nef: measuring social impact (for lvsc's london for all project, oct 2014)
TRANSCRIPT
Measuring Social Impact
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Basic principles of social
impact measurement
Rosemary Maguire
NEF Consulting
(the New Economics Foundation)
October 2014
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Overview: the essence of
understanding and measuring
social impact
Measuring Social Impact
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1. Financial measurement:
limited measure of value
2. We allocate resources only
to the things we can measure
3: Stakeholders are left out of
decision making
Measuring Social Impact
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The challenge
Measurement across the ‘triple bottom line’
The environment The economy People
Measuring Social Impact
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Why measure
social impact? A robust monitoring and evaluation system
can help prove and improve
External- Prove impact to funders,
customers, government and other
stakeholders
Internal- Improve impact to increase
benefits created
Measuring Social Impact
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Identify impact
Measure impact
Claim net impact
Value net impact
Four stages to
understanding
impact
Increasing
resources
and
expertise
required
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Principles of
understanding
impact
7
1. Involve Stakeholders
2. Understand what changes
3. Only include what is material
4. Do not over claim
5. Be transparent
Take slices
out of your
pie to
ensure that
you don’t
over-claim
Proportion of
outcome that
can be claimed
by your
organisation
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Robustness Feasibility
Balancing
robustness and
feasibility
If too intensive for an
organisation it will
detract from other
activities.
If too light-touch and it
will not provide useful
information.
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Second-tier
organisations
Second tier Direct delivery Communities
Impact on… Social impact on…
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Sharing stories: our
experiences
Measuring Social Impact
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• Second tier organisation
• After the two day training- planned to undertake a
Theory of Change
• Talked with colleagues and raised awareness
• “As a result of this training course I have raised
awareness of the importance of measuring our impact
people are now questioning what they are doing and
our strategic plan now has a section in it on how we
will evidence our impact”
• “As a result of this course I feel more confident about
articulating the value of the sector”
• Able to articulate the added value of volunteers within
the organisation (in addition to cash investments)
Case study 1
Measuring Social Impact
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• Direct delivery organisation
• Originally a human rights organisation- runs through
their work
• Wanted to shift the mind-set of the organisation from
outputs to outcomes, and tackle working silos
• “The value of this course for us has been in planning
design and improving what we do as well as thinking
strategically about why we are bidding for things. It has
given us more confidence to insist on an outcome
focused approach and we have collected useful data to
inform funding bids. We have done all this by involving
our stakeholders. It has also been useful to bring the
language from this course into project planning. We
are beginning to articulate the value of everything we
do such as volunteering and placements”
Case study 2
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Sharing learning and moving
forward
Measuring Social Impact
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• Be clear about why you want to measure social impact
• Get staff buy-in to the process
• Focus on measuring the impact of something
manageable
• Take some action and things follow just do something
no matter how small
• Be prepared for the unexpected or for uncovering
unanticipated issues
• Accept that it takes time
Top tips from
course
participants
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Questions?
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Websites:
http://www.nef-consulting.co.uk/
http://www.neweconomics.org/
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