How do you measure your company’s social impact (People), the most problematic and difficult pillar of the triple-bottom line to capture? The New Economics Foundation and Global Reporting Initiative have great resources on measuring social return on investment, a value-metric that can be very demanding to implement. What can small businesses do that’s simpler and more straightforward to assess their social performance? Borrow from the nonprofit sector’s process of measuring impact: Need » Goal/objectives » Activity » Evaluation. Let’s demonstrate on the example of People’s Food Coop, a single-store grocery in Southeast Portland.
In its member email newsletter today, People’s announced a workshop: “On January 21st we will have our first ‘Shopping on a Budget at People’s Co-op’ class in the community room. We are partnering with Growing Gardens to talk about how to cook delicious and nutritious meals under $12 [per] meal for 4 people.” The class is the activity.
People’s could define the need this way: “Many people are losing the capacity to eat delicious and healthy food required to nourish them through the current economic downturn and to contribute to the good of the community.”
People’s could define the activity’s goal as, “Increase the number of people who develop the skill to cost-effectively feed their family with wholesome meals required to cultivate a strong local community.” Defined this way, the goal
- aligns with the Coop’s vision: “a passionate community working together for sustainability, progressive land and animal stewardship, human rights, social and economic justice”, including, among other things, “access to healthful foods our customers can trust”
- is driven by the Coop’s mission: “cultivate a thriving local economy by integrating ecological responsibility, local food systems and cooperative ownership with equitable business practices in a lively community marketplace”
- can accommodate a range of other projects in addition to the workshop.
The next step is to define the project’s objectives. SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-limited) is the best yardstick for setting objectives. Assuming the class is the first in a series, People’s process objective – the what and the how of reaching the goal – could read, “By the end of 2009, at least 100 people will participate in the class on shopping and cooking a 4-person meal on a $12 budget.” The outcome objective – the change or the measurable impact on people served or stated need – could read, “By the end of 2009, 85% of the 100 workshop participants will be proficient in shopping and cooking a $12 meal for four people as demonstrated by receipts and surveys.”
To evaluate their progress toward achieving the objectives, People’s would need to track the purchases made by workshop participants and survey them on what they learned, both before and after the class, and ideally over the longer term, say 6 months.
Though this is a hypothetical example building on a real event, the Need » Goal/objectives » Activity » Evaluation model is simple enough for small businesses to start measuring the social impact of their operations now.
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Credits:
- Grantwriting essentials: Creating Winning Grant Proposals, Portland Community College Community Education, 2005
- Image: Wikipedia
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
hi, great blog, just stumbled into it by chance … but i just wondered … the outcome … you say that By the end of 2009, 85% of the 100 workshop participants will be proficient in shopping and cooking a $12 meal for four people as demonstrated by receipts and surveys.”
I was wondering if the outcome is not that the people that have been on the course actually eat healthier for lower cost. As demonstrated by total expenditure on food, nutritional value count of the food they eat and health checks. I was thinking that the outcome is not proficiency or capability. This is output. Outcome is what happens as a result of output i.e. different behaviour.
elaine
Elaine, I agree you could define the outcome that way, but the need, goal, and objectives would have to be redefined, too. If you define the need in terms of people losing the financial ability to eat healthy, then increased proficiency in budget shopping is the outcome (People’s stocks mostly health-friendly items to begin with). If you define the need as people eating unhealthy, then I’d go with health outcomes. That’s the beauty of the model, I think – it allows for flexibility and holistic approach.
Portland needs more cooperatives. People’s could regularly ask the important question: Do we perceive ourself as being managed as a cooperative or not? The most successful cooperatives have equal pay for all, promote open communication, have above average in-house conflict resolution skills, and promote consensus decision-making.