Senator Stephens on "Demonstrating Value" at SEWF09
15 October 2009 at 11:56 am
The Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion, Senator Ursula Stephens has told the Social Enterprise World Forum that the Federal Government is very interested in investing in and understanding how to get the most out of social enterprises.
Senator Stephens chaired the session on ‘Demonstrating Value?’ an issue she described as a vexed question for social enterprises.
She says there needs to be compelling evidence to enable participants to see the value of what they are doing.
While the dollar outcomes can be measured, the social and environmental outcomes are harder to measure.
The founder of the South African Social Investment Exchange, Carol Tappenden says social entrepreneurs are change-makers but they were bad at measuring the social impact of what they do.
Tappenden says as social enterprises scale up they need to provide investors with a measure of the benefits they provide.
Her organisation has begun the process of demonstrating value by using a combination of tools provided by the Global Reporting Initiative’s (GRI) Social Sector Supplementary Tool and the IRIS Impact Reporting Tool (iris-standards.org).
She says the aim is produce a positive life-change indicator.
Pro Bono Australia is proud to be a partner of the Social Enterprise World Forum.
