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Measuring the social impact of your venture could be the most important thing you do
Measuring the social impact of your venture could be the most important thing you do
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
Measuring the social impact of your venture could be the most important thing you do
Written by
UnLtd employee
UnLtd position
Your social venture may be creating great impact, but collecting, analysing and using your impact data can help your social venture to grow. Oomph! is a social venture that improves the emotional, physical and mental wellbeing of care home residents. They use a range of activity and exercise classes specifically designed for older people. They work in over 1,200 care homes delivering classes to 500,000 older people each year. The care sector is a notoriously difficult industry to sell into. Oomph! founder Ben Allen puts his social venture's success down to measuring, analysing and using social impact data. Find out more about Oomph!'s success story. ‘If you are a social enterprise measuring your social impact should be core to your business', says Ben, 'it’s the best way to define the value of your business and it’s one of the best ways to sell your business to all stakeholders’. Ben gives his top tips for why you should measure your impact as a social venture.
‘We use our impact data with all of our clients at pilot stage’ Despite already working in 1,200 care homes across the country, Oomph! runs pilot phases with all new clients. Once they’ve agreed to conduct a pilot phase, they collect data on the impact they’ve created. At the end of the pilot phase they are able to review whether they should roll out across the rest of the organisation.
As a social venture your aim is to generate impact in the area or community you work in. For Oomph! this is improving the health and wellbeing of the older people they work with. Oomph! found that measuring and analysing their impact data helped to identify potential improvements to their services. This involved a complete redesign of their exercise training. They identified that the first stage of their exercise class was too theoretical. To deliver greater impact for care home residents, they redesigned their courses to offer a practical approach.
‘Use impact data to define your service, use it to improve your service, use it to launch new services and use it to communicate to your partners’, says Ben, ‘Don’t just use it for a glossy brochure’ Impact data is a valuable tool and one that makes your social venture stand out from a traditional commercial business.
If you are just starting out and need support working out how to measure your impact, take a look at our advice on defining your social impact idicatiors and setting targets. A growing social venture will need to take another look at how it collects, measures and evaluates social impact data. We have some great advice on refining the monitoring and evaluation of your social impact.