How to measure social impact. Galileo Impact Stories #34 скачать в хорошем качестве

How to measure social impact. Galileo Impact Stories #34

Welcome to Galileo - https://iiic.ch/membership/ Hi, friends. This is Galileo Impact Stories. Measuring social impact is becoming more and more important for social entrepreneurs and impact investors that support them. Impact Measurement opens up the doors to a story of the change which social ventures bring to people’s lives. Today we decided to talk about five steps how to measure social and environmental impact. To make it easier we will name this impact - social impact. Social impact relates to the long-term positive changes, for individuals, communities, and society as a whole that result from activities or services provided by social entrepreneurs. There are many reasons to measure social impact but sometimes social entrepreneurs don’t know where to start. Traditionally organizations have measured the things that are easily countable (how many seminars we made, or how many people came and etc.) ‘Social impact’ is about changes, ‘soft outcomes’ and we have to find another way to measure it. And here are five steps to effective impact measurement. 1. Decide what to measure The first step is to decide what change you are aiming for. What will illustrate the change? Imagine your clients, before they have any engagement with you and afterward, how would they benefit? What would the change be? New knowledge, better environment, new behavior, new status or anything else. Then decide who you need to involve in your impact measurement process. You can ask clients and stakeholders to be involved into the impact measurement process, from senior management to volunteers. The next step is to define the best questions and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to identify the change. These are the ‘indicators’ – which will show the change caused by the social venture. 2. Select indicators After you have defined your KPIs to measure your output, it’s time to get into detail and develop indicators, pieces of information that show whether a specific event has taken place and to what extent. We recommend starting by exploring indicators that are already used by other organizations in your sector. These indicators can either be copied and used directly or can serve as inspiration for indicator development to fit your context. Check IRIS from GIIN which is a free impact measurement tool. Sometimes it just won’t be possible to find indicators that are the right fit for what you want to measure and you will need to develop your own. Once developed you then need to enter your indicators into a data collection framework, an Excel workbook that lists indicators against elements (e.g. outcomes) related to your outputs. 3. Plan your data collection The third step is to make a clear plan of how and when you will measure actual changes at individual or organizational levels. There is a wide range of different data collection methods you can choose from to collect data. It can help to consider a number of factors in making your decision. Ask yourself the next questions. Also, decide when to measure impact? You can ask your stakeholders questions you have chosen before your activities have started, at the beginning, mid, and long term. And even 6 or 12 months after your project or activities are finished. It will help you to track progress dynamically through your project implementation or business development. But it is important to keep measuring the same indicators to be able to compare their changes over time. 4. Collect your data Training staff is the fundamental element of responsibly collecting high-quality data. You may say we have not enough qualified staff resources to collect the right data! Just pick one program to start with. Share your impact measurement strategy within your team. Train your staff, choose your tools. You can add and adjust tools over time. Be sure that the personal data you collect about beneficiaries is safely stored. Insufficient protection of personal data can lead to ethical and (depending upon the country where you are based) legal challenges. 5. Use your data Now we have all this information what do we do with it? How get a sense out of it? Learning from your data is about telling the story of what happened through your activities. We recommend going through 4 steps to get to the point where you can interpret and learn from your data. After that you can present results to funders. Or you can use the data as an opportunity for learning; make a special seminar, workshop or press-conference. You may want to include the information you have collected in your annual report. Alternatively, you may want to produce a separate social impact report. As an impact or social enterprise, creating a positive impact is at the heart of what you do. Measuring and communicating your impact is extremely important for making sure your mission is on the right track, for marketing purposes, to winning new contracts and develop a trust of existing funders and customers. That all. Welcome - www.iiic.ch