"There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns - there are things we do not know we don't know."
-Former US of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld
I came across this nifty tool when I attended the 6th ANSER conference in Victoria, June 6, 2013. The Community Capital Tool is a decision support and assessment tool, based on the community capital framework, that is designed to facilitate and ground community discussion about integrated planning and monitoring.
Are you about to engage in strategic or business planning in your organization? Planning offers a great point to think about what has and hasn’t worked in the past, how you create value (for community, within your business and organization), how you can create even more value, and ways to measure your success moving forward. Demonstrating Value can complement planning activities in a number of ways.
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.
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.
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.
NOWBC, a co-op formed in 2008, runs an online farmers’ market and delivery depot ‘clubs’ with a focus on seasonal, local, organic foods sourced directly from small farms and processors as well as local independent wholesalers. The dedicated volunteers and staff at NOWBC believe in the importance of knowing your local farmer and preserving sustainable farming knowledge and farmland.
Channeling Change: Making Collective Impact Work
Have you ever found yourself wanting to tell your organization’s story “digitally”, but unsure how or even where to start? In this day of rapid technological changes and advances, we are fortunate to have a variety of useful tools at our fingertips that make online storytelling a simple – and fun – process.
In Part 1 of “10 Ways to Show Your Impact”, we discussed five things you can do to show your value including:
1) be as clear as possible in describing your vision, mission, and strategies,
2) describe what differentiates you,
3) describe and show evidence of the value you create from the perspective of all your stakeholders,
4) tell your story and the stories of those you work with, and
