If you saw on my blog last year, I thought I would post on the Tarrifs kerfuffle that Donald Trump was starting with Canada. This was as much for my own edification and learning as anything else, but you know, I learned you can’t keep up with Trump because consistency
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
This is early work on the Toronto Impact Initiative. I need to read the Imagine Canada report on SF. And the Metcalf report on SF for the Arts. To get a good idea of where to start and how to structure the start-up phase for TII, read the Recipe Book
I have come out of 5 meetings in the last 2 days, where I’ve listened to people, some as young as Grade 12, tell me about their businesses. I’m sitting there thinking, please be more than back of a napkin. Because I want to be polite, starting your own business
Yes that’s a question mark. Maybe I should be more confident. Here’s what I’m thinking. We are asking foundations to underwrite a $25K pilot so we need to demonstrate that we can responsibly deploy money in Lawrence Heights (LH) and learn from it. We want to run a small $5K
A creator who isn’t grabbed around the throat by a set of impossibilities is no creator. A creator is someone who creates their own impossibilities, and thereby creates possibilities.
Eh? A new kind of money is emerging We’re used to thinking of money as something physical toonies in your pocket, bills in your wallet, hey even numbers in your bank account. But money is changing fast. Today, there’s a new kind of digital money called stablecoins that are being
A 2025 Update on the Trump Tariffs Nine months ago, I first covered the shockwaves sent through the Canadian economy when President Donald Trump initiated a sweeping 25% tariff on Canadian goods. I am giving an update on the state of the trade war through some typical cases that have
Trump is imposing tariffs on Canada starting tomorrow. Here is a simple example of what we means by tariffs…
I briefly got to work with Paul Taylor when he was ED at FoodShare. Incredible personality. Here is FoodShare’s open letter to Charity Village about the importance of posting salary or a salary range in their job postings.
One of the very few corporate entities that would dare go near the term “Land Back”.
I just finished reading Vinod Rajasekaran’s piece on Social Innovation Canada’s website. Vinod is the publisher and CEO of Future of Good, a website chalk full of great info for those working in social innovation.
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
Centering Equity in Collective Impact Stanford Social Innovation Review Winter 2022 This article is too long. Note the important highlights below. … the single greatest reason why collective impact efforts fall short is a failure to center equity. Collective impact has lasting effectiveness only if it is focused on changing
I worked with Sam when he was co-leading the Out of the Box social enterprise. This picture captures the true humanity of Sam, he had a huge heart and was always gracious to those around him. More here
Funding Decent Work research: A comparison of 4 funders from Canada, the UK and United States.
Social Impact Advisors podcast interview with Andrea Nemtin, Executive Director of Social Innovation Canada. The full interview is here. Summary of their conversation: What is Social Innovation the concept? Frances Westley (2008): An initiative, product, process or program that profoundly changes the basic routines, resource and authority flows or beliefs
For me, the task is not to find a single or synthetic framework, but to find a way of thinking in alliance. Judith Butler
Social Impact Advisors podcast with Allyson Hewitt, McConnell Foundation Senior Fellow of Social Innovation at MaRS Discovery District. Full podcast interview here Below is a summary of her conversation Social Innovation has to see rubber hitting the road Social Innovation means new ways of doing things that are valued, but
Economists Oren Cass and Kate Raworth, who normally would be seen as theoretical adversaries, the former leaning conservative, while Kate leans more ‘progressive.’ But the reality with the onset of crises of COVID-19, the climate crisis, the jobs crisis, many economists from across the political spectrum are waking up to
Now get this. A former C-level exec at Black Rock. Yes that Black Rock, resigned from his position as chief of sustainable investing, and basically throws up his hands and says governments have to throw their chips into the centre and quit playing coy, and step up to the plate.
Here is a great chart that outlines the important differences between these 3 concepts. Ok. Everybody can take a turn and make sense of these 3 labels any way they want. For me I place these three categories on a temporal scheme. I’ll go first. SIMPLE, is pre-WWII. First and
This is a simple Logic Model from a project I worked on a few years ago. From the Logic Model you decide what you want to achieve, how to measure it, what the indicators would be, and how to collect the data. From the data you craft a story of
Social Impact Advisors podcast interview Melissa Sariffodeen, CEO of Canada Learning Code Full interview here Melissa makes some crucial points underscoring the purpose and function of a strong Theory of Change. Below is a summary of her conversation. Theory of Change is theory A theory of change (TOC) is many
I just connected with a group of academics out of Quebec, the Canadian Philanthropy Partnership Research Network who want to push the envelope on philanthropy and its work on the SDGs. What better than to interview Andrew Chunilall, CEO of Community Foundations Canada. Full interview here: Here is a summary
A creator who isn’t grabbed around the throat by a set of impossibilities is no creator. A creator is someone who creates their own impossibilities, and thereby creates possibilities. Gilles Deleuze