Data and AI
Kyndryl and Skillsoft expand AI education access to help high school students build future-ready skills
Press release
29/09/2026
The power of the ripple effect
Traditionally, organizations have measured social impact by counting the people their programs reach directly – the number of students trained, employees who volunteered or individuals who participated in a community event, for instance. Those numbers matter. But what happens next? If we measure only the first point of contact, we risk missing much of the impact that follows. That information can help inform how to build better social impact programs.
Kyndryl’s Social Impact Multiplier Effect Pilot Study looked across 15 of our social impact projects in eight countries to determine how non-monetary benefits such as skilling and capability building can extend beyond the people participating directly.
The study shows how others may think differently about how social impact is understood, designed and implemented.
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.
The Multiplier Effect Pilot Study challenges us to think beyond the immediate beneficiary and consider how impact can travel through communities, institutions and networks. By understanding those pathways, we can be more intentional about designing programs that enable knowledge and skills to be shared, applied and extended.
Measuring the ripple responsibly
For this pilot, the underlying information came from implementation partners rather than Kyndryl self-reporting. Evidence included surveys, interviews and pre-post assessments, and the methodology focused on practical, non-monetized outcomes rather than social return on investment calculations.
The study factored in the distinction between “reach” and “change” in social impact programs:
- Reach is the number of people exposed to information, awareness or benefits, whether directly or indirectly.
- Change goes a step further and measures whether that exposure has led to meaningful outcomes, such as adopting a new behavior, building a new skill, improving practices or influencing decisions.
This distinction helps us better understand how impact spreads, where it takes root and how we can measure that more consistently over time.
For example, Jyothi, a participant in our Cyber Rakshak cybersecurity skilling program, not only shared what she learned with family and friends but also took steps to build greater cyber awareness in her community. As a senior leader of a local self-help group, she has added cybersecurity awareness to the group’s regular meetings and priorities.
The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship (BCCCC) independently assessed and validated the pilot study methodology. BCCCC described the findings as a credible baseline while also recommending enhancements to the methodology with increasing rigor over time, including standardized reporting fields, consistent multiplier estimation, stronger evidence requirements and greater consideration of what might have happened without the intervention.
Kyndryl’s pilot offers a credible approach to understanding how the effects of social impact programs can extend beyond those directly reached. Building on this foundation with consistent reporting and robust evidence can help organizations develop an increasingly rigorous understanding of how impact travels through communities and networks.
Designing for the ripple
For me, perhaps the most exciting possibility is what this could mean for the future of social impact. The multiplier effect should not be something organizations try to measure after a program is complete; instead, it should be something we consider from the beginning.
At Kyndryl, we are exploring how to design campaigns that follow one of the four amplification pathways identified in the study. We want our programs not just to train individuals but also to help them become catalysts for broader impact.
The opportunity is to design programs for impact to travel, enabling people to leverage what they learn in their communities, institutions and networks to extend what works.
This shifts impact from a linear transaction to a connected system. The pilot is an early step toward understanding these pathways while recognizing that impact spreads differently across interventions and requires consistent, verifiable measurement.
It points toward a powerful idea: When we invest in one person, the opportunity for impact can extend much further.
And if we can become better at understanding and measuring those ripples, we can build social impact programs with a clearer view of the change they can create.
