4 Powerful Lessons About Social Impact in South Australia

It has been nearly a year now since Nova Smart Solutions launched. Our journey into the land of Social Impact is one where we have equipped ourselves with tools, ideas, skills, knowledge and networks. As we are early in our journey, we want to call out four lessons we have learnt about Social Impact in South Australia.

First, I would like to start with a brief summary of our journey. Our early steps started by working on a pro-bono project with TogetherSA, where we measured how much is it that different Federal and State government agencies spend in South Australian Children Early Development programs. Next we were hired by Second Chances SA, for whom we developed an evidence-based report using primary and secondary data to build a solid story to assist in their advocacy and fundraising objectives. We are currently working on our third project, and second commission, to develop a Social Return on Investment analysis with one of the leading NGOs in South Australia.

Behind these stories, there’s a common denominator, Social Impact, and these are the four lessons that South Australia has taught us so far:

1. Market readiness. Social Impact measurement and the framework, wording and approach behind it is attracting the interest of more Not-for-profit organisations. We have been in conversation with over twenty NGOs in South Australia for the past couple of months and we keep hearing ‘tell me more’. We have also encountered a growing interest from the private and public sectors.
2. Allocating scarce resources like a champ. No matter the organisation, it has become very evident that in a resource-constrained context it is vital to ensure that capital and capabilities are directed to the right places and purposes and measuring Social Impact is key to achieve this. With more detailed knowledge and data analysis you can allocate like a champ to build both your advocacy and budget impact.
3. Anecdote-based approach. While NGOs hold a lot of knowledge on how to approach social issues, we have stumbled across an inclination to base the decision-making process on anecdotes rather than on evidence-based analysis.
4. Output to outcome transition. More organisations in Adelaide are starting to explore how to define their own outcomes based on their mission and purpose. Outcome measurement is dependent on what goes into the planning and thinking and is often camouflaged or too much attention paid to inputs and outputs or flow through. The trend to outcomes is a positive and vital step to meet expectations of clients, investors, government and donors.

We have observed that South Australian NGOs are highly knowledgeable about their clients, their programs and their purpose. At the same time, we perceive a willingness to explore new ways to structure such knowledge within a framework leading to improvements in outcomes, accountability, advocacy and fundraising processes.

At Nova, we are very excited to be part of this transition stage and to collaborate with the not-for-profit sector to bring evidence-based tools such as Social Return on Investment, Logic Modeling and Theory of Change to improve and measure Social Impact.

Please tell us in the comments below or write to us to share what you think about Social Impact in South Australia. What are we missing? Or, is there something in particular you would like to read on this blog? We are listening!

ps you might like to take our survey for us to learn more

Or join us for Data Readiness 101 training in November