One person as a pathway to many
The pilot began with 107,772 direct beneficiaries of Kyndryl social impact programs, including beneficiaries of global cybersecurity skilling initiatives supported by the Kyndryl Foundation and our large-scale programs in India, such as Cyber Rakshak.
Based on information and multiplier projections from our implementation partners, the study estimated an additional 361,690 indirect beneficiaries, bringing the combined reach to 469,462 people. Across the portfolio, the average multiplier was 3.9x, with a median of 4.0x.
This is particularly important for social impact programs centered on education and skills and can help guide how organizations think about designing their programs more effectively. When knowledge can be shared or reapplied, understanding what happens beyond the initial intervention becomes increasingly important.
These secondary impacts do not happen in only one way.
In our example, we identified four pathways through which these benefits can travel: peer or household diffusion, when learning and skills are shared with others; institutional embedding, when benefits are reused for new cohorts; organizational adoption, when new routines and policies are implemented; and ecosystem amplification, when impact extends through broader networks and platforms.
Understanding these pathways shifts the focus from simply how many people a program reached to how far its impact traveled. It can change not only how organizations measure social impact, but how they design for it from the start.
