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Impact Measurement

Background
The social enterprise sector is at a crucial stage. It needs to demonstrate its added value, and to learn how to improve the quality of its business and social impacts.

The topic’s been on the agenda within the social enterprise sector for a few years now. Events are being held on a regular basis and information is getting disseminated. Social Enterprise Magazine produced a supplement on Social Audit in April 2003 and many of the concepts still apply. They have more information on their website www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk and you can download the PDF of the supplement here.

The Third Sector Performance Dashboard For Social Firms And Social Enterprises
With the support of I’SE and the EQUAL ‘Adjust The Balance’ project, Social Firms UK has developed a user-friendly performance management tool called ‘The Third Sector Performance Dashboard’. It is designed to enable any organisation within the third sector, ranging from small voluntary sector organisations through to social enterprises and Social Firm, to monitor their progress against objectives and report as appropriate internally and externally on actual performance. The tool acknowledges that organisations in the third sector are typically short of time and resources and for that reason it has templates and samples for organisations to use as they are or adapt if they have the time.

How Does It Work?

The Third Sector Performance Dashboard is available in the form of a CD-Rom, licensed by Social Firms UK and especially designed for usage by any type of third sector organisation. It is based on the balanced scorecard, whereby organisations attempt to achieve a balance across the main areas of their business. Under headings such as ‘governance’, ‘finance/funding’ and ‘people & work-life balance’, third sector organisations can either use the templates that are already provided for them within the software or set their own objectives and measures. Using the tool as an integrated way of running their organisation enables users to monitor their progress against their objectives and report to stakeholders accordingly. It can also be used for individual projects or programmes that need to achieve certain outcomes. The licensed software can be saved to a server for multiple usage and is promoted as being user-friendly, accessible and adaptable. It holds a significant number of resources in the Resource Folder including template policies and procedures, distance travelled questionnaires, flexible working policies and a range of internet links to other resources and sources of information.”

For more detailed information on how the Dashboard works, a powerpoint ‘quick tutorial’ is available.

How Much Does It Cost And How Can I Order A Copy?

The Third Sector Performance Dashboard is available on the following terms:

- Non-members: £90

- Members of the Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) and NCVO: £50

- Members of Social Firms UK: FREE

It is also available to national third sector support agencies in other countries that wish to make it available to their members respectively. For this purpose the initial cost is £400 for the first 10 licences and then £200 per 10 licences thereafter. Users will need to obtain their licence number from Social Firms UK, irrespective of which country they are in.

For more information or to order your CD-Rom, please contact Social Firms UK on +44 (0)1737 764021 or info@socialfirms.co.uk

EQUAL Social Enterprise Partnership (GB) Quality & Impact Toolkit
Social Firms UK was a partner within the Social Enterprise Partnership (GB) EQUAL project that runs to the end of 2005. There was a strand of this project, led by New Economics Foundation (NEF) specifically dealing with Quality & Impact tools and information for the social enterprise sector.

NEF has developed ‘Proving and Improving – a quality and impact toolkit for social enterprise’ within this EQUAL project. The Toolkit has 5 main sections to it:
- Knowledge: Start here to learn the benefits of choosing and using an approach to ‘proving and improving’. You’ll find ten essential elements to any proving and improving effort and explore the basics of measuring your organisation’s impact and demonstrating its quality. This section includes a glossary of key terms for this Toolkit.

- Tools: should be used in conjunction with the Comparing Proving & Improving Approaches chart to help you identify some methods that can be of use to your organisation. You’ll find basic information on more than 20 tools, including potential benefits to your organisation and examples of other organisations that have used this approach.

- Comparing Proving and Improving Approaches: gives you an overview of more than 20 methods for proving and improving to help you identify which tools may be of further interest.

- Resources: helps you to define and measure your organisation’s outcomes and impact. You’ll find practical ways to ask questions and find answers, a section on research methods, how to develop your own indicators, an indicators bank and a DIY exercise for involving stakeholders.

- SROI Primer: will introduce you to measuring your organisation’s outputs, outcomes and impacts, and explain how to use the Social Return on Investment (SROI) approach to valuing some social impacts in monetary terms. Explore the digital video, further resources and more.

The toolkit is featured on a new website for the social enterprise sector: www.proveandimprove.org

Practitioners Guide to SROI featuring Social Firm case studies
NEF and Social Firms UK have worked together on a Practitioners Guide to Social Return on Investment (SROI) which is especially relevant to Social Firms as it features 2 Social Firm case studies to help illustrate the process. Pack-IT in Cardiff, and MillRace-IT in Chelmsford kindly worked with Social Firms UK and NEF in order to be able to produce the two SROI case studies. Social Firms UK would like to build the capacity of Social Firms in the long term to enable them to do their own Social Return on Investment analyses. The Practitioners Guide to SROI is nearing completion and will be available here and through the Resource Centre when it is launched.

Social Accounting & Audit Manual
A new edition of 'Social Accounting & Audit - The Manual' has been produced by the Social Audit Network. Originally published in 2001, the manual has been revised and republished to take into account practical lessons learned from those who used the original version. The manual, which includes a CD, has been especially designed to guide social economy practitioners through the process of setting up social accounting systems and preparing social accounts for external audit. It has been developed from pilot programmes with clusters of social economy organisations based in Liverpool, Scotland, East Midlands and New Zealand.
The Manual is available from Social Audit Network priced £49 (including P&P). Call 0131 558 3040 or email info@cbs-network.org.uk
Website: http://socialauditnetwork.org.uk

Co-operatives UK Key Performance Indicators
Following several years of development and consultation, Co-operatives UK have released guidance on Key Social and Co-operative Performance Indicators. These indicators have been developed as part of the Social Enterprise Partnership (GB) EQUAL project in which Social Firms UK was also a partner, and as some Social Firms are also co-operatives these indicators are also relevant to the Social Firm sector:
www.cooperatives-uk.coop

Examples Of Social Audit/Impact Reports
The FRC Group, within which The Cat’s Pyjamas sits, (more commonly known within the sector as Furniture Resource Centre) won an award for its social audit report for 2001-2. This report was the subject of a workshop at the ImProve It conference in April 2003, and it’s possible to see the report on FRC’s own website at www.the-cats-pyjamas.com/frc

The social impact report of one of the pioneer's of impact reporting in charities, the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, can be seen at http://www.redf.org/download/other/2005-Social-Impact-Report.pdf. Presented in a relatively simple format, the report is quite instructive as a template for other organisations.

The report of another early adopter of social impact reporting, the Community Technical Aid Centre, can also be seen at: http://www.ctac.co.uk/ctac%20homeframe.htm

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