HKI-SIA and Social Value International co-organized a public seminar in the afternoon of May 26th, titled Managing Social Value Creation and Collective Impact. Sponsored by the Xu Family Charitable Foundation, the seminar was a fringe event of the AVPN Conference and was attended by around 70 participants around two-third of which were from the government and social sectors, while the remaining participants were from impact investing and corporate sectors. The speakers and detailed programme of the event are listed at the end of this post (the speaker profiles could be found here.)
In the first part of the seminar, Professor David Weimer shared his experience in applying benefit-cost analysis as a decision-making model for guiding social policy planning and implementation in the US. Tony Luh and Terence Yuen then responded to Prof Weimer’s presentation in two different angles. Using cases in rural China, Tony offered vivid examples to show the importance of evidence-based impact evaluation for highlighting areas of overlooked service needs and how impact assessment could support policy advocacy and help arouse the awareness of policymakers at the national level. Terence shared SROI findings of the Ageing In Place initiative of the Hong Kong Housing Society implemented in 11 housing estates involving some two thousand elders. The local example again demonstrated the importance in applying social impact assessment in the planning and implementation of social policy.
The second part of seminar included four presentations. Ken Ito from Tokyo discussed latest policy developments in Japan in relation to social investment and social finance; in particular, three pilot cases of social impact bonds in the areas of recidivism, child adoption, and dementia prevention were introduced. Using a set of slides consisting of only emojis, Kelvin Cheung of UnLtd HK discussed how the start-up incubator would walk alongside the young entrepreneurs in their journey of entrepreneurial success, suggesting that impact communication plays an essential role in that journey. Jeremy Nicholls then discussed latest developments in the corporate world on impact measurement, with an emphasis on how CEOs and corporate boards have now moved to embed social impact assessment as an integral part of management decision-making to deliver value to all stakeholders. The last speaker Stephen Wong offered the overall concluding remarks reflecting on the worldwide movements as depicted by the other speakers while noting the increased level of awareness by think tanks and policy makers locally in Hong Kong.
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The public seminar Managing Social Value Creation and Collective Impact was delivered in two parts:
Part 1: Evidence-based Program Evaluation and Policy Intervention
David Weimer, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Tony Luh, Yifang Foundation (Beijing, China)
Terence Yuen, Hong Kong Institute of Social Impact Analysts
(Moderator, Jeremy Nicholls of Social Value International)
Part 2: Engendering Cross-sector Collaboration to Drive Collective Impact
Stephen Wong, Our Hong Kong Foundation
Ken Ito, The SROI Network Japan
Kelvin Cheung, UnLtd HK
Jeremy Nicholls, Social Value International
(Moderator, Terence Yuen of Hong Kong Institute of Social Impact Analysts)
Hong Kong Institute of Social Impact Analysts (HKI-SIA) 