HKI-SIA Offered Support to B Corp Movement in Asia

The Second Annual B Corp Asia Forum was held during August 31st to September 1st in Taichung, the second most populated city in Taiwan. The theme of this year’s conference was Converge for Impact, and the Mayor of Taichung Lin Chia-Lung was the officiating guest of honour of the event.

Apart from participants from around Asia, there were an exciting group of B Corp and B Lab representatives from countries outside of the region, including Australia, Brazil, Chile and New Zealand, to share experience and celebrate the development of the global B Corp movement. Representing Hong Kong, Freddy Law, Director of Education for Good – the champion of the B Corp movement in Hong Kong – shared the experience in advancing the B Corp movement in the capitalist city and discussed the difficulties it encountered since the group took up the challenge to build the B Corp movement in Hong Kong a year ago.

HKI-SIA Executive Director Terence Yuen also participated in the conference and was invited to join the B Academy Forum panel discussion on advancing B Corp academic and practice research. In the presentation, Terence introduced the findings of a 2016 study that compared SROI and B Impact Assessment using two work-integration social enterprises as the research cases. Terence also took the opportunity to introduce the best practice guide jointly issued by Social Value International and B Lab on Measuring Outcomes Using the Social Value Principles. The best practice guide is one of the “linkage papers” produced by Social Value UK to offer help to social impact practitioners to understand how different measurement tools could complement one another to better the craft of social impact measurement.

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Social Value Thailand, Social Value International and HKI-SIA to Offer SROI Workshops in Bangkok

Social Value Thailand, a new platform group for supporting Thai social impact practitioners, has joined Social Value International as its newest affiliation network in Asia. The group was launched with support provided by NISE Corp, a key player promoting the development of social enterprise in Thailand.

The first training event offered by the Thai network is a series of SROI Accreditation Training (June 5-6 & 9-10; English speaking) and SROI Practitioner Workshops (June 19-20 & 23-24; English and Thai speaking) to be offered by NISE Corp with the support of SVI and HKI-SIA. Jeremy Nicholls and Adam Richards of Social Value UK and Terence Yuen of HKI-SIA will serve as co-trainers for the accreditation training, while Terence will work with qualified trainers from NISE Corp to conduct the practitioner workshops.

For details of the events: June SROI events in Bangkok

About the SROI Accreditation Training

