Kids Company could still claim a big Social Impact and value. Is this right?
Kids Company
Could still claim social value?
Remember Kids Company and THAT documentary. The months following where every funder, trustee board worried about the accountability, transparency and efficacy of their charity. Of course you do, it was almost like the 2008 stock market crash but in the Third Sector - a moment when the existing model of big claims and political connections as a way to fund a charity came into question? We remember it well, we were working as Directors of a charity at the time, funded by the government.
Everyone vowed to change, learn the lessons. So things are different now right? There’s a new focus on charities being able to evidence their impact, demonstrate their value with evidence. It couldn’t happen now. Or could it?
The BBC have reported that “When it closed, Kids Company claimed to help 36,000 children and young adults. That is the number that Ms Batmanghelidjh still uses”.
Out there in the sector of Social Impact sector are Social Value banks, calculators that offer to attach ‘Social Value’ to basic data inputs. One such tool actually states that “to effectively value social impact, we need to have a clear understanding of the number of participants involved in your activities and, wherever possible, evidence of the changes that those participants undergo as a result of the programme”. The implication here is that even without evidence of changes in your participants (impact) - you can still claim substantial social value?
As we can see above, Kids company had a number of participants they used but had no evidence of any change or impact on those kids. So kids company could have put that figure of 36,000 young participants into a Social Value Bank / Calculator and start to claim some pretty big social value pounds signs. This doesn’t seem quite right.
That’s why at State of Life we have created three things
A free step by step guide to social impact and value
An ‘open data’ methodology that enables faster, more affordable and more robust social impact reporting
Free survey tools to enable you to evidence the change you make to participants - your impact
As our step by step guide makes clear - once you have evidence of a change and impact of your programme. Then, and only then, should you start to attached social value. To attach value, without evidence of impact, is to open the door for a return of bad practise, iffy accountability and difficult questions for boards of trustees.
There’s no need to take the risk, State of Life’s tools are free and if not free, affordable.
And you don’t have to just take our word for it, Lord Gus O’Donnell is helping us with State of Life and has said “If you want to demonstrate credible evidence of social impact and value, State of Life is an excellent place to start” and you can see the evidence of this approach in all our reports in the our work section of the site.