As we have learned in class, in order for something to
qualify as social innovation, it must be a novelty, an improvement to
something, and sustainable. We have also
learned about the factors that lead to good design and successful
diffusion. These are excellent metrics
for measuring whether or not we think an idea will be successful, but what
about once the venture is launched. How
do we measure the success of the impact of the venture? Measuring the success of a social venture is
not quite as clear-cut as measuring the success of a business venture. Business ventures are often about the
numbers, is the business financially successful? If yes, then the future growth for that
venture looks rather optimistic. Success
attracts more backers and quality staff which in turn produces more
results. It’s a perpetual cycle that
every business owner hopes to achieve.
We cannot measure social ventures in the same way. In the Tripp article, “It’s Not All About
Growth for Social Enterprises,” she explains just that. Growth is a deceptive metric. Yes, it shows that the venture is getting
broadband, but is it effective in its mission?
In addition, organizations also focus on the number of lives reached or
touched as a tell-tale sign of impact, but is this metric an accurate picture
of success? The people reached, the
dollars spent, the staff putting forth the effort: these are all outputs of the
organization. Yes, important, but what
they need to do is find ways to measure the impacts that these outputs are
providing.
In the article, “When Measuring Social Impact, We Need To
Move Beyond Counting,” Mike McCreless explains the Chain of Impact and how organizations
can use it to determine success. First
it starts with analyzing the context of the community where impact is
needed. Next, they analyze the practices
or the activities that the organization is taking to meet these needs. Then they look at the outputs that they are
providing, both products and services.
After that, they have to determine the outcomes of those outputs - are
they being used? Are we seeing
results? And finally, they can use all
of this information to determine the impact, which means that they must decide
if the outcomes were truly a result of the outputs or if there was some other
influential factor at play. Kimberly
Tripp provided an example of this in her article when she discussed the
mothers2mothers initiative in Africa.
The organization had grown to impressive size, but they still wanted to
makes sure that their outputs (the Mentor Mothers) were genuinely influencing
the outcomes that they were witnessing (prevention of mother-to-child
transmission of HIV). Through several
stages of analysis, they were able to confirm that yes, this was the case –
transmission rates declined from 27% to 9% when Mentor Mothers were present.
Measuring impact may appear to be an abstract concept on the
surface, but there are tangible ways of doing it, so why aren’t more
organizations doing so?
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