Here is something to ponder on over the holidays. I’ll also admit that I don’t have the answers here and will be pondering it myself. I’ve been speaking with a lot of philanthropists, social investors, impact investors and their professional advisers lately. One thing that comes up time and again Read more…
Over the past few months regular readers will have realised that there are certain themes to these posts. I talk a lot about participation. I talk about concepts that sit within systems thinking and complexity; and I’ve now added access to the list. These four ideas form the core of Read more…
I’ve been working on a social return on investment analysis for a carbon storage programme in Indonesia, when I came across a relatively new concept in valuing social impact. The project currently uses the Climate Community Biodiversity (CCB) Standards and has structured its outcomes accordingly, which has been very useful for identifying Read more…
If you read even half of what I write on this blog you’ll know that participation is a regular topic. A theme almost. Many years ago I realised that the best kind of social impact is designed by the people who will benefit from that social impact. I’ve also seen Read more…
The world is more than a little topsy turvy these days. I was reading an excellent thought piece on LinkedIn by a colleague of mine Iulian Circo recently where he outlined 5 pointers for dealing with a deep global super-crisis such as Covid-19. He noted that while no-one really knows Read more…
Black lives matter. Gay lives matter. Trans lives matter. Women’s lives matter. But our systemic inequality means that some lives matter more than others. The opposite of inequality isn’t always equality. To begin with the opposite of inequality is equity. Equity and equality are two different things and it is Read more…
Ok, so this post is really aimed at a group of organisations or businesses: mission-driven organisations that need to demonstrate the impact that they are having. If you’re in this group, you might already be doing impact measurement. If not, and most are not, then it really is worth taking Read more…
About four years ago I wrote about the negative press that civil society organisations were getting in the UK press and what this meant for the sector. Recently I saw a headline that read something like “Charities are on their way out.” It reminded me again that we take the future Read more…
In May last year I wrote about how commissioners could improve their commissioning of external evaluations for social impact. It struck me that the advice I gave was quite technical (well it was for the UK Evaluation Society’s journal) and there were a few things not included that most of Read more…
It is easy and tempting to put everything into a nice little box with a label on it. Makes it seem manageable, do-able. At least until we try to assess whether we’ve actually made any improvements. Most of time the changes that we thought would happen somehow don’t seem to Read more…