Social Impact Analytics: Putting the Value into Evaluation

Evaluation is often divorced from an organisation’s day-to-day operation, seen simply as a retrospective assessment of the impact of an intervention or the measurement of a client group’s outcomes. While there remains a place for that traditional approach, my colleagues and I at GtD believe that evaluation should be integral to shaping an organisation’s operations, by both looking back over past performance as well as predicting how to achieve real impact in the future.

In developing cutting edge social impact analytics, GtD’s novel approach to evaluation is being delivered to governments, non-profits and commercial organisations in the U.K. and the U.S. Typically, our clients are working to reduce reoffending, resettle refugees, provide shelter to the homeless and help disengaged young people achieve improved education outcomes. By providing definitive analyses we are enabling our clients to monitor what they are now doing; learn how they can improve their future performance and – ultimately – prove that they had an impact on a client group or wider society.

So, what are our social impact analytics, and what’s the value in our approach to evaluation?

First our Impact Management is helping managers and board members think about what they are seeking to achieve and how they will do that with the resources at their disposal. In our experience, managers, board members and funders should be concerned that their service is well run. By monitoring resources, inputs and outputs, our Impact Management can produce measures of a service’s economy and efficiency.

Second, our Predictive Analyses are helping organisations to deliver more effective services. Our analyses are helping practitioners to identify what will work best for their clients, and managers are using the information to improve interventions and predict future impact, and in the case of social impact bonds, future income.

Finally, organisations that commission GtD are working with some of the most vulnerable people in society. We value their work and are committed to using quantitative methods of evaluation to determine their impact. We are proud that our Impact Evaluations are not only delivering definitive reports on the impact of their work, but can also be used to provide a highly persuasive case to funders or a press-release as part of a media or funding campaign.

To find out how your GtD’s Social Impact Analytics can help your organisation make a difference contact me at alan.mackie@getthedata.net