Impact Sourcing in Kenya: Definition, Benefits, and Impact

Nov 14, 2025 0

Impact sourcing is rapidly gaining traction among Global Business Services (GBS) organizations and Shared Services functions as a transformative outsourcing and workforce strategy. Impact Sourcing is a business practice where companies prioritize suppliers that aim to create social and economic opportunities for underprivileged communities.

It involves hiring and providing career development opportunities to people who otherwise have limited prospects for sustainable employment, often in low-income areas or regions with high unemployment. Impact Sourcing is part of a broader corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy, focusing not only on the benefits to the business, such as cost reduction and access to a motivated workforce but also on making a positive impact on society.

Defining Impact Sourcing

Impact Sourcing is commonly defined as employing people from poor and vulnerable communities. As an industry, we’ve been debating its definition for some time now. But the one we like to use here at ADEC Innovations is that impact sourcing is bringing meaningful work to those who need it most.

Impact sourcing happens when organizations intentionally hire and provide career development opportunities to people who otherwise have limited prospects for sustainable employment. It’s an effective, market-based solution to alleviate poverty that has the potential to create millions of jobs.

The meaning of Impact Sourcing has evolved since the term emerged in the early 2000s. Because the concept overlaps with similar ideas, like socially responsible outsourcing, it has evolved beyond its original focus. Impact Sourcing encompasses offshore and in-country sourcing.

Recently, the definition of Impact Sourcing has come under debate (and rightly so). The challenge of outlining a set of parameters which are prescriptive yet open to a range of applications has led to hurdles in its success measurement.

In the media, the employment status and working conditions of ‘gig workers’ including microworkers on digital platforms undertaking data annotation and content moderation work has achieved high visibility. Another important form of data work is that undertaken by employees of business process outsourcing (BPO) centres in which AI companies outsource their AI data work to an external provider who performs the work according to instructions set by the company.

What is Impact Sourcing?

The Kenyan Context

One million people enter the Kenyan workforce annually, with youth (18-34-year-olds) having the highest unemployment rate of any age group at nearly 67%. However, expansion of employment opportunities has not kept pace with the rapidly expanding working age population. A decade ago, we intentionally set out to create better opportunities for Kenyans, launching our Kenya Impact Sourcing Hub in 2014.

We selected Kenya due to its growing pool of educated, English-speaking professionals, and the positive socio-economic impact potential. We’ve been operating our Impact Sourcing Hub in Kenya since 2014. The strategic shift to include Kenya in our operations has been well-received, both internally and from our customers. It has enabled us to improve our cost structure, and grow our revenue, helping us remain competitive in a demanding market.

As we continue the series, additional articles will share findings gathered during field visits with Impact Sourcing Service Providers (ISSPs) based in Kenya. ISSPs are the BPO organizations with the specific social objective to hire workers from poor and vulnerable communities to perform BPO work.

Youth workers, defined as people under 30 seeking employment, for example, comprise a large part of the labor force in many developing countries (i.e., it is estimated that 65 percent of Kenya’s labor force is made up of youth) and their unemployment rate can be up to three times higher than the average rate in many countries.

As AI companies require higher quality data annotation and have more complex tasks, an increasing amount of this work is shifting away from those platforms and towards more specialised BPOs which can guarantee greater accuracy and efficiency. As a result, studies such as this one which interrogate working conditions in the BPO sector and AI companies’ claims of contributing to an ethical supply chain are much needed.

The Avasant Foundation has been actively involved in Impact Sourcing since 2008. The Rockefeller Foundation funded Avasant in 2011 to highlight key policy initiatives and incentives that could help to scale the Impact Sourcing sector. Through education and partnership, the Avasant Foundation created over 1,300 ICT-enabled jobs in Africa.

One of the largest BPOs in East Africa, Sama, a training-data company that focuses on annotating data for AI systems, was the subject of significant negative media attention after an investigation revealed that Sama workers fulfilling content moderation contracts were paid less than $2 an hour, had suffered significant trauma as a result of their work, and had subsequently been victimised for attempting to form a trade union (Perrigo 2023a).

