Figure G: Impact Goals for Hataraku Fund Investees (from 2024 Blue Mark Report)
The Hataraku Fund has established a solid structure for IMM and has undergone evaluation through reputable frameworks like BlueMark’s proprietary model. However, as Sugeno said, “There is always room for improvement. First and foremost, it’s for continuous learning and improving our contribution for creating impact. We are not doing it to check boxes, to achieve good scores. We are reflecting and taking actions with IMM and the BlueMark model to improve our impact,” she explained. 25 She also highlighted the importance of external evaluations, adding, “We need outside assessment to be self-critical and to serve the fund’s goal of contributing to the impact investing ecosystem in Japan and globally.” 26 At the fund level, the Hataraku Fund’s annual impact reports reveal a dichotomy in the level of detail shared with limited partners (LPs) versus the public. While the LP reports are comprehensive—containing detailed data, KPIs, financials, and impact analysis—the publicly available reports remain more surface-level. This disparity is due to proprietary information restrictions. Neither the LP nor the public reports explicitly track progress on identified challenges or clarify how improvements have been implemented—or not. This echoes feedback from BlueMark’s evaluation, which highlighted the need for reporting impact metrics relative to targets and tracking progress over time.
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Ten Years in the Making
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