Cerise+SPTF is a joint initiative between two global leaders in social and environmental performance management. Founded in 2005, the Social Performance Task Force (SPTF) developed and regularly updates the Universal Standards for Social and Environmental Performance Management, first issued in 2012, which guide impact-driven financial service providers in making finance safer and more beneficial for low-income customers. As a membership organization, SPTF has more than 8,000 participating individuals from every region of the world. CERISE (Comité d’échange, de réflexion et d’information sur les systèmes d’épargne-crédits), a French nonprofit created in 1998, pioneered the implementation of social performance management, working with committed microfinance institutions to launch the Social Performance Indicators initiative in 2001. As a social innovator, Cerise works with actors in inclusive finance, social business, and impact investing to co-create social standards and social assessment tools that are free to all, while also offering fee-based consultancy services to impact-driven organizations, equipping them with skills and tools to define and achieve their impact goals. As developers and champions of interdependent and complementary tools and products, Cerise and SPTF have worked closely together since the mid-2000s, formalizing cooperation via a Memorandum of Understanding in 2021 and now operating under a common strategic plan.
Why it matters: Cerise+SPTF creates the standards and tools that enable impact-driven financial service providers to make finance safer and more beneficial for low-income customers rather than merely extractive, demonstrating that social and environmental performance management requires shared frameworks across the global microfinance and inclusive finance sectors. By developing the Universal Standards guiding providers worldwide and co-creating social assessment tools that are free to all, Cerise+SPTF ensures that impact measurement is accessible rather than proprietary, with over 8,000 participating individuals from every region contributing to standards development. The joint initiative shows that pioneering social performance management since the late 1990s and formalizing cooperation between complementary organizations creates comprehensive infrastructure for defining, measuring, and achieving social impact in financial services serving those historically excluded from traditional finance.
