SoPact (Social Impact Platform)

Usually assessment is considered as the last stage of the entire process. Normally, when the project gets completed, evaluation is done, reports are submitted and the file gets closed. However, if you select the right social impact assessment firm, you will be able to get critical information at every step and all stages. Right from the time programs are conceived, while they are designed and at the time of the execution as well. This helps capture knowledge from expectancy failure and successes. The professionals will help you identify what works and why.

Assessment is built into setting strategies, designing programs and giving the execution of the program right exposure. Instead of going individually, it is believed that if things are done together, the results will be outstanding. Since there are a number of organizations working in isolation, there is a need to bring them together in a structured way so that social change is achieved. This is where collective impact is considered important and is being encouraged in many societies these days. Collective impact is an outline for organizing and accomplishing large scale social change. This starts with having a common agenda which means coming together to define the problem jointly so that all share a common vision to solve it.

Collective impact helps establish shared measurement which means approving to track development in the same way and this paves way for continuous improvement. It nurtures mutually supporting activities and this results in coordinating collective efforts which ultimately maximises the end result. Not only this, it also encourages to have continuous communication, which, on the other hand, helps build trust and strengthen relationship among the participants. Above all, its backbone is very strong. After all, there is a dedicated team orchestrating the work of the group.

When all the above qualities get together, they give excellent results. So, collective impact takes us from shared goals to exceptional results. It helps in achieving large scale social changes. The changes are outstanding and long lasting as well. There is a backbone organization that works towards achieving the common goal and at the same times takes care and initiative as well as coordinates with the participating organizations and agencies. Not only this, collective impact approach can even address complex social problems efficiently.

People working or volunteering in small or medium-sized nonprofit organizations are new (or fairly new) to Social Impact Measurement. Cutting through the layers of information out there on the subject gets overwhelming and a complex project to start.

We learned from the board members and business development teams that changing environment of the philanthropy, is putting (much needed) focus on effective social impact measurement for internal decision-making and external transparency.

Here how we guide them to make a shift in thinking.

Converting Goal to Long-term Outcome Goal:

Working with many NGOs over the years we have seen them more passion driven then data driven! They have a very generic goal like promoting kindness and generosity in kids, making change agents by training musicians, mentoring artists to become community builders etc.

Looking from the impact lenses it seems non measurable but if we take a step further each of them can be further defined to incorporate long-term goal. Metrics build to show the evidence that,

• School supply given as annual back to school drive can motivate children to increase graduation rate by being ready for the school, improved attendance and decreased violence, thus economic empowerment.

• Musician trained to become a successful artist can invest in his/her community and bring economic uplifting and less violence.

Check points: Programs are Mission/Goal aligned?

Organizations come from all the spectrum of the scale, some have very defined program aligned to the goal and some are very vague. How providing a legal advice for intellectual property to an upcoming artist will bring regional peace or community empowerment?  If programs are not directly connected to the path of change, getting back to the theory of change and adding few more steps is helpful.

Having a clear understanding of the program and goal is extremely important and along with that if social impact strategy consulting is taken into account, the result will be outstanding.

View Points-Who is Your Audience?

It is extremely important to know your Audience for the measurement. Ask the following questions to the team first. What is important to your funders? Corporate funders, individual donors and foundations all think differently and have varied questions. Often corporate donors have a concentration area like STEM education, women empowerment, poverty etc. They like to show the evidence from those angles.

What is important to your stakeholder? Stakeholders are not the only beneficiaries but volunteers, donors, employees, community etc. all can be stakeholders. If the children in one community are getting school supply and gets in to less violence, it results in higher graduation rate which ultimately affects the entire community. Volunteers are getting an avenue to be helpful in the community increases empathy, kindness and generosity. They can feel less depressed and more connected.

What is important to your beneficiaries?

Beneficiaries are also again not only recipients but it includes all the volunteers as well. While deciding on metrics, do include volunteer metrics and financial proxies.

Resource Allocation: Do You Have $$?  

The process of initial engagement to learn operational process, goal, program understanding and data planning will require human and technology resources. Some new emerging tools like Airtable, silk.co, import.io and infogr.am are free to nonprofits and are very useful for data visualization. The new generation social impact evidence platforms like SoPact makes the process significantly short and cost effective with different and apt use of Social Impact Strategy.

