enterprise are some of the hottest areas in the social change sector. Yet until now, we’ve done a terrible job of collecting and sharing data on the actual impact we are having.

I hope that these new tools not only help us address this gap but also pave the way for a major change in how we measure the impact of the important work we are doing.

Also, in case you missed it, there’s still time to sign up for our free +Acumen Lean Data course.