Tag: Accounting for Social Value

  • Social value is about changes to people’s lives, so we need to ask ‘have we made as much value as we can with the resources available?’

    Social value is about changes to people’s lives, so we need to ask ‘have we made as much value as we can with the resources available?’

    Measuring social value is important – but what we do with that information is even more important. Join our Maximising Value training course in Manchester on 25 May.

    So, as well as asking yourself the question of how to measure social value, we also need to be asking, why are measuring social value?

    The answer to this question is often that we need to prove or demonstrate our impacts to others such as investors or funders – this is and will remain important. But if this is the only reason why we are measuring, we are missing real opportunities for maximising value from measuring the results of our work.

    When we talk about social value, we are talking about how important changes are to people’s lives. And when we have this focus, the question we should be asking is not just ‘how much value has been created?’ We need to be asking ‘how we can make even more value?’

    Remember, this is about changes to people’s lives – so we need to ask if we have made as much value as we can with the resources we have available?

    Social Value UK (SVUK) have been working with leading organisations in the UK and around the world, and we recognise that this approach has helped organisations to identify opportunities to improve the value they create.

    By involving stakeholders to understand the value of changes to their lives – and without increasing the money required, organisations have made changes to their work and targeted their efforts to change the lives of people even more effectively than before.

    Using social value evidence does not replace the expertise and knowledge of people within an organisation, but it does help to provide more information to inform the decisions they take.

    Social Value UK (SVUK) can help you with this way of thinking – we have a one day practical course on Maximising Social Value that will take you through the steps required to design, collect, and analyse data.

    Designed for data analysts and decision makers this is an interactive course that will help you to identify insights to help maximise the changes you help create in people’s lives.

    —–

    Maximising Value training course details:

    £175 + VAT
    25 May, 9.30am – 4.30pm.
    Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, Manchester, M2 5NS
    Book online: https://sv-test.wp-support.team/social-value-training/maximising-social-value-training/

    • Are you a Social Impact manager, Finance Director, Senior Manager, or Commissioner?
    • Do you work in an organisation looking at how social value evidence can help you to make decisions?

    Social Value UK can provide you with the practical skills to maximise the value you deliver through your work.

    Our expert trainer Dr Adam Richards will facilitate practical, hands on training.

    Have any questions? Email us. info@sv-test.wp-support.team

  • Impact Management: A chance to put the reindeer before the sleigh?

    Impact Management: A chance to put the reindeer before the sleigh?

    This is a blog by Social Value UK’s Operations Manager, Ben Carpenter.

    They will look back on 2017 and they will say “Ah, the year of ‘impact management” – well, maybe, or maybe it will only be me that says that (to an empty room)! In all seriousness, it has been a real privilege this year to lead Social Value UK’s role in the Impact Management Project; an ambitious social sector collaboration funded by Access Foundation aiming to help organisations get better at impact management. Why? So that they can create more social impact and help diversify their income (so says the theory of change!).

    There has been a clear journey for the impact management revellers this year and as cheesy as that sounds let me tear you away from your yule time festivities to talk you through it!

    What’s the point of all this measurement?

    We began the year running ‘roadshow’ events – rolling in to town and talking about the new ‘term’ on the block; “forget impact measurement, that’s so 2016 – it’s all about impact management now, don’t you know?” Cue, frantic discussions about the differences between measurement and management; “don’t you need to measure in order to manage?”, “Do we really need a new science?” and “Haven’t we all got enough to be doing?”  Yes, no and yes.

    Putting our healthy scepticism to one side, this was an important phase: conversations began to move beyond measurement. Rather than worrying too much about the how, we were addressing the why and challenging ourselves; “why do we measure that if we don’t do anything with the data?”. The conversations dared to consider “what if we had no funder to report to? – would we still collect data?”. Thankfully the answers were largely yes! In data terms we might no longer have the cart before the horse (or the sleigh before the reindeers?). We talked passionately about accountability, and how being accountable to your beneficiaries means relentlessly innovating to create the most impact you can (with the resources you have). I wrote a blog that wondered if impact management is a ‘state of mind’. It was a great time to be alive.