Value creation: What are you going to do with the learning from the data?

TurboMetrics is a social impact accounting software that provides a wizard-based approach similar to TurboTax (a popular US based tax accounting software). The user starts by selecting metrics from different standards and open catalogs to customize their own impact metrics set using social impact strategy consulting. This set can be shared with partners to collect their data using our innovative process and ultimately aggregate the results. 

Fine-tune and collaborate with Donors, Funders, Boards, Managers, Staff, etc. (get started in a short time). Share your value with others through Open Metrics.

Built to demonstrate impact for different organization roles

Start with a most applicable organization profile (individual or connected) and wizard will drive you through the configuration. 

Measure What Matter from Open Data API

Start your metrics set customization by selecting publicly available shared metrics and standard based metrics, according to your organization’s needs. This step will take just a few clicks.

New metrics sets from different users will be properly documented and stored as an open web services for easy access and wider adoption with the help of social impact strategy consulting.

Define core metrics and data selection criteria

Define most appropriate interaction between your organization and your partner organizations (if applicable).

Field Reports, Metrics, Results & Actions at pre-defined frequency

Report the results of your organization in a regular basis or ask your partner organizations for their results

Many practitioners coming from an international development background have used the concept of social impact measurement & evaluation for years, associating it with randomized control trial (RCT).

During the last decade, we have seen an emergence of new partners in the philanthropic community, bringing different approaches that add more complexity to measurement and evaluation.  

This document provides an overview of these approaches to build a strategy for social impact.

Imagine a pyramid where individual donors and high net worth donors occupy the top. At the bottom, we have beneficiaries served by millions of non-profits, aid agencies, social enterprises, and government/public service organizations.  We will review the different players from bottom to top and describe the methods of social impact measurement & evaluation that they use. 

Program Agencies Working on Evaluating.

Randomized Control Trial (RCT) and other similar methods are primarily used by program agencies responsible for evaluating impact in larger programs, often executed by various public agencies, nonprofits and social enterprises. RCT defines two groups: the treatment group, which is the one receiving intervention or treatment, and the control group. Then, it compares the outcomes between these two groups, resulting in the program’s impact.

Although RCT can be useful as a means of limiting biases and generating an internal impact estimation, it can be costly, error prone and time consuming. More importantly, it does not provide immediate feedback.

Program Organizations Providing Long Term Services to Beneficiaries.

The Program Outcome Improvement approach is used in this level to provide immediate feedback and regular interventions, for example in the case of employment for disabled people, HIV/AIDS programs, etc. Unlike the survey-based approach, this system manages beneficiary lifecycle and program outcomes with agility. 

Funders.

In this level, social impact measurement is commonly seen as traditional M&E. The challenge with this approach is that there is a limited agreement between funder and investee/grantee on measurement language, which reduces the impact envisioned by the funders. 

IRIS, MIX Market, and other Standards.

At the top of the pyramid, players use Standard-based Benchmarking as a strategy for social impact. As an example, we have B-Analytics/GIIN working with IRIS 3.0. Although they are a leading social impact measurement service for impact funds, their approach has major holes. For example, IRIS does not include any metrics about immunization rates or even health.

One of the many IRIS Partners, which has been developed along with Center for Health Market Interventions, uses the following metric: “Health Intervention Completion Rate” .  Now, imagine being the manager of a successful immunization program. After all the impact that you have achieved, you are limited to report a 33% of intervention completion rate. This metric does not even start to capture the success of the program. 

On the other hand, some of these players replicate what the popular rating system MorningStar does for the financial industry, applying standardized metrics that are relevant for benchmarking among similar organizations. For example, we have MIX Markets for Microfinance and IRIS for SGB/SBA. 

Leading impact investors use IRIS to measure the social, environmental, and financial performance of their investments. Impact funds report data for individual investments through a B-Analytics, which can later be used to communicate and benchmark social impact. 

More frequently than we would expect, this self-reported data is altered with the intention to obtain better scores or because of the lack of understanding and proper interpretation.

I firmly believe that the higher impact can be accomplished in the middle of a pyramid, especially with the help of technology that preserves the context and the importance of social impact assessment, closing the existing gap between funders and social sector organizations. 

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