Example of Measuring Social Value

The reading about measuring social value resonated with me and some of my previous work. Last year I worked with a local organization here in Pittsburgh called Family Tyes. Essentially, my group was tasked to create an online application that could track both quantitative and qualitative aspects of e organization. The mission of this non-profit is to bring kids in the Pittsburgh area out into the wildnerness and teach them how to fish. Through this experience and over time, values such as respect for others, respect for nature, confidence, and personal skills would be enhanced. Although this organization had been viewed as a success in the community, it still had to fight for funding.

The non-profit, specifically for youth development, organizations had tight competition when it came to grants and funding as a whole, especially given the tight economic climate. Therefore, one of Family Tyes' supporters had asked them to find a way to measure social value and impact for youth development programs. The hope was that by approaching information systems students at Carnegie Mellon and asking them to develop an application that could provide both quantifiable and qualifiable data, then they could possibly benefit by providing this tool for other youth development organizations as well.

The application that we developed could not only track participants for fishing events, but could also their understanding and improvement over time- data that could be shared with investors to prove value and impact. The application could survey the paticipants and quiz the students on their understanding in certain "value outcomes" as well. The interface was kid friendly and enjoyable for kids to use.

For the organization, the application could provide financial records, attendance records, performance statistics, participant demographic information, and an overall snapshot of how the organization was doing. Therefore, similar to the health application mentioned in Mulgan's article, it was not a simple computer program or calculator. It provided strategic value, assessed value outcomes, displayed financials, and identified possible holes in the organization. It is an assessment tool that utilizes factors from multiple sectors and will hopefully be helpful to other social foundations and ventures to measure social value as well.