    Yeah, yeah but how do we do it?

    Heady stuff indeed. But once we sobered up we still had some of the old questions; “how do we do impact management?” and “what does it look like?”. Together with Social Enterprise UK we ran co-design workshops that drilled into the detail a bit more. New Philanthropy Capital led an exercise to distil this feedback and turn it into a structure. Impact management does require a specific type of organisational ‘culture’ but it also requires ‘data’ and some ‘planning/systems’. These are the three building blocks of the programme and they’ve proved to be useful areas for organisations to consider as they grapple with impact management.

    We continued to hold ‘co-design workshops’ and develop a cohort of organisations across six regions of England. These sessions were passionate and productive. Discussions around ‘data’ led to the identification of five types of data and whilst this may seem like a relatively simple categorisation of ‘data’ it’s provided many eureka moments so far. At SVUK we believe the value of outcomes is an extremely important and powerful subset of the outcome data set. If you are lucky enough to have more than one present under the tree this year, will you be considering the relative importance (or value) of each?

    When discussing ‘data’ we’ve forced the questions; “why do you collect this data”? or “what decisions can you make with this data (or information)? We made a rule: “Imagine you have no funder – you only collected information to help you improve your services and make changes”.

    Are we already doing impact management?

    The organisations we have worked with have all been at the beginning of their thinking about impact management. Whilst many are small, all of them enter this subject with an air of trepidation – as you might approach a long overdue check-up with the dentist. However, it’s been great to turn this trepidation into an optimism and even a confidence about impact management. It might not be so painful after all… Turns out we’re kind of doing it already?

    I firmly believe that all of the organisations we have engaged with are continuously making changes to their services. “It’s just what we do” is the common response. Of course, it is, these are people who care, who want to provide a good service so they are already in the habit of continuous improvement. In our most recent round of events we’ve been collecting examples of these changes and then asking what data (or information) they’ve used before making that change. This is impact management and maybe we’re already doing it? I wrote a blog about this too and suggested that all we need to do is recognise it, do more of it, in a systematic way and use more data to support these decisions.

    What does the future hold?

    There is still lots to do. Whilst it turns out organisations are (sometimes) good at collecting:

    1. user data
    2. engagement data
    3. feedback data and are using this to make changes

    They are not so good at the other types of data:

    1. outcomes data
    2. impact data.

    We can help organisations with this; NPC are creating some online resources and we have established a network of peer learning groups.

    But you cannot keep the white elephant, in our case the ‘funder’, out of the room for long. Despite our best efforts to imagine a world where funders don’t dictate data requirements, it never lasts. Unfortunately, in the real world, it is far too common to hear that organisations are prioritising data that their funder wants before considering what data would be useful for them.

    I do not want to have a go at funders (they deserve a good Christmas too) – after all, their demands are motivated by accountability. So, rather than get angry with funders this Christmas, let’s turn this into a positive. The organisations that are successful are the ones that set the data agenda with their funders. Organisations that can show they are in control of their data will soon earn the respect and trust of a funder.

    My wish for 2018 is that organisations prioritise the data they need to improve their programmes. That means creating a system that works for them. A system that collects all types of data and tracks how it informs decision making. The system needs to be proportionate and by that I mean the data collected is good enough for the decision it informs. An organisation that can do this has put the data sleigh firmly in place and the reindeers are dashing merrily through the snow, and I didn’t even mention the man with the white beard.

    Equally, we have more reasons to be cheerful;

    • SVUK have published an incredibly useful and timely guide called Maximise your Impact, which you can download here
    • SVUK have been involved in developing Impact Management from an investors perspective taking shape in the form of this project
    • This blog is also posted on the Impact Management Project blog

     

  • Impact Wizard: magic for your impact assessment

    Impact Wizard: magic for your impact assessment

    At last: an accessible toolkit that guides you step by step to assess your social impact. This hands-on tool considers your available time and what you and your stakeholders really want to know about your impact. www.impactwizard.eu

    Curbing poverty. Increasing resilience. Fostering environment-friendly behaviour.