The practice of impact sourcing has been pioneered by Sama, founded by its then-CEO Leila Janah in 2008 as a non-profit with the mission of ‘giving work’ to disadvantaged individuals who had difficulty accessing the traditional employment market (Carmel et al. 2016; TEDx 2010). Sama has since transitioned to become a for-profit company, but still claims to be a social enterprise and mission-driven company that believes in providing dignified work, paying workers living wages, and helping to reduce poverty and empower women.

The ATOM Process

Which brings us to intentionality. The ATOM process helps us think about Impact Sourcing practices holistically. For example, how do we remove barriers that might create challenges for impact workers when they apply for positions or join the company? A dedicated internal Impact Sourcing Committee drives initiatives such as facilitating access to transport and medical benefits; they also provide ongoing training for hard skills such as digital literacy, soft skills such as office etiquette and life skills such as financial literacy.

As Team Kenya continues to develop, we’re excited to see what they will achieve next.

Benefits of Impact Sourcing

While the business case for Impact Sourcing is compelling, there are added benefits - providing employment opportunities in regions where traditionally fewer routes to employment have existed, contributing to local economic development in these areas, and uplifting the quality of life of entire communities.

Impact sourcing touches every aspect of community life, lifting families out of financial hardship by empowering workers with the skills and opportunity to earn a meaningful wage. The benefits reach beyond individuals and families, positively affecting communities and regions at large. Impact sourcing is changing the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry by shifting the focus from cost-cutting to creating shared value, increasing the focus on employee empowerment, measuring and communicating impact, and using technology to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

Impact sourcing has the potential to engage high potential individuals in meaningful employment opportunities and make a real difference in their lives. These individuals in the absence of impact sourcing would not have access to jobs or their situation/background would put them at a disadvantage as compared to mainstream workers. Impact sourcing provides these individuals a platform that helps boost their confidence and provide opportunities to bring themselves at par with the mainstream workers through direct and indirect impact.

Indirect impact: The increase in individual income typically benefits 3-4 family members due to increased spending power for family and household and facilitates a stable environment. This is especially empowering for women.

Employment in Impact Sourcing also serves as initial entry point into the formal economy, which leads to valuable job experience that can help workers pay their way through school, receive higher education and move towards better careers.

As a BPO provider, our primary goals at the outset were to enhance our operational efficiency, expand time zone coverage, support our business needs by integrating a new, capable workforce, and bring employment opportunities to local populations.

Key Benefits:

Low cost: Impact sourcing offers significant cost arbitrage over source locations for offshore BPO. At 70 percent+, this arbitrage is comparable than the arbitrage offered by traditional offshoring.
Proven and reliable delivery: Research shows that the performance achieved from impact sourcing is comparable to traditional BPOs with a robust track record of meeting client SLAs/KPIs and expectations.
Large and untapped talent pool: Given most locations in Africa (South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, Ghana, Morocco) and Asia (India and Philippines) where impact sourcing is largely used have a high unemployment rate among the youth, impact sourcing provides an opportunity to access this large, untapped qualified pool.
Stable and engaged workforce: One of the strongest elements of impact sourcing value proposition is the stability and motivation levels associated with impact workers. Our research shows that impact workers have 15-40 percent lower attrition than traditional BPO workers and exhibit high motivation levels that leads to improved performance over a period of time and lower hiring and training costs.
Social Impact: Impact sourcing employees are high potential but disadvantaged economically, socially or some other way. Impact sourcing offers these types of people an opportunity to earn and build transferable workplace skills. As a result, employees improve their well-being, and the well-being of their families and communities.

Table: Key benefits of Impact Sourcing

Benefit	Description
Low Cost	Significant cost arbitrage compared to traditional offshoring.
Proven and Reliable Delivery	Performance comparable to traditional BPOs.
Large and Untapped Talent Pool	Access to qualified but unemployed youth in Africa and Asia.
Stable and Engaged Workforce	Lower attrition rates and higher motivation levels.
Social Impact	Improves the well-being of employees, their families, and communities.

