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It is increasingly being recognised that measuring, proving and improving the quality and impact of social enterprises is crucial for the sector’s future. It is striking, for example, that one of the three aims of the Social Enterprise Unit strategy is to "establish the value of social enterprises". Perhaps this is not surprising, for the key to making the sector credible is for social enterprises to prove how they add value.
Doing this will provide social enterprises with access to more work, more finance and more support, encouraging an upward spiral of success. Measuring and reporting on impacts also allows social enterprises to make themselves accountable to their stakeholders.
Another crucial aspect of this agenda is that social enterprises need to continuously improve their performance. It is only possible for them to do this by finding out what works and adapting their activities and processes in this light.
At present, many social enterprises see impact measurement as a burden, rather than a source of competitive advantage or a useful management tool. Understanding of measurement tools appears limited across the sector, and little work has been done at a sector wide level to see how existing tools work for social enterprises. Presently a number of tools already exist but are not necessarily accessible. There are, however, also gaps in tools which can measure certain kinds of impacts and prove the 'value added' of social enterprises.
The quality and impact project, run by the Social Enterprise Partnership (GB) Limited (SEP) and led by nef is designed to play a part in meeting some of the needs of the sector. The ultimate result of the project will be to allow social enterprises to prove their added value, and to continuously improve their performance. This will be achieved through giving social enterprises better access to appropriate tools and the supporting resources which they need, and a better understanding of the value of these tools.
Download an overview of the quality and impact project and the various quality and impact tools being researched.
The quality and impact project has done a needs analysis of the social enterprise sector in relation to quality and impact tools. Please download the key findings here:
Key Findings of Needs Analysis
If you are really keen and want the appendices with the background documents, please download below:
Needs Analysis - Appendices
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