    For social entrepreneurs, making a social impact is their main drive. Are you working for a better world? Do you find it difficult to explain how your project contributes to societal change? Impact Wizard is a brand new online tool that helps you to do just that.

    Impact Wizard helps you reflect on, assess and increase your impact. Challenging assignments bring you new insights and a clear view on your social impact.   

    The tool combines knowledge, data and experiences of a two year action research, coordinated by the Social Innovation Factory. Although it offers a large selection of impact indicators and assessment methods, it helps you to focus and choose an approach that’s relevant for you. The icing on the cake? Impact Wizard puts you on track to communicate and to increase your impact.

    Do not expect a complex handbook. Impact Wizard is a flexible and hands-on tool. It considers your actual evaluation questions and your available time.

    Impact Wizard can be used by everyone. Create your account for free on www.impactwizard.eu and explore the tool for a week. A licence key (90€ excl. VAT) gives you access for a year. Try it out now!

    Feel free to introduce this tool in your network. If you’d like a licence key or more information on special offers for umbrella organisations, please contact info@impactnetwerk.be

     

     

  • Social Value Videos

    Social Value Videos

    Social value is the quantification of the relative importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives. Some, but not all of this value is captured in market prices. It is important to consider and measure this social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s work. Examples of social value might be the value we experience from increasing our confidence, or from living next to a community park. These things are important to us, but are not commonly expressed or measured in the same way that financial value is. At Social Value UK, we believe that social value has a huge potential to help us change the way we understand the world around us, and make decisions about where to invest resources. By changing the way we account for value, we believe that we will end up with a world with more equality and a more sustainable environment.

    Recently we have began sharing interesting and inspiring talks and presentations that relate to the Principles of Social Value, and our mission to improve equality and reduce environmental degradation. These videos span interests, sectors and topics but they’re all under 20 minutes and should be added to your “to watch” list. We have been sharing these videos on Twitter using the hashtag #socvalvid and will continue to do so in the weeks to come, so keep an eye out each Monday and Friday! Please search the hashtag for an enjoyable and informative afternoon distraction and share your own finds using #socvalvid.

    We have included a talk to get you started below, let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    You might not expect the chief operating officer of a major global corporation to look too far beyond either the balance sheet or the bottom line. But Harish Manwani, COO of Unilever, makes a passionate argument that doing so to include value, purpose and sustainability in top-level decision-making is not just savvy, it’s the only way to run a 21st century business responsibly.

  • £500,000 awarded as part of Impact Management Programme

    £500,000 awarded as part of Impact Management Programme

    The Impact Management Programme announces the first grantees of its Impact for Growth strand. Eleven charities and social enterprises will receive grants totalling almost £500,000 to improve their impact management systems and processes. Grantees will work with an approved provider who will support the project and help embed impact management into the organisation. This pilot grant round will be followed by approximately 30 more grants to be distributed from January 2018.

    The Impact Management Project (ran by a cohort of organisations, including Social Value UK) announces today the eleven organisations, based across England and delivering a number of different services, that will receive almost £500,000 in grant funding through the Impact for Growth strand. This supports charities and social enterprises that are seeking to raise investments or contracts to improve their ability to quantify, report on, increase and ‘get paid for’ their impact.

    The first grantees and the providers they are working with (in parentheses) are:

    • Mencap Liverpool (Eastside Primetimers)
    • YMCA North Tyneside (Helmepark)
    • Empire Fighting Chance (Good Economy Partnership)
    • Chiltern Rangers CIC (Eastside Primetimers)
    • Speakers Trust Ltd (CAN Invest)
    • Action West London (Aleron)
    • London Irish Centre (Aleron)
    • Noise Solution Ltd (Measuring + Managing the Good: Volunteering Matters, Coalition for Efficiency and DataKind UK)
    • Dementia Care (ATQ Consultants)
    • Murray Hall Community Trust (Cogent Ventures)
    • Legacy School Sport CIC (Pulse Regeneration)

    77 organisations who attended the pre-application impact management training were eligible to apply for a grant at this pilot stage and 30 submitted applications. This was shortlisted to 20 by our grant administration partner Social Investment Business and then the final decisions were made by our Investment & Commissioning Panel, chaired by Rob Abercrombie.

