Impact measurement basics

[Alicia_Schmidt]

Corporate Social Impact (CSI) practitioners and leaders are experiencing building pressure to measure and report the impact of their programs. This pressure primarily stems from the need to make a compelling internal business case, understand how the company impact program compares to their peers, and assist teams in making informed investment and programming decisions in an era of tightened resources.

This learning path offers practical support for those who are just getting started or those who want to level up their impact measurement journey.

Making the case for impact measurement

 of Corporate Social Impact Leaders say that Impact Reporting will be a critical investment in 2023 and  beyond. According to Benevity’s 2023 State of Corporate Purpose Report employers, consumers and  corporate purpose leaders want to make informed decisions to efficiently generate the most impact.


 of companies that measure their societal investments use that data to inform their business decisions (CECP GIving in Numbers).

of the Association of Corporate Citizenship Professionals (ACCP) membership says that their company leadership is under increasing pressure to measure impact (ACCP CSR Insights Survey 2023).

What is social impact measurement?
 

Social Impact Measurement (SIM or IM) is a set of practices for understanding how much change has occurred as a result of an intervention, program or organization. It infuses social science methods with change management so that organizations can measure change on key metrics, report them to stakeholders and use insights for decision-making and learning.

Other related terms that are often used interchangeably:
 

Measurement & Evaluation (also known as Program Evaluation or M & E) is the systematic process to  determine merit, value/ significance of programs, organizations/ initiatives, that aim to make the world a  better place. Evaluation answers questions such as, “To what extent does the program achieve its goals?  Should it continue? Is the program worth what the program costs? (American Evaluation Association, What is Evaluation?)"

Impact Management is the process of identifying the positive and negative impacts an enterprise has on  people and the planet, and then reducing the negative and increasing the positive.

Measuring impact in corporate purpose

Impact Measurement has a long history in the public sector, used by nonprofit organizations, governmental  bodies and traditional philanthropies, to assess how well programs are doing. In these settings, M & E serves a vital function, similar to business analytics– to help support program implementation and fundraising. But in the Corporate Sector, M & E is less common and is a more recent addition, driven by public commitments and ESG reports. 
 

Why measure social impact?

A company may undertake Social Impact Measurement for a variety of reasons including to inform learning and strategy or to support governance and reporting. Measuring may be done to satisfy and support both internal and external stakeholders.  There is no single “right” reason for measuring social impact, but understanding the motivations for your company will help you develop an effective approach for measurement & sharing back.

Why a company measures

Learning & Strategy Understand how well programs & organizations deliver their goals and commitments Make changes and adjustments in order to optimize the fulfillment of goals and commitments.

Reporting Accountability, transparency, trust building Compliance & requirements This may look like reporting on key metrics, disclosure statements,annual reports or grantee reports

For Internal Stakeholders	To achieve the mission or goals in the best way possible. Impact Measurement identifies gaps and opportunities to “move the needle.” It can serve as an impact oriented research and development (R&D).	Aligned with programmatic improvement, to ensure that social impact initiatives are on target to achieve goals, and drive accountability accordingly.
For External Stakeholders	To share thought leadership, learnings and strategy broadly with others working in coalition, partnership or collective impact.	To meet market or investor demand for compliance documentation. To demonstrate corporate commitments and values. To engage community and partners. Tends to be oriented towards compliance, risk mitigation and marketing.

Concepts and definitions can stand alone, however when they are strung together in a logical flow,  they are referred to as a Logic Model or Theory of Change. Such frameworks support organizations in strategic decision-making, and identifying programs and partners that are aligned with their goals.
  

Logic Model or Theory of Change

Logic Model or Theory of Change represents the hypothetical relationship between the activities an organization engages in and the desired outcomes and impacts. Impact Measurement helps provide evidence of this relationship.

INPUT	ACTIVITY	OUTPUT	OUTCOME	IMPACT
Company   resources: time,  people, money,  etc.	What Companies  do with their   resources	Immediate results  of the activities:  products,   services, time  spent	Resulting   behavior,   condition or state  of well-being	Change in   behavior,   condition or state  of wellbeing that  resulted from the  activities

PROTIP 

“To create a Theory of Change, first identify the long-term goals (Impact) and then work backwards to identify all of the conditions (Outcomes) that must be in place for the goals to occur. This creates the basis for identifying the types of activities or interventions will lead to the desired outcomes and impact. Through this approach, the precise link between activities and goals are more fully understood.”

(theoryofchange.org)

PROTIP 

You don’t have to know it all or have all the  answers! Depending on the area of social impact  (i.e. education, women’s health, workforce  development), many frameworks already exist for  how to measure and quantify impact. This is  particularly true if there are government players  working in the space. 

