Soft Power Index: Methodology
Purpose
Hard Problems persist in the world - problems affecting hundreds of millions of people that markets won’t touch because they aren’t profitable, and that states can’t solve because they require commitments that cross borders, time horizons, and political cycles.
Some organisations are solving them anyway. They do it by building a different kind of power: not financial leverage, not political authority, but influence earned through commitment - the ability to change how other institutions behave through choices so specific, so costly to abandon, and so evidently effective that others voluntarily build on them.
The Soft Power Index exists to make that model visible, measurable, and imitable. It documents the pattern underneath the organisations that are succeeding, in enough detail that others can build on it.
What is measured
Organisational Soft Power: the ability of an institution to change how other organisations and governments behave, through commitments and choices that others voluntarily adopt or build on.
Not reputation. Not stated mission. Not the scale of operations or the size of the endowment. Demonstrated influence on external behaviour - specifically, whether others have changed what they do because of how this organisation has chosen to operate.
Evidence of this influence takes several forms: financial commitments that others have structured their own funding around; impact metrics verified by credible third parties (treatments delivered, eliminations confirmed, manufacturing capacity secured); models replicated in new geographies without the founding organisation’s involvement; standards adopted into other institutions’ contracts; and the number and quality of organisations that have built on the model. These are not separately scored - they are the observable traces of the one thing being measured: whether this organisation’s choices have changed what others do.
Three scored dimensions
Soft Power (SP) - 45%
Has this organisation’s model been adopted by others who were not required to adopt it? Evidence of replication: standards embedded in other institutions’ contracts, models built on in new geographies, approaches that others have made their own. This dimension carries the highest weight because replication by choice is the clearest signal that a model works - and the mechanism by which it scales beyond the founding organisation.
Penalties apply for influence that is symbolic but not replicable; influence that derives from national or cultural prestige rather than the organisation’s own choices; and influence that is commercially convenient to claim.
Hard Problem Fit (HPF) - 35%
How specific, measurable, and genuinely difficult is the problem the organisation has named? The highest scores go to problems that are ignored by markets and states because they are unprofitable or politically inconvenient, defined precisely enough that progress can be verified by a credible third party, and not solvable by the organisation’s commercial self-interest alone.
The precision of the problem statement matters because vague problems permit vague commitments. Organisations that have named their Hard Problem specifically enough to be falsified are the ones making the kind of costly, specific choices this index is looking for.
Penalties apply for problems defined broadly enough to cover almost any activity, and for problems that the organisation benefits commercially from claiming to solve.
Capacity to Deliver (Cap) - 20%
Does the organisation have the track record, resources, and institutional infrastructure to deliver on its commitments? This dimension is weighted lowest because capacity without a Hard Problem and a real commitment produces nothing distinctive. A well-resourced organisation doing commercially convenient work is not what this index is documenting.
Index score
Index = (SP × 0.45) + (HPF × 0.35) + (Cap × 0.20)
Five qualitative filters
Before scoring, each candidate is assessed against five criteria that determine whether an organisation belongs on the index at all. These criteria are also the most useful elements for anyone seeking to apply this model - they are the structural decisions that distinguish a commitment-led approach from a conventional one.
1. Legible refusal Has the organisation declined something it could have profited from - and can the specific decision be named and dated? A commitment only has meaning if it has cost something. A refusal to charge for a drug that could be sold. A refusal to accept carbon credits that bypass national sovereignty. A refusal to take a management fee that would have compromised the cross-subsidy model. Where there is no refusal, there is no signal.
2. Costly commitment Has the organisation made a structural commitment with observable consequences for violation - not a pledge, not a target, not a strategy document? A cross-subsidy model where free care is funded by paying patients, and therefore cannot survive if the commitment is abandoned, qualifies. An annual report promise reviewed by a board does not. The test is architecture, not intention.
3. Hard problem specificity Can the problem be stated in one sentence with a credible third party able to verify progress? “Eliminate river blindness” is specific. “Improve global health” is not. “Develop a safe, effective vaccine within 100 days of identifying a new pandemic pathogen” is specific - and externally endorsed as a metric. If the problem description requires caveats, it is probably too broad to generate the kind of specific, costly commitment this index is looking for.
4. Model export Has the model been copied by others who were not required to copy it? This is the hardest test to pass and the most important when passed. A management methodology replicated in hundreds of hospitals across dozens of countries. An equitable access clause appearing in contracts at organisations that were never asked to include it. A care model for informal workers being adapted by governments that had no relationship with the founding organisation. Replication by choice is evidence of a working model - and the primary mechanism by which these approaches scale.
5. Honest tension Every actor on the index carries a tension - a place where its commitments come under pressure or its behaviour does not fully match its stated principles. If a tension cannot be named, the research is unfinished. The tension is included in the profile not to disqualify the actor, but because pretending that high-impact models are without flaw makes them less useful as models, not more.
Win-win, not extractive
A condition of inclusion on this index is that the organisation’s model produces outcomes where the benefit is shared with the populations it serves - not captured at their expense.
This is not a requirement for sainthood. Several profiled organisations operate in commercial markets or carry genuine contradictions. What is required is that the core commitment - the thing that earns the score - runs in the same direction as the interest of the people the Hard Problem affects. The eye hospital’s cross-subsidy model cannot survive without good outcomes for poor patients. The vaccine alliance’s equitable access clause is a condition of every contract, not a discretionary add-on. The commitment and the population benefit are structurally aligned.
Organisations whose influence is built on extracting value from the populations they nominally serve are not eligible for this index, regardless of their stated mission.
Scored events
Each actor profile includes a log of specific, dated decisions that moved the score positively or negatively. Negative events - broken commitments, unresolved contradictions, failures of execution - are included, not omitted. All events are source-cited. Where a claim could not be verified through a primary or credible secondary source, it is not included.
Scores are updated when new events are verified. The index is a living document, not a snapshot.
Using this methodology
The five filters and three dimensions above are designed to be applied, not just observed. If you are building or funding an organisation working on a Hard Problem, the most useful questions to ask are:
What specifically is the Hard Problem, stated in one sentence with a named verification metric?
What is the legible refusal - the profitable thing we are choosing not to do?
What is the costly commitment - the structural arrangement that would genuinely hurt to break?
What would model export look like in this context - what would others copy, and what would they need to copy it?
What is the honest tension - where does our model come under pressure, and what would we do if it did?
The organisations on this index did not start with all of these elements in place. Most built toward them over years or decades. The pattern is visible in retrospect. The argument of this index is that it can also be built toward deliberately.
The Soft Power Index is a research project by Sophie Krantz. The companion essay - “Soft Power Is the Most Underused Lever in the World” - is at [coming soon]. Methodology questions and suggested additions can be directed to sophie [at] sophiekrantz.com.