    “We were impressed with the range of applications we received and appreciate the engagement we have had from both the social organisations and the support providers they are working with. It was clear from the applications that charities and social enterprises are operating in a tough environment, so it is more important than ever to support organisations to achieve a positive impact and access the funding they need to do this effectively. We are excited to see how these funded projects develop and what it tells us about the link between improved impact management and securing an investment or contract. Our grantees will be encouraged to share their experiences and we will publish our learning for the benefit of the whole sector too.”
    Rob Abercrombie, Director of Research & Consulting at NPC 

    This pilot grant round will be followed by approximately 30 more grants to be distributed from January 2018. To apply, eligible charities and social enterprises must first attend a free one day impact management training session. These session will be held September to November 2017 and full details will be available on the programme website soon. We are also currently recruiting further providers to be involved and the deadline for provider applications is midday 30 June 2017.

     

  • Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    This is a guest blog by member Clare Hammond on her social value work with The Yard Scotland. Clare works for Rocket Science UK Ltd. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    We have been working with The Yard Scotland and their community since June 2016. The Yard provides safe play spaces and respite for young people with disabilities and their families. During our time with The Yard, we conducted a Social Return on Investment and Cost Benefit Analysis to be able to evidence and quantify the impact their service has on families and how much they save other service providers such as the Local Authority.

    For Rocket Science, the voice of the service user should be present, loud and clear, and the central driving force for any impact analysis. Social researchers the world around can talk to you about sampling sizes, interview techniques, and running a great focus group to get that voice. However, social impact research gets slightly more complicated when service users are less able to engage with the more traditional research processes.

    Engaging extensively with The Yard’s young people and families as part of this research has been very important to both Rocket Science and The Yard Scotland. To do this we have had to use less conventional methods of social research – and we have learnt a few things along the way: We’ve learnt a few things along the way about how to approach impact analysis using less conventional methods:

    • Co-design with The Yard of all research activities was vital. As consultants, we brought expertise in evaluation disciplines, analytical processes and robustness. However, it’s The Yard that knows its client group inside and out. Bringing together this expertise was vitally important, particularly in designing and delivering the research activities with their young adventurers.
    • Abandoning the traditional – for the young adventurers we knew we couldn’t use traditional research techniques. Instead we embraced what made The Yard so great – play! We kept it simple– we had two questions we needed answering. Then we developed a range of play activities that young people could engage with…ever conducted an interview on a go-kart? It’s exhilarating.
    • Understanding the impact of the service on families was much harder than we expected. Parents and families of these young adventurers are so used to constantly being the advocate for their child. They are some of the most selfless people we have engaged with. For our research – getting parents to think about themselves was difficult. We overcame this in two ways:
    1. We needed to make it clear to parents that this was a space for them to talk about themselves as well as their children. Using colourful post-it notes we put all messages relating to their children on one wall, and messages relating to themselves as individuals on another wall. As expected, the wall of messages about their children filled up fast, while their own wall remained largely empty. We then set them the challenge of filling their wall to be as colourful as the wall about their children. Highlighting their selflessness visually, and colourfully proved to be very effective.
    2. Once again, we embraced The Yard’s motto – fun! We needed to convert outcomes such as friendship and relaxation into monetary values. We chose to use Choice Modelling – which, I promise, is as dull as it sounds if done with no humour. So with fun, laughter and a joke or two we had groups of parents and carers giving us their honest views of what was important to them as individuals as well as their family.

    Our time with The Yard has been rewarding, enlightening and a lot of fun. There aren’t many researchers that get to say they got to play with paints, bikes and swings for work! The Yard are now armed with robust evidence of their impact to use with the policy makers and funders. With this information, they intend to influence the design of services and expand their services further across Scotland.