Take time to research other frameworks, talk to  other organizations and identify if there’s anything  you can incorporate in your own impact  frameworks. Just remember to cite your sources! 

Foundational Concepts and Tools

Regardless of a company’s reasons for engaging in social impact measurement, there are fundamental  tools and concepts that provide the foundation for any impact measurement project. The purpose of these tools is to help clarify and define goals for social impact projects or programs, and connect the what you do to the why you do it.

INPUT	Resources invested into a social good program or organization
ACTIVITY	What an organization/program/project does in service of goals
OUTPUT	Direct result of organization’s activities - products, services and  by-products
OUTCOME	The level of well-being experienced by people or condition of the  natural environment that results from the actions of the organization
IMPACT	The change in one or more dimensions of wellbeing. Outcome describes a resulting stage where impact refers to the change from  previous condition

(Source: Impact Management Platform- Terms and Concepts)

Choosing Metrics

Once you have a general idea of what your program or organization aims to achieve, and what counts as success, it’s time to choose metrics (AKA indicators) to measure your progress.

The goal when choosing good metrics is to pick data points that will enable you to understand what needs to be done, make decisions and talk about your work. The framework below suggests that good metrics are actionable, accessible, easy to calculate and possess a common interpretation.

Lead with Logistics & Potency

When determining metrics, the goal is that they will be useful and practical to collect on a regular basis. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your metric is – if it is too burdensome to get, or difficult to explain, it won’t get you far.

Pick metrics that matter

You also want metrics that matter – to connect to your goals and give meaningful and actionable  information about what you are trying to achieve. A Results-Based Accountability Framework offers  another approach for selecting metrics (or Performance Measures). Like the framework from Gemignani  & Gemignani, Performance Measures aim to make changes to programs to see if changes  yield the desired results.

All measurements fall into one of three categories:

• How much are we doing? 
• How well are we doing it? 
• And is anyone better off?
  
  

Results-Based Accountability Framework

	Quantity	Quality
Effort	How much is being done? # grants $ dollars spent # hours volunteered	What is the quality? How well is it done? % services/activity success rate  % attendance/participation
Effect	Is anyone better off? # or % with improvement in: skills, attitudes, behavior and circumstances

Selecting Headline Measures: The Signal in the Noise 

Through the process of impact measurement, you will end up with a large number of metrics and data  points to be tracking. But if you communicated them all, you’d lose the signal in the noise. “Headline  measures” are the ones you track regularly, that go in your dashboard and your impact reports. This is  because headline measures have:

• Communication power: Effectively communicates to a broad audience range. Tells a compelling story.  
• Proxy power: A good indicator for other measures, leverages a central importance about your  program. 
• Data power: Determine the frequency to retrieve the metric on a regular basis, and if it is consistent  and reliable.  

(Source: The Results-Based Accountability Guide, based on concepts and materials developed by Mark Friedman, author  of Trying Hard is Not Good Enough, 2005). 

Methods for Measurement

Of course, measurement methods have to be considered as well. It’s one thing to want to gather a piece of data, but it's a whole other thing to actually get it. 

Impact Measurement techniques fall into two main categories - Qualitative and Quantitative. Both lend themselves to different types of questions and stakeholder engagements. 

	Engagement	Great to…
Qualitative	Interviews Focus Groups Social Media / Text Analysis	Understand context  “Beginner's mind,” can uncover the unexpected  Answer “Why” questions Build relationships & trust
Quantitative	Surveys Process Data (i.e. clicks) Administrative Data (i.e. census)	Frequencies, ratios, numbers  Describe & correlate  Answer “What” and “How much”

How Braze Aligned on Long-Term Program Metrics

We leveraged our quarterly planning sessions to ensure that metrics aligned to our program strategy. 

Here’s how we did it:

We created a long-term strategic framework with a vision and clear program pillars –Community,  Equity, and Environment. It was essential that we aligned on each of the pillars’ initiatives and goals,  so that we could effectively communicate our programs internally and externally. 

We facilitated a session to define our vision and set long-term goals for each pillar, answering the  question: Five to ten years from now, what do we want to achieve? We brainstormed 2-3 big goals  for each pillar to achieve in the next 2-5 years.

Once we knew what our big goals were, we needed to select and define KPIs that we could use to  measure our success and effectively communicate progress to internal stakeholders.

We are now finalizing the framework with our various stakeholders. Once finalized, this framework can  be easily referenced when we need to communicate updates or enter a new planning cycle. 

- Lilian Liu

 Associate Director of Sustainability