How can we create positive social impact on society? How can we identify a social problem where we can make a difference? How can we mobilise resources to create social change? And how do we define and measure that social change? From climate change to poverty to preparing for future pandemics, the world is currently facing a plethora of complex challenges. Dr Jonathan Roberts, Teaching Director and Associate Professorial Lecturer at the Marshall Institute, explores how social entrepreneurs can take action to create positive change.
“A sense of imagination and dreaming about how we could create a fairer, more climate-friendly and better society is what drives many of us. Those people who put that vision into practice are called change-makers, social activists, and social entrepreneurs,” says Jonathan.
But how can we best use our creativity and energy to make a difference? Jonathan makes a series of suggestions of skills and practices that can bring rigour into our practice, and so increase our chances of successfully achieving positive social impact.
Understanding the problem
"If I had only one hour to save the world, I would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem, and only five minutes finding the solution."
Jonathan underscores the importance of truly understanding a problem before trying to fix it: “social problems are complicated, they are more complicated than trying to make money in a profit-making organisation. You need to think very carefully about what you’re trying to do, who you’re trying to help and what your understanding of a good society is.”
First of all, why are social problems complex?
- Unclear objectives
Objectives can be multiple, controversial, and contested. Working out your key objectives and how to measure them is essential.
- Cause and effect
There can be complex structures of cause and effect in social problems. You need to have a solid understanding of ‘the point of inflection’: you must know your precise place in the ecosystem, how you’re going to influence these complicated systems of cause and effect and how you’re going to identify that you’re making a difference.
- Institutional systems
From political institutions to state agencies to profit-making organisations and families, in order to make a difference you need to be very clear about the ecosystem around the social problem you’re trying to address. Take time to map exactly who is involved, what your inflection point is and what exactly it is you’re making or doing; is it a new product or are you campaigning for policy change?
- Place the experience of the user at the forefront
“We must be aware that our knowledge of social challenges and how they might be resolved are framed by our own experiences and the communities we belong to. Because of this, we may have the resources to change something but lack the specific knowledge around the problem.”
How can we gather knowledge of a problem?
- Ask the user
Asking the user what they need, what their experiences are of the problem and what insights they have about possible solutions to the problem is essential in gathering knowledge.
- Explore the current body of knowledge
Collecting research on what is already known about the problem, whether your idea has already been tried, and using this information to find out what changes you’d need to make is key to creating an intervention that has a good chance of achieving impact.
Tools of the trade
"Remember that it is OK to fail, provided we’ve done our best. Social change requires risk-taking and one of the problems we have in our society is that governments don’t want to take risks. In the world of private action for public benefit, our job is to take risks to create social innovation, but the task is to fail swifty and learn from failure in order to inform our future activities or the activities of others."
- Theory of change
Thoroughly plan out exactly how your idea is expected to work - what are your inputs, outputs, possible side effects, barriers and enablers, key assumptions, and key indicators.
- Frugal innovation
Using your theory of change, understand what your key assumptions are and test your prototypes quickly. If possible, test the prototype with the people you’re trying to help to find out if it’s working for them and serving the purpose it needs to.
- Storytelling
You could have a rigorous and robust idea, but unless you can communicate that idea with a persuasive narrative, you won’t receive the funding and support you need to get it off the ground.
Finding the right organisational form
"There is the potential to do social good and create social impact in any organisational type."
You’ll almost inevitably want to form an organisation to put your idea into practice, but it’s essential to find the right organisation form for your project. “In the last 10-20 years there’s been an emerging group of organisations called social enterprises. These are hybrid organisations which merge some form of primary social purpose with commercial activities. They range from a non-profit organisation which engages in commercial activities (the trading non-profit), to a social co-operative, which is an organisation with some sort of social intention owned and run by the employees, customers or local community. More controversially, there are organisations set up as profit-making organisations that claim that they have a primary social purpose (for-profit social ventures).”
What should we consider when choosing an organisational type?
- Economic value
Ask yourself, “can I charge people for this product?,” if the answer is yes, you have the potential to create a commercial business model. If the answer is no, you need to be a non-trading organisation, relying primarily on philanthropy. Also ask – will everyone be able to afford to buy the product? If not, will this create inequality and unfairness?
- Access to funding
Be aware that it can be difficult to get funding for non-profits - especially because you can’t get equity investment. If you decide you want to scale-up your organisation, you don’t have the ability to go to equity investors for more capital.
- Balance between private and social value
Ask yourself, “is profit aligned with social value?” Sometimes there is conflict between private and social value, so a profit-making organisation may not always be the right choice. Even in a commercial non-profit, we still have the danger of mission drift, where our determination to stay sustainable through market trading gets in the way of our achieving our mission.
- Decision-making
Who has the power to make decisions in your organisation? If you want the wider community to have a say, it may be best to use a co-operative form.
Measuring impact
“Measuring impact is tough and time-consuming but it’s important. Firstly, it’s important for you as someone who wants to change the world. You can learn from the process of evaluating about whether you are making a difference or whether you need to change things - in this way, you learn and improve your social impact. It’s also important when communicating to others about how you’re making a difference which can help you obtain more resources for your project. An even wider benefit is the more we can generate robust evidence of what works and what doesn’t work, the more we can share that knowledge in a sophisticated manner and achieve the social impact we all want.”
How can we measure impact?
- Evaluation
Build in an evaluation process so you can measure the difference you’re making from the start.
- The counterfactual
Ask yourself, “might this have happened anyway? Is there something else going on in the environment that is causing this effect?”
Skills to hone
“Anyone can be a social entrepreneur, but you do have to be robust and exhibit some qualities which can be challenging. These include; confidence, humility, empathy, and resilience. You need to dismiss your knowledge, challenge your values, and switch off everything to listen’” concludes Jonathan.
Watch Dr Jonathan Robert's webinar on 'How To Do Good to Create Social Impact'.