Kate Ruff, a leading theorist of impact measurement has written a chapter that looks at best practices and key challenges of measuring and assessing impact. These are my notes interspersed with quotes from the chapter. The entire book which is available on a Creative Commons License is available here She
Social Impact measurement for the Social and Solidarity Economy OECD 2021 PDF This is perhaps the most comprehensive document I’ve read on impact measurement and its relation to social purpose organizations. Fact #1: There exists no single internationally accepted conceptual framework to value social impact nor to understand the drivers
Ramia, I., Powell, A., Stratton, K., Stokes, C., Meltzer, A., Muir, K. (2021).Roadmap to outcomes measurement. Your step-by-step guide to planning, measuring and communicating social impact. Centre for Social Impact. Hey, the more I’m reading about social impact the more I’m realizing that a Theory of Change and Logic Model
I’m taking an online course detailing the First Nations principles of OCAP® (Ownership, Control, Access and Possession). There are 7 modules, each one is about 40 minutes We kick things off with a quote from the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples Vol 3, p. 498 In the
I’m reading an article “Accountability for Social impact: A Bricolage Perspective on Impact Measurement in Social Enterprises” 2019. They start off citing a problematic ambiguity when it comes to social impact measurement: An underlying reason for this ambiguity is that, in contrast to accounting conventions for financial performance assessment, there
Kate Ruff April 27, 2020 An impact data standard is widely used by impact softwares. Agreeing on a data standard is easier, and smarter, than agreeing on indicators. Think standardizing building materials into 2x4s and 2x8s, rather than residential floor plans. A data standard supports visibility into the degree of comparability
This old system is perversely beholden to indicators like GDP, an indiscriminate measure of “progress” that ends up rewarding the destruction of people and the planet. Mariana Mazzucato A good example of an attempt to change ‘impact indicators’ is this article that argues its time to change the impact indicators
Muir, K. & Bennett, S. (2014). The Compass: Your Guide to Social Impact Measurement.Sydney, Australia: The Centre for Social Impact. The primary purposes of outcomes measurement are to provide evidence of what works and what doesn’t, and why and how to improve effectiveness and efficiency. The 3 Ps to achieve