Value of Good Impact Measurement

What we're learning about impact measurement 

• Where does motivation for measurement actually come from? Sometimes it's funding pressure, sometimes it's discovering you've been doing "social enterprise" all along without a name for it. The starting point shapes everything after.
• What can you honestly claim, and what's just correlation? The gap between what you'd like to say your organisation achieves and what you can actually defend, especially when outcomes take years and life gets in the way.
• Is it worth $50k to do this properly, and what happens if you can't afford that? The real cost of expert help versus doing it yourself, and what gets lost either way.
• How do you get a team to do more work before they can see why it matters? The lag between asking for buy-in and being able to prove it was worth it.
• Where's the line between a powerful story and an exploitative one? Especially when the people whose stories you're telling are kids, or otherwise vulnerable, and can't really opt out.

Why this conversation matters

There's no standard framework for measuring social impact, no regulation forcing anyone's hand, and no off-the-shelf software that fits every organisation. Most social enterprises are figuring this out alone, expensively, and slowly. Get it right and it shows up in funding, government trust, and who wants to work for you. Get it wrong, or skip it, and you're left arguing your value with nothing but conviction.

What this resource offers

This is for anyone who knows their work matters but is struggling to say so in language a funder or board will accept, whether you haven't started measuring yet, you're stuck on what's ethical or affordable, or you've got data sitting in a spreadsheet with no idea what to do with it.

Resources

• Australian Social Value Bank
• Seedkit