Demonstrating Value Blog
Yesterday evening Vancity Community Foundation and SAP co-hosted a special event to share advice about creating performance snapshots. With over 50 guests in attendance at the SAP Executive Briefing Centre, the event was a huge success. For those of you who missed out, here’s some highlights and useful recommendations that were shared yesterday evening.
We invited representatives from three social enterprises to speak on their performance snapshots. First was Gretchen Jordan Bastow and Amit Arora from Mama’s Wall Street Studio. Next was Graham Anderson and external consultant Susan Chambers from Shift Urban Cargo Delivery and lastly,...
We hate to see it go, but summer is quickly drawing to a close. While many people are busy wrapping up summer vacation plans and preparing for fall, we’re busy wrapping up another phase in a special pilot project here at Demonstrating Value: the Farmers’ Market Impact Toolkit.
For the past three months, MBA candidate Annie Lambla has been working with Demonstrating Value to build a toolkit that will specifically address the performance management needs of farmers’ markets. The project is a collaboration between Demonstrating Value, Vancity Community Foundation and the B.C. Association of...
There are major benefits to expressing the monetary value of your social enterprise activities. This is especially true when communicating with an audience focused on the financial bottom line of an investment. Increased credibility for your enterprise and improved communication with your investors – not to mention the potential to attract new investors – are just a few of these benefits. However, there are also some roadblocks that can happen along the way.
In part three of our series, we’re investigating these roadblocks, and helping you determine whether pursuing a monetary analysis is right for your enterprise.
What are the Benefits of Monetizing Value?
Assistance from investors is often financial, therefore expressing the...
Expressing value in numerical terms is a direct and concise way to describe value. Quantitative figures can compliment your description of the value of your enterprise, and are especially useful when communicating with investors or other stakeholders who like to know the facts.
Last week we talked about describing organizational information to express value. Today, we’re taking a closer look at quantifying information and using quantitative indicators to analyze and express your organizational value.
Defining and Reporting on Quantitative Indicators
The best way to collect quantitative data is by determining quantitative indicators. These indicators are your tool to collecting factual, measurable data about the value of your social enterprise...
It’s a necessity for organizations to have the know-how to properly articulate organizational value. For your social enterprise, this means showing accountability to investors by demonstrating the value of your work and the resulting impact on the community. Do this properly, and it can lead to a dramatic increase in the level of support for your social enterprise. The difficulty is, however, that social enterprises often find it challenging to express social benefits in a clear and compelling way.
There are various approaches you can take to ensure you’re successful in expressing your value to others. In this three-part series, we’re examining three methods you can rely on when demonstrating your organizational value: describing value, quantifying value...
There’s a flurry of activity going on at Demonstrating Value, so we thought it time to bring back the basics and reconnect with the nuts and bolts of Demonstrating Value – the Demonstrating Value Workbook.
The workbook is a tool that gives you the know-how to develop a clear and concise summary of your critical organizational info. What are your organizational goals? How do you communicate those goals, and how do you know when you’ve reached them? The workbook helps you see the “big picture” at a glance, and shares the details that you, your stakeholders and your community want to know.
We call these summaries...
Things have been quiet on the blog for the past few weeks, but behind the scenes we’ve been busier than ever. Now after a brief hiatus, we’re back to sharing news and stories on evaluation and impact, and discussing the tools, resources and information you need to tell your organizational story and communicate the value of your work.
Read on to learn about the exciting projects on-the-go at Demonstrating Value
A New Website for Demonstrating Value
Since we’re constantly evolving our Demonstrating Value tools and resources, we decided it was time to evolve our website as well. We’ve made our new website easier to navigate, so you can quickly have access to the information you need. Our new website features include:
• An easy-to-read library of tools and resources with highlighted downloadable files and external links
• A collection of snapshot templates and examples
• An overview of current...
Using Demonstrating Value to Show Impact & Manage Performance
The Social Enterprise Portfolio Program, delivered by Vancity and Vancity Community Foundation, aims to ensure that promising social enterprises have access to the financial and technical resources required for both start-up and growth phases. The Program works with a portfolio of 8-10 social enterprises each year, providing a range of funding and other support depending on the needs and stage of the social enterprise. Social Enterprise Portfolio grant recipients use Demonstrating Value as a performance management and reporting tool.
In March, the most recent round of Portfolio grants were made to three deserving social enterprises in our community. Please join us in welcoming the following groups, who have already begun their work with...
Sharing thoughts from The Chronicle of Philanthropy
In Visualizing Data Helps Charities Get Attention, a recent article published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Nicole Wallace paints a compelling picture of the value of infographics and data visualization in communicating a cause and spurring awareness. While the article focuses on charities, the messages and key points are applicable across organizational structures; social enterprises, mission-based businesses, co-operatives, and charities alike could all benefit from Wallace’s insights.
Wallace profiles a handful of charitable organizations and their use of infographics (a...
Fresh, organic produce, locally-grown herbs, farm-fresh culinary delights…what does all of this have to do with Demonstrating Value? A lot, in fact!
Beyond our regular work, Demonstrating Value also leads research and development projects to advance the state of measurement methods, tools and practice to better understand community impact. One such project currently underway is the Farmers’ Market Impact Toolkit Project. Take a look at a recent update from Garth Yule, Program Manager of Community Impact & Evaluation at Vancity Community Foundation to learn more about this exciting work.
Farmers’ Market Impact Toolkit Project
Critics of our modern industrial food system point out that if you ask urban dwellers where their food comes from, many will...