By applying our knowledge of what drives social value we contribute pragmatic and realistic content to shape social due diligence and reporting standards.
We guide impact-driven organisations to:
be clear about their impact goals, strategy, operations and results
to be able to effectively measure and communicate the impact they deliver in a way that communicates what makes them different
to be externally accountable and meet the reporting expectations of their stakeholders
We guide investors to:
Identify which organisations fit with your theory of change and commitment to social value
Refine impact management processes
Develop outcome reporting and audit standards
Design and implement capacity building for impact and investment readiness.
To be useful for improving practice and meaningful to demonstrate impact to external stakeholders our experience shows us that impact measurement need to:
Be useful and meaningful to organisations to manage and improve performance
Be cost-effective and practical to collect by non-specialist staff
Provide consistent information
Have a demonstrable link to the change they seek to measure
Sensitive to positive & negative change
Comparable between organisations, across context and over time
Impact audit for social investor
Nesta Impact Investments provides finance to innovative, high-growth businesses that address major social problems within education, health and communities. SPS worked with Itad to conduct an audit of Nesta Impact Investments’ Impact Strategy for its investment fund, NII1, to support them to improve its practice and demonstrate its capability to deliver impact to investors.
Social investor due diligence and strategy
Dutch social investor Oikocredit seeks to balance social and financial return in its debt and equity investments. A review of its strategy for social due diligence and capacity building proposed a mixed investment portfolio to ensure full deployment of investment funds with strong social and financial returns. To support this the social performance scorecard used in the investment due diligence process was revised.
Developing sector standards in microfinance
The Universal Standards for Social Performance Management in microfinance were developed through a 5 year consultation process involving almost 1000 practitioners, investors, donors and policy-makers. The standards combine an objective focus on commonly accepted social goals in microfinance with a set of essential practices covering strategy, products and services, management systems, policies and processes and organisational culture. These standards now form a common basis for social due diligence, auditing, rating, capacity building and reporting in microfinance. Our Director, Anton Simanowitz, was a founding member and Board member of the Task Force that led the process.