Lecture 5

Question 1

What are some challenges of just good intentions (Nichols, 2009)?

Answer 1

• Well-meaning, good intentions are not enough.
• Resource providers (and others) ask for more concrete
  evidence.
• More market-oriented logics
• There is competition over limited resources

Opportunities for Innovation:
- Social impact measures/metrics
- Blended value accounting – financial and social
accounting practices

Question 2

Why is measuring social value hard?

Answer 2

1. People do not agree about what the desired outcome
   should be…
2. People’s ethics, morals, and priorities vary…
3. Many social value metrics are inherently unreliable…

Question 3

Which approach to measuring is better, objective or subjective?

Answer 3

Most metrics assume that value is objective, and
therefore discoverable through analysis when people approach social value as subjective, malleable, and variable, they create better metrics to capture it

Question 4

What are some benefits of measuring impact?

Answer 4

1. Diagnosis tool
   - What actions work best to achieve outcomes
   - What unintended consequences have there been
2. Decision-making tool
   - What needs to be adjusted to improve execution
   - Where to put the resources into
3. Learning tool
   - How and why, they are, or are not achieved
   - Used to test model before scaling-up
4. Collaboration tool
   - Provide partners with evidence & feedback
   - Make a stronger case to your stakeholders (“worthy of investment”)

Question 5

What are the 2 “mantra’s” that changed from 1990 to the 2000s?

Answer 5

Accountability (1990) - Transparency (demand transparency and legitimacy, performance measured based on how much are we doing -unquantified)
Impact (2000’s) - Measurment (demand on outcomes, evidence in solving complex problems, greater professionalization driven by founders, gov, SE)

Question 6

What are the methods for measuring impact