Challenges and Considerations

While the potential benefits of impact sourcing are compelling, the sector faces challenges that have prevented it from reaching its full potential. Some ISSPs have had difficulty securing work from clients; in particular new ISSPs that have not yet established a track record. ISSPs have also had difficulty partnering with larger BPO companies because they don’t have the necessary scale and processes in place to effectively sub-contract work from larger organizations.

As the focus on Impact Sourcing grows, a need for industry standards and certifications and coalitions has also become more evident. Adopting Impact Sourcing still faces hurdles, encompassing impact measurement, skill development and market acceptance.

One of the most significant challenges organizations currently face is the rising cost of operations due to inflation. To mitigate these costs and improve their bottom line, organizations are exploring alternative locations for their operations. The other business benefit to customers is risk management - having their outsourced operations handled from different sites or locations makes sense.

Theoretically, the article points to an underlying tension in any social impact business model: between the profitability of the company, and the desire to have positive social impacts. Our case study indicates that competitive market-based dynamics generate a powerful force that pushes companies towards limiting the actual social impact of their business models in favour of ensuring higher profit margins.

The fungibility of much BPO work, traded in a planetary market in which small differences in unit cost can move contracts from one side of the world to the other, leaves BPO suppliers with relatively little room to manoeuvre. There is a small amount of space in the market for a more ethical model that might offer longer contracts, higher wages, and more benefits, but this imposes costs on the firm that renders it less competitive and limits the return to its investors.

Examples of Impact Sourcing in Action

The project saw the team providing BPO support to a leading financial institution as part of a multi-site service spanning three locations in the Philippines and Kenya. The team in Kenya successfully completed several months of intensive training and nesting to support the project’s new, complex client process. The training was managed through a structured program that included e-learning modules, classroom learning, hands-on practice, and mentorship.

Six years ago, Mercy secured a job at our Kenya Impact Sourcing Hub straight from college on her first attempt! Getting the opportunity took a load off her shoulders - and she’s never looked back. Ongoing mentoring and training have allowed her to progress from her entry-level job through a series of promotions - and she’s paying that forward with a passion for motivating team members.

In four years, Maurine, a single mother, has - with the support of her colleagues - overcome her shyness to grow into a confident Business Process Associate who looks forward to giving of her best, not just to her job, but to community health and other activities that the team is involved with.

Peter, a keen footballer for ADEC F.C. who dabbles with video editing as a hobby, recently completed four months of intensive training to qualify as an examiner - gaining more knowledge and skills is what gives him purpose.

This approach can include a variety of job types, from simple data entry or processing tasks to more complex IT services and support.

Key Players in Impact Sourcing

RuralShores: A social enterprise dedicated to creating employment opportunities for rural youth in India by providing integrated IT and Business Process Outsourcing solutions to clients worldwide.
Samasource (Sama AI): A technology company that uses impact sourcing to employ people from disadvantaged backgrounds and lift them out of poverty, serving as an intermediary between corporations and delivery centers in developing nations including India, Pakistan, Kenya, South Africa, and Uganda.
Teleperformance: A business services company with an admirable impact sourcing strategy, recruiting unemployed and underemployed workers, including those with disabilities, first-time workers, and at-risk groups like refugees.
CareerBox: A non-profit company that identifies and trains candidates from underprivileged townships and places them in entry-level digitally enabled jobs in partnership with CCI Global (CCI).

The Global Impact Sourcing Coalition (GISA)

The Global Impact Sourcing Coalition is a forum of the world’s leading companies committed to incorporate and scale impact sourcing as a business strategy. Members of the coalition are united behind a shared commitment to advocate for this inclusive employment practice and demonstrate how impact sourcing leads to business growth and employee diversity and engagement.

Member companies share a commitment to provide skills training and career advancement opportunities for individuals around the world who previously had limited employment prospects. The Global Impact Sourcing Coalition will create a globally accepted standard and approach for impact sourcing.