What does the term social impact really mean? The word impact means there are consequences to the actions you take. You therefore create change in something else.
What about the social element? This is the reason for being, the purpose of the organisation you work in. It addresses a social need identified in your community. If the impact you have consists of the consequences of your actions, then your social impact is simply the consequences of the actions you take to address the social needs you have identified. Put even more simply, social impact is the change you bring to the lives of the people and organisations you work with.
Rather than asking about the social impact your organisation achieves, you can think about it by giving an example of how your organisation has changed someone’s life. Your ‘social impact’ is how the lives of your clients are being changed. ‘Social impact measurement’ is just a new approach to doing something that has always been done.
Allow about 20 minutes
Before going on to study what social impact to measure and what framework to use, it is important to first ask yourself: how do you know that the strategy of your sustainable enterprise is on track? In this activity, you will look at how organisations can use Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure and manage key aspects of their operations. Watch this introduction to KPIs and make your own notes about what steps this organisation takes to incorporate KPIs into its business.
The video illustrates how Furniturecorp, a small business, goes about incorporating KPIs in its strategy in order to be sustainable. Once the business develops a strategic plan which requires a number of changes, it then has to work with its staff to ensure that everyone within the organisation understands and buys into the new strategy. The concept of KPIs is discussed in the video as one popular approach to tackling this issue. It requires the organisation to follow the steps below:
If you want to read more about these four steps, you can consult Parmenter, D. (2015) Key Performance Indicators: Developing, Implementing, and Using Winning KPIs, Hoboken NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
OpenLearn - Sustainable innovations in enterprises Except for third party materials and otherwise, this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 Licence, full copyright detail can be found in the acknowledgements section. Please see full copyright statement for details.