Measuring Social Performance

A paper by Ebrahim and Rangan came across my virtual desktop today -- my virdesk? my virdetop?...I pointlessly digress -- on measuring social performance in non-profits. For-profit corporations can use measurements such as profit margins, return on assets or equity, price to earnings or earnings per share, supported by key performance metrics (KPIs). The difference is that for non-profits, "financial performance is often a means rather than an end to social sector activity". A complicating factor is that the diversity of non-profit missions and scope means it isn't "feasible or desirable" for all organizations to have metrics at all levels. This blog attempts to summarize the main ideas of the paper and apply them to sustainable events.

Integrating social performance measures into your organization through activation of sustainable meetings and events should therefore include an assessment of your organization's mission and scope and attempt to align them.

Impact can be measured through three things:

1. Clarity of goals
2. Specific measurements
3. Milestones

Of course, some things are easier to measure than others. Inputs are often easy to measure: volunteer or staff hours, for example. Outputs are sometimes not as easy to measure; alleviation of hunger in the community, for example, through the donation of left-over meals.

A key recommendation is that measurement needs to be supported by a culture of self-evaluation, and by skilled practitioners, which makes training mandatory for success.

The paper recommends that organizations ask three questions:

1. What can we measure? (for example, time and other inputs)
2. What do we need to measure to satisfy our stakeholders?
3. How can we use measurement to help us achieve our mission?

They also note that small organizations are better off measuring inputs and outputs rather than impact; outcomes and impacts are measurable only on very large scales. For events, unless you are measuring impact across a large number of events, for very large organizations (multi-nationals, for example) or a mega-event like the Olympics, it is probably more logical to measure inputs and outputs and ensure they are aligned with organizational mission and strategy.

I recently wrote an article for ONE+ magazine on the integration of sustainable event standards. One commentator noted that none of the standards was able to help measure "prosperity", one of the key pillars of the triple bottom line. This is possibly because of the same issues the authors of this article have noted, those of scale and diversity of organizations. Expectations and possibilities differ organization by organization.

Prosperity of for-profits can be measured by traditional assessments (earnings per share, for example); it is however difficult to measure the prosperity impact of community service events. How does this impact the bottom line of the sponsoring organization? How do you measure in dollar terms the benefits of generating social capital and an enhanced reputation? Another issue is that the whole idea of "prosperity" is tied up not only in the bottom line of an organization but on community prosperity and environmental integrity; organizations use and contribute to the health of social capital and "natural capital".