Why do you do what you do? How will you know when you have achieved it? For Social Entrepreneurs, it’s important that these two questions are asked regularly, and certainly when big decisions are being made about how you intend to invest your resources and carry out your activities.
Your Social Impact Measurement Strategy (or Theory of Change), should be laid out together with the Social Value Propositions you’ve identified for your beneficiaries, customers, and key funding stakeholders.
What deliverables, changes, or achievements (called indicators) are you going to monitor and measure, that best indicates that your Social Mission is having an impact?
Are you measuring qualitative or quantitative indicators? Are you gathering data on the indicators over the short term, medium-term, and the long-term?
What other influences or actors might also be affecting the success of the indicators you are measuring?
Are your activities, products, and services offering solutions at the local, infrastructural, and/or the systemic level? Are you measuring indicators over time, at these levels?
Further Learning
Check out this resource for further learning: