Tribal Proof

Community-based social impact tool.

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Social impact is the effect of an activity on the social fabric of the community and well-being of the individuals and families."

BusinessDictionary.com

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How do you measure the social impact of this?

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How do you measure the social impact of this?

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A measurement plan is based on your Theory of Change, and in essence lays out what should be measured in an organisation, and how. Each element of your Theory of Change should be measurable, and by attaching measurements to the elements, a complete system can be outlined.

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Social Influence Model

According to Bibb Lantane, social psychologist, the relationship between three social forces can determine the amount of social influence. Those three forces are:

Importance: how important is an organization or group to the people you hope to impact?

Proximity: how close, physically in space and time, are you to the people you are trying to influence?

Number of People Engaged: how many people are you able to reach and engage?

This model is based on interpersonal influence and group behavior. However, I wonder if it can also be applied to organizations. Organizations are in a sense a group. 

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How do you measure the social impact of this?

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How do you measure the social impact of this?

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A Social Impact Index

The Legatum Foundation (http://www.legatum.org/sii) looks at these categories when calculating an organization’s social impact:

Breadth of Impact  A measurement of how many people the project impacts.

Changing Paradigms  The degree to which the project encouraged mindset and behavior changes.

Wellbeing  The degree to which a person experiences improved quality of life.

Empowerment  The degree to which a person or community is empowered to do what they wish to do.

Depth of Impact The degree to which a project provides lasting, positive changes in a person’s life. Quality of Project Implementation – A measure of how well the project was implemented.

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If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.

Lord Kelvin, Mathematical Physicist

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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead, Anthropologist

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Culture and social impact

Culture is the common understanding or grouping of beliefs, values and practices in a society at a given moment in time. Culture is the sharing of ideas and habits that can manifest itself in religious doctrines, etiquette, cuisine, politics and speech. Ultimately, culture creates a social reality that guides our actions.

In my research on social impact, I uncovered the work of Bibb Lantané, a professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University. Professor Bibb Latané has authored more than 140 articles and books about his research on bystander intervention in emergencies, social impact and group influence, and other topics. In his studies, Lantané proposes that dynamic social impact exhibits itself in culture through regional clustering, correlations among cultural elements, consolidation of minorities, and continuing diversity.

The Lantané Dynamic Social Impact Theory is based on five principles: 1. Individuals differ. 2. Individuals have relatively stable locations in space. 3. Social influence is proportional to a multiplicative function of the strength, immediacy and number of sources. 4. The iterative, recursive outcome of individual influence processes will lead to the global self-organization of socially influenceable attributes and the emergence of group-level phenomena. 5. Social influence will be incremental for unimportant issues, catastrophic for important ones.

Lantané sums up that “Dynamic social impact theory views culture as a continuing human creation to which everyone contributes.” Culture is organic and constantly evolving through communication and social constructs.

As individuals come together in clusters or groups, the question still remains how do organizations measure their social impact in the communities which they exist and influence?

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The big question

How can organizations measure the impact on their local community?

Over the past decade, I have volunteered hundreds, maybe thousands, of hours to organizations who create local community events. Each of these events requires time and talents of hundreds of generous volunteers to make them a success. But as a volunteer, how can I be sure that I am putting my efforts in organizations that are making a positive impact on my community? And where do I go to look up other organizations in my area who are making a positive impact? What information is available to rate or evaluate organizational impact? And what does the community have to say about such events and the impact to their neighborhoods and their lives?

As an organization, how can community impact be measured? I believe that goes beyond just economic impact. It is greater than just the numbers of dollars invested and number of lives impacted. 

So, let’s dive in and research this question. I want to understand what metrics exist for analyzing organizational impact across a variety of industries, including both non-profit and for-profit sectors. What are the areas of overlap and how can both internal and external perspectives be accounted for to ensure that the areas measured by an organization match up with those measured by the community and participating individuals?