    For more information on Social Value, and the Social Value Principles see here.

  • Social Value – A nice-to-have or building blocks?

    Social Value – A nice-to-have or building blocks?

    This is a guest blog by member Emma Back on social value in start-ups. This is part of the Member Exchange Series. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    It is a rare event for Day One of operation for a new charity or social enterprise to coincide with Day One of its social value strategy. The much more common scenario is for consideration of social value to be piecemeal and sporadic, like writing about it for a funding application or while at a workshop. Many people I’ve met who are starting social ventures don’t even know what it is and for those who do know, the motivation to measure and to analyse impact is low priority – a nice-to-have but a non-essential. This is understandable – resources are very tight and ‘the impact of social impact’ is not immediately visible if you’re still in the early stages of your venture.

    At the Social Value Members Exchange in November, I heard a lot of stories about organisations which had increased their income, designed new services and deepened their impact purely as a result of paying attention to social value. It’s still too easy for these stories to be lost or ignored by emerging ventures. However, I believe social value is a powerful strategic and operational toolkit which creates its biggest influence while ideas and services are still taking shape – early stage companies and charities are missing out.

    I’ve noticed in my online and offline tours of social enterprise start-up resources that social value information is always cordoned off into a separate section (“so now that we’ve considered your business plan, your competition, your finances and your customers, let’s talk about social value”). This feels wrong and off-putting. The various tools and stages of social value fit very naturally into the chronology of starting a business. Instead of being its own thing, with its own set of separate, intensive resource requirements sitting on top of the normal tasks involved in setting up a business or charity, what if we ask the question, how can social value slot into the normal activities of a start-up?

    Here are some conversation starters:

    Social value as business model

    Of course, the theory of change plays a starring role here. Designing mission and goals using the theory as your framework has, in my experience, been the most succinct way of pinning down just exactly what I want the service to do and to achieve. It is a short-cut to creating a results-oriented business plan which doesn’t waffle.

    Social value as motivator

    I’m right at the beginning of my business idea. This can be lonely and tough at times. My understanding of social value means I’m recognising stakeholder impact as it occurs even though the service hasn’t ‘started’ yet. I’ve moved from seeing the problem and my future solution to seeing what changes for people, whoever they are and whatever stage the business is at.

    Social value as quality management tool

    KPIs versus outcome indicators. Need I say more?! What’s lacking is a demonstration of how it can double up to serve existing certifications, for example, ISO9001 or Investors in People, or simply as your monitoring framework for funders. More usually, advice on your social value indicators focuses on sitting alongside a broader system, not integrating with it.

    Social value as service designer

    Has anyone else noticed the deep affinity between the world of service design and that of social value? Both use ‘Engage stakeholders’ as their core mantras and both have a predilection for mapping – for finding the hidden linkages between service goals, activities and real outcomes. By combining techniques from both, some very powerful stories can emerge.

    For example, we could combine customer journey / experience mapping with the theory of change and an outcomes value map. Take a look at the Intuit experience map and the smily faces – this reminds me of intermediate outcomes… Stick values onto these stages together with the numbers of customers who reach them and you get the start of an accessible SROI analysis – one which offers great visibility for improving the positives and minimising the negatives in your service.

    There are so many business elements where social value has something to offer (marketing, financial management, competition analysis etc). The difficulty start-ups face with social value is not to do with resources. It’s to do with the way the story of social value is being told at the moment. It’s still viewed as a bolt-on, an optional extra worth 5% of a commissioning exercise or an additional section in your business plan. It’s more work. But how wonderful would it be we could demonstrate a way for social value activities and tools to be woven into the natural activities of any new social enterprise or charity? Social Value Principles and methods could become the DNA of our future organisations, not the extra box on the form.


    This is part of the Members Exchange Series, for more information, see here.

  • Is your data good enough?

    Is your data good enough?

    This is a blog post by Jeremy Nicholls, CEO at Social Value UK and Social Value International. 

