Client Individuals: Active (PI9327)

NOTE: This metric will be deprecated in a forthcoming update to the IRIS Catalog of Metrics. Users are advised to instead report Client Individuals: Total (PI4060) disaggregated by Active Use (PI7985).

This metric is intended to capture the number of unique clients who were active users of the organization’s services as of the end of the reporting period; this metric is more relevant to organizations providing services than to those providing products. Organizations wishing to report total client transactions should refer to Client Transactions (PI5184) and related submetrics. Organizations wishing to report the number of unique clients during the course of the reporting period can report on Client Individuals: Total (PI4060) and related submetrics.

For financial institutions (including microfinance institutions), this metric would include the number of individuals who currently have outstanding loan balances with the organization. For those financial institutions offering deposit products, this metric would include the number of individuals who have active deposit accounts with the organization. For those financial institutions offering insurance products, this metric would include those with active insurance policies. In all cases, the reported number should be based on the number of individuals, rather than the number of groups or number of active policies/accounts.

The definition of active may vary by offering. For example, for traditional financial services, “active” may include all individuals who have accounts registered in their names for at least six months and who have used their accounts to make transactions within the prior six months. For digital financial services, “active” may include individuals who have had accounts registered in their names for at least three months and who have used their accounts to make transactions within the prior three months.

This metric is intended to capture the unique number of specific individuals served. Organizations should not use any household multipliers when reporting against this metric. If organizations consider entire households to be the customer/client, they can report against Client Households: Total (PI7954) and its associated submetrics.

Many organizations may not be able to report on the number of clients using direct data. For example, organizations that sell solar lanterns through a series of local network distributors might estimate the number of client individuals reached based on the number of units sold. Organizations should footnote details on how and why these assumptions were made.

For healthcare providers, “client individuals” refers to patients. For housing providers, “client individuals” refers to residents or tenants.

This metric is multi-dimensional with regard to the five dimensions of impact. It may help describe the WHO dimension when the stakeholder group represented by the metric is the stakeholder group targeted by the investment or organization. It may also help measure the HOW MUCH Scale dimension, which helps estimate the number of the targeted stakeholders experiencing the outcome. For more on the alignment of IRIS metrics to the five dimensions of impact, see IRIS+ and the Five Dimensions of Impact (https://iris.thegiin.org/document/iris-and-the-five-dimensions/). No single metric is sufficient to understand an impact; rather, metrics are selected as a set across all dimensions of impact. When possible, the selection of metrics to measure and describe the five dimensions should be based on best practice and evidence.