Understanding Social Impact
This section offers an introduction to social impact and social impact measurement for third sector organsiations, their funders and investors in the third sector, and for public sector agencies engaged in the commissioning, design and delivery of services to communities.
'What is Social Impact' provides an overview of the subject area, and attempts to draw out some of the shared principles which underpin many of the key philosophies, methodologies and tools associated with impact measurement. This section also includes guidance on impact measurement and its relationship to other types of evlauation, and a handy general glossary of some recurring terms.
'Methods and Tools' offers access to the full SROI Project resource pages for SROI, including an audio walkthrough of the methodology, access to 2009 'Guide to SROI' and a range of resources designed to support you to undertake an SROI evaluation or to better understand SROI principles to support impact measurement, performance evaluation for services or within the commissioning process. the section also contains an overview of a range of other prominent approaches, including Social Audit and Accounting, with links to further resources and sources of information ont he approaches. Although the site focuses mainly on impact measurement, the relationship between evaluating social impact, and other types of performance evaluation is a close one, and so this section also provides some basic information about associated evaluation methodologies.