    Whether data is rigorous enough is a common discussion amongst social impact analysts, social accountants and evaluators. And the great thing is that it is always possible to argue that it’s not. Which may be fun in arguments but becomes a massive problem if we ever want the group of people who we want to use this information to ever make a decision using it. And that’s all they hear, its not good enough, we need more resource to make it better, the sample size is too small, not representative, the approach to causality, assuming there is one for a moment, is inadequate and could even increase the risk and so on. The starting point needs to be the audience and an understanding of the decisions or decisions that may be informed by this information. So the audience could be a funder, the board, a management team, the general public and so on. The purpose could be to win a contract, get funding or for internal decisions. It could be to develop existing services or products, to target products at specific segments within a stakeholder group or to scale and to stop. What will be good enough will depend on:

    • the audience and their understanding of the risks in the data; and
    • the purpose

    What is being assessed is the risk that the wrong decision is made. Those deciding will need to understand this risk. The quality of the data is only one of three factors that need to be considered. The three factors are:

    • The quality of the data
    •  Consequences of deciding
    •  The time available for the decision

    Data quality

    There are many issues that effect data quality but there is often a focus on accuracy. The issues raised above on sample size, whether its representative and so on relate to data accuracy. Important but only one factor. There are three factors:

    • Data accuracy
    • Data completeness
    • Level of aggregation

    One of the biggest risks is that the data isn’t complete. Outcomes experienced by stakeholders whether positive or negative haven’t been included and so the decision maker won’t know what the effect of the decision on these non-included outcomes, potentially for example, increasing a negative outcome. Whilst is seems intuitive that negative outcomes (once it has been accepted these are being caused by the activity) should be included, it is often less obvious why other positive outcomes should be included. People want to design out any negatives, but designing for other positive outcomes (subject to any funding constraints) can increase value for stakeholders.

    The next risk is that the decision will affect different people within a stakeholder group in different ways, depending on their characteristics. At one extreme, this would mean having data on each individual but some level of aggregation will help decision making and be a reasonable grouping of shared outcomes and characteristics. If impact data is generally being collected for funders and consequently very aggregated, there is a risk that it won’t have the level of detail necessary for internal decision making. There is also a worry that data collection systems are not designed to allow for enough, if any, segmentation.

    Recognising these risks raises the question of how decision makers get assurance that the data is good enough. Firstly, through a discussion between those making decisions and those designing systems and collecting data, so that decision makers have confidence in those systems. Secondly, through checks after the data has been collected that accuracy, completeness and segmentation have been considered.

    Consequence of deciding

    The consequence of getting it wrong don’t seem to be considered. The discussion stops once someone argues the risk is too high (and risk of accuracy more than anything else). But it shouldn’t stop yet. The next issue is to think about the consequences and again there are three factors:

    • The resources that will not be lost
    • The cost of reversing the decision to the organisation
    • The costs incurred by other stakeholders that have been effected

    Clearly for major capital expenditure programmes the risk needs to be lower. For a small development of a product, which can perhaps be piloted, the resources may be much lower and so the level of acceptable risk higher. Similarly, the cost of reversing a major capital project, or redeveloping some sections will be high. The cost of reversing a pilot enhancement or different way of delivering would be zero. Again a higher level of risk can be accepted. And as well as costs to the organisation, it is possible that others will be effected. A change to an employment programme that may be easy to reverse but resulted in fewer people gaining work could represent a high loss of value to some people.

    Available time

    Finally, there is the practical issue of the amount of time available. A programme evaluation where the aim may be to influence next year’s programme choices has more time than a decision which needs to be made in the next couple of weeks before external factors make the decision redundant. The shorter the timescale for the decision the lower the quality of the data and the higher the risk.

    Why make a decision (based on this data)?

    Even when the data is good enough and the decision makers agree, that doesn’t mean that a decision will be made. The other factor is to consider the pressure to decide. Leaving things as they are is easier than making changes. A culture of testing, trial and error, and rapid prototyping will make things a lot easier. In the end, you might just measure the number of proposals to improve, stop or scale services, the number tested and the number still running.

