Melbourne Cares Evaluation Project

Melbourne Cares – the Not for Profit set up as a corporate community go-between –is to carry out a comprehensive evaluation of its social, cultural and economic impact on its corporate and community collaboration.

Described as a groundbreaking project, founding member organisation Ernst & Young in partnership with research group Social Compass, will carry out the evaluation over a three year project.

Melbourne Cares CEO Simon Robinson says it’s the first time an organisation has comprehensively sought to measure a wide range of outcomes and benefits for the partners of collaborative programs in the community.

The evaluation will look to draw on best practice aspects from key initiatives around the globe including Business in the Community and the Corporate Responsibility Index.

Robinson says research already shows that corporate social responsibility has a positive impact on a company’s bottom line performance however the tangible and intangible benefits to the community and participating corporate and Not for Profit organisations are more difficult to quantify.

He says with this unique evaluation project, Melbourne Cares will be able to provide more meaningful information for measuring the performance of programs, impacts for the community, for the business and to demonstrate the value of Melbourne Cares as an intermediary or broker.

Through this three-year evaluation, Melbourne Cares can demonstrate the benefits of collaboration to their member organisations, community partners and other stakeholders.

Work will begin in March to establish the evaluation framework and it is expected that by mid-year the evaluation team will be able to deliver it’s first report.

Pro Bono Australia will be following the research and providing a series of articles about the work of Melbourne Cares.

For more information go to www.melbournecares.org.au.