Roadblock Analysis Report

In 2017, Open Road conducted an analysis of 102 applications from the past five years to assess trends in its portfolio. The analysis looked at multiple variables, including the size of the organization, project type, sector focus, geographic focus, legal status, and type of original funder. The analysis also coded each application under a taxonomy of “roadblocks” that describe 22 specific challenges that these organizations faced, divided into three broad categories: Organization Misfortune, Acts of God/Market Economics, and Funder-Created Obstacles.

The findings from this multivariable roadblock analysis provide the first-ever empirical dataset on “what goes wrong” in impact- focused projects and offer early conclusions on how specific roadblocks correlate with other variables.