  • Impact management is a state of mind!

    Impact management is a state of mind!

    This is a blog by Ben Carpenter, Operations Manager, Social Value UK.

    There’s a slight change in the air… You may have heard it whispered on the grapevines… “Impact Management” is the phrase on everyone’s lips. No longer are people talking about impact measurement. Now, the word on the street is ‘impact management’! Now this may seem like a very subtle change and perhaps not one that warrants a blog. However, I do want to pick up on this nuance in language. I do think it’s worth a blog and I do think I’m justified in feeling quite excited about it. I want to share with you why this could be the start of a significant shift in thinking and practice for the social sector.

    Look up measurement in the dictionary and it’s defined as “the act of measuring something”; “the size, length, or amount of something”; and; “a unit or system of measuring”. That sounds about right. For years we’ve all been fixated on the measurement of social impact. Is this the right way to measure an ‘outcome’? What’s the best tool/system for measuring this outcome? Look how much impact we’ve had this year?!

    In truth, when I walk into a room and say “Impact measurement” people’s eyes roll, there are groans or if I’m lucky perhaps a polite resigned sigh. “Yes we do it.” But ‘it’ has become a chore, in many instances; measurement is seen as something that has to be done. It’s part of the charade of proving impact to ensure funding continues. For so many; ‘measurement’ and collecting information has become an onerous and often meaningless task.

    What difference will a shift in language make?

    So why am I excited that swapping measurement for management will be any different? Back to the dictionary… Management is defined as “The process of dealing with or controlling things”. Whilst I don’t love the word ‘control’, this immediately sounds much more practical and worthwhile. No longer are we measuring for the sake of measuring. Management to me means ‘making decisions’ and let’s throw in another M word: maximising a situation. So perhaps the new questions will be: ‘how can we have more impact?’ or ‘are we creating the most impact we can with the resources we have?’

    If I walk into a room and say words like ‘agile’, ‘iterative design process’ and (wait for it…) ‘pivot’ people’s eyes light up! (OK it helps if the room is full of ‘lean start up’ types or those who are comfortable with a culture of change). The lean start up movement is all about using information to make decisions about design. Let’s build something, collect information to see if this is working, learn from it and re-design. If you read Eric Reis (whose book the Lean start-up has achieved almost biblical status amongst entrepreneurs) the emphasis is on finding one or two bespoke metrics (not standardised) that can quickly give you the information you need to validate your model or help you re-design to make sure you are maximising your success. This is management, not just measurement.

    OK, before you typecast me with full on hipster beard and shout “Oi! You’re not in silicon valley now mate!” let’s just root this in the context of the social sector: UK charities and social enterprises. I think it’s completely possible and the time is right for these social purpose organisations to start adopting a ‘management’ approach to impact. (Check out Acumen’s recent Lean Data initiative.) Success to a charity or a social enterprise will not be measured with financial profit but that doesn’t stop them from behaving in the same way: using information to inform decisions about programme design to maximise their social impact. This is management.

    The crowd who are sick and tired of collecting information for measurement sake are understandably bored. Nothing ever comes of this data collection. A (soon to be published) piece of research from Social Value UK finds that most organisations do nothing with the impact information they’ve collected. What if suddenly staff at charities and social enterprises were collecting information that was being used to inform decisions and change the way services are delivered? I reckon it wouldn’t seem like a chore anymore.

    Isn’t it easier said than done?

    Quick wins?

    There are some small changes that charities and social enterprises can do very easily that can make a big difference: Make data collection less formal. It’s the form filling, questionnaires and rigidity that kills it. Start having conversations. Regularly sit down with beneficiaries (and other people who are affected by your work) and ask them simple questions like:

    What has changed for you? Was that expected? Has anything else happened? What did that lead to? Out of all of these changes, which is the most important to you? Would that have happened anyway? Who else has helped with this?

    Collect the results of these conversations and discuss them at team meetings! Regularly. It won’t be long until you have a rich picture of the changes that are happening (good and bad) and what’s important to people and probably how you can change things to make it better. This to me is management.

    If anyone says they don’t have the time or the resources to do that, they’re talking nonsense. Charities and social enterprises should be talking to their stakeholders and they should be having internal staff meetings. The new questions may lead to some uncomfortable answers but let’s face it – asking beneficiaries to complete mundane questionnaires is equally as uncomfortable. Trust me I’ve been there.

    This doesn’t sound very rigorous?

    Perhaps it’s time we stopped worrying about rigour when it comes to impact measurement. The parallels with highly rigorous academic evaluation are not healthy and if you look at businesses; low levels of rigour is used frequently to support decisions. (Low levels of rigour often better than nothing) As someone one said to me… “it’s about enough precision for the decision”

    I don’t think my funder will like this!

    You’d be surprised. Most investors I’ve spoken to would love to see a ‘management’ approach by their investees. Access Foundation and Power to Change have recently launched an Impact Management Programme that we are very excited about being part of. Bridges Ventures are a world leading impact investor and have recently published a report titled ‘More than Measurement, A practitioner’s journey to Impact Management.’ And it was a grant maker Nominet Trust that have done some excellent work around lean social metrics and instilled a mantra of: ‘a learning organisation is an effective organisation’. I encourage more funders/investors to be bold enough to move away from shared measurement frameworks and look for evidence of their investments collecting useful information, being agile and responsive to change. (Let’s talk about aggregation another day.)

    If I was an investor, above anything else, I would want to know that my investees are collecting information that is useful. Perhaps the only metric I would be interested in is “How many changes have you made to your service/product based on impact information?”

    I am genuinely excited about a shift to a more management approach to collecting impact information. For the measurement professionals and geeks out there (myself included) there are some technical changes required around what questions to ask, how to analyse qualitative information and then extrapolate that with quantitative data. Rest assured, those blogs will be coming over the next few months. The key thing is that impact management is ultimately about creating a culture within an organisation. A culture that is brave enough to ask the tough questions, listen to stakeholders and embrace change. Impact Management is a state of mind.

     

    Find out more about the work SVUK are doing with NPC and other partners: NCVO/CES, SEUK, SIB, Young Foundation and Impetus PEF by subscribing to the Access Impact newsletter.

     

  • What does social value mean to you?

    What does social value mean to you?

    The Social Value International 2016 survey has launched!

    Each year Social Value International try to take a snapshot of how the Principles of Social Value are being used. We use this information to better support our members and the social value community at large through creating new guidance, training and campaigns.

    For more information on the Principles of Social Value, watch our short video below:

     

    The survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete and you will be entered in to a prize draw upon completion.

    Thank you from everyone at Social Value International and Social Value UK.

    Survey

  • The Seven Principles of Maximising Social Value

    The Seven Principles of Maximising Social Value

    This month we published a new report “The Seven Principles of Social Value, and why they are important for accountability and maximising social value”, that is available for free on our online resource library.

    Social Value is the value that stakeholders experience through changes in their lives. Some, but not all of this value is captured in market prices.

    The Principles of Social Value provide the basic building blocks for anyone who wants to make decisions that take this wider definition of value into account, in order to increase equality, improve well being and increase environmental sustainability. They are generally accepted social accounting principles.

    The Principles are not individually remarkable; they have been drawn from principles underlying social accounting and audit, sustainability reporting, cost benefit analysis, financial accounting, and evaluation practice. There are other guides available on the process of measuring and reporting social value and impact that also refer to principles, such as the Social Investment Taskforce Guidelines for Good Impact Practice. However, the Principles of Social Value can be distinguished by their focus on what underpins an account of social value, and on the questions that need to be addressed so that the information can be used to better inform decisions.

    The Principles were originally developed in 2009 and were updated in 2015 following the merger of the SROI Network and the Social Impact Analysts Association. This new report from Social Value UK explains the thinking that underpins these Principles.

    Please read the report here and let us know what you think in the comments section.