Our intern Sophie shares some initial thoughts from her summer research project:
The ‘values, behaviours and practices of social impact analysts’ is the title of the research project that I have been carrying out during my six weeks at SIAA. When I first began work on it, the project’s broad scope dwarfed my limited understanding of the field and somewhat daunted my initial bullish enthusiasm. My interest in SIAA came from my belief in efficiency, in transparency and in accountability – words whose meanings and value can sometimes be lost in a world of excessive jargon, statistics that conceal reality, corporate self-aggrandisement and a culture that values constant innovation over reflection. Though I was aware of the principles behind it, my knowledge of the detail and practices of social impact analysis could generously be described as ‘basic’.
The question of what Social Impact Analysis is was a good question for me (and my research) to start with. Though the exact method is largely dependent on context, sector and methodology, the focus of social impact analysis is clearly placed on an analysis of the change that is created by the activities of an organisation or program and on the measuring of outcomes that are widely understood to be intangible. The value of social impact analysis is, according to the majority of interviewees, two-pronged and rests on its role in improving the effectiveness of an organisation or project in bettering the lives of beneficiaries and in communicating the successes or failings of the organisation or project to interested parties. On this section of the report, there was general consensus Read more>>
Our full report 'The Values, Behaviours and Practices of Social Impact Analysts' will be published in October.
