Social impact refers to measurable changes created by social initiatives in people’s lives and society, such as reducing loneliness, improving mental health, or increasing life satisfaction. At Impactly, we only use the term "impact", when we can document either the social or the socio-economic value.
Socio-economic value combines social and economic benefits, highlighting how an initiative improves life satisfaction while resulting in either budgetary value or savings for municipality, region or state, often measured using frameworks like Social Return on Investment (SROI).
Social value captures the broader impact on participants' life satisfaction as a result of a social change. It is often intangible benefits an initiative brings, such as increased social cohesion or community resilience, but it can also be how getting into employment benefits the individual's life satisfaction. It looks at the positive outcomes generated for society as a whole.
Life satisfaction measures how individuals rate their lives as a whole, often assessed using a single question on a scale from 0 (not at all satisfied) to 10 (completely satisfied). This metric is widely used in research and by the OECD to quantify subjective experiences. The key benefit being that we can understand how various social changes impact the overall life satisfaction, allowing easier and scientific comparison and benchmarking of initiatives social impact.
Impact measurement is the systematic process of collecting data and quantifying the impact of an initiative on its participants, stakeholders, and society. It can be both qualitative and quantitative data.
Impact assessment goes beyond measurement to evaluate an intervention's significance, looking at both positive and negative changes and whether the intervention achieved its intended outcomes. It can be done during and initiative to understand if things can be improved, or it can be done at the end to ensure that the intervention had the desired social impact. We always encourage ongoing impact assessment to maximise the overall impact of the programme.
Impact reporting involves sharing the measured and assessed impact with stakeholders, often through formal reports that showcase an initiative’s social and economic contributions. Here, it's important to ensure a scientific approach, so you avoid over-claiming your impact, which is often referred to as social washing.
Read more about measurement, assessment and documentation of social impact
A Theory of Change is a strategic framework that maps the pathway of an initiative, identifying intended outcomes, required inputs, and necessary activities to create specific social impacts. The theory of change is the map that will allow you to efficiently measure and be able to document and assess your social impact.
Stakeholders are individuals or groups affected by or interested in the outcomes of an intervention, including beneficiaries, community members, funders, and policy makers.
Inputs are the resources invested in an intervention, such as time, funds, volunteers, materials, which are required to achieve the desired outcomes.
Activities refer to the specific actions taken within an initiative, like workshops or support sessions, that directly impact the participants.
Outputs are the small, measurable steps that lead to the desired outcome. This can be the number of participations in workshops, or it can be social changes, such as increased self-efficacy or improved wellbeing. Otputs do not yet indicate the impact, but they inform you whether or not your initiative and the participants are on the right path.
Outcomes are the change that occurs as a result of an activity. For example: You have an employment intervention, so your desired outcome would likely be to help find jobs for the participants, so that would be an outcome, but it could also be to increase their wellbeing, because that would increase the likelihood for them finding and maintaining employment.
Read more about setting up a measurable Theory of Change
A data strategy is a comprised version of your Theory of Changes that specifies how, when and what data you will collect in order to be able to document your social impact. It details which questionnaires, you will use, what date surveys are sent out, and when you need to collect data, and if it is online, in person or a combination. It is therefore an actionable version of your Theory of Change, that enables you to efficiently measure your social impact.
Read more about setting up a data strategy
Validated questionnaires are standardized surveys that are used in research to measure specific aspects of wellbeing, such as loneliness, stress or anxiety. Using these ensures high-quality, comparable data and a sound scientific foundation.
Indicators are metrics that represent certain outcomes or processes, like employment rates or levels of mental health, used to track progress. They will often help you ensure, beyond your impact measurements, how people are being impacted.
Registrations are data entries tracking key events or status changes, like employment, participation in workshops, absence or health improvements, essential for monitoring individual participant progress.
SROI is a rigorous framework that calculates the socio-economic value of an initiative by calculating how the initiative creates budgetary value for municipality, region and state, and social value for the participants in the form of increased life satsifaction. It considers multiple variables, including economic savings, societal benefits, and personal wellbeing impacts, providing a single ratio for evaluating impact.
Read more about Social Return on Investment
Social Cost-Benefit Analysis evaluates an intervention’s total economic and social value against its costs, helping determine whether the intervention yields a net positive impact, or benchmarking different initiatives. This can help both organisations needing to prioritise multiple initaitives or impact investors and foundations wanting to make their investments as impactful as possible.
Subjective Wellbeing Valuation is a solid framework that quantifies the impact of social changes by examining how they influence individuals’ self-reported life satisfaction. This method translates subjective experiences into measurable data called WELLBYs, often used in wellbeing research and SROIs.
Read more about Subjective Wellbeing Valuation
WELLBY (Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Years) quantifies the value of social changes, using life satisfaction as a key measure. It is an innovative approach to assess how much a social intervention improves overall wellbeing over time. The unique benefit of WELLBYs are that they allow us as a society to compare initiatives with different target audiences and desired impact. The unique advantage of WELLBYs is that with them you get the opportunity to compare the impact of social initiatives with widely different target groups and desired outcomes. With WELLBYs, we can suddenly convert effect data collected with different questionnaires and associated scales into one common currency (life satisfaction), so that we can better assess the value of the initiatives for the participants.
Deadweight is the portion of an outcome that would have happened without the intervention, essential for understanding an initiative’s true impact. So, maybe 20 of your paticipants found a job, but if statistically 14 of them would have anyway, you can only attribute 6 of them to your initiative. This is a key factor to avoid over-stating or inflating your social impact.
The status quo scenario represents what would happen in the absence of the intervention, used as a baseline for comparison in SROI and cost-benefit analyses.
Assumptions are the underlying premises used in impact measurement and analysis, such as expected trends or participant behaviors, that help estimate outcomes and impact. They can be found via researching similar initiatives or research into the same target audience.
Benchmarking is the process of comparing an intervention’s outcomes or processes against industry standards or similar programs, helping organizations assess relative performance.
Social Value Banks provide pre-calculated monetary values for common social outcomes, aiding in SROI calculations and enabling consistent valuation across different projects and sectors.
The social economic model (SØM) has been developed by the Danish Government’s social department (Socialstyrelsen) and contains budget economic values for the specialised social area which covers e.g. vulnerable children and young people, disabled adults and citizens with mental disorders. In other words, this model contains amounts to be saved for public commissioners, should a citizen fx. go from social security (kontanthjælp) to employment.
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