HOW TO MEASURE OUR IMPACT ON SOCIETY: AN ILLUSTRATION OF SOCIAL IMPACT ANALYSIS

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to help organiza ti ons facing the challenge of measuring the social impact of their ac ti vi ti es. Although examples of environmental e ff ects’ analyses abound, this is not the case for the analysis of social impact. To illustrate how organiza ti ons can demonstrate their impact on society, we evaluated the ac ti vi ti es of the Incredible Years (IY) paren ti ng program using the social return on investment (SROI) approach, considering not only the direct impact of the program on children, but a broader range of outcomes for di ff erent stakeholders. We show that the mone ti zed impacts of the program are about 10 ti mes higher than the costs of the program. The SROI as an evalua ti on approach is generally applicable to ac ti vi ti es of for ‐ pro fi t and nonpro fi t organiza ti ons, and serves as a reference to demonstrate the value of expected social impact to investors and funders. Therefore, SROI is a valuable tool not only for managers but for policy makers as well. We discuss the steps, data requirement, interpreta ti on of results, and lim ‐ ita ti ons of the social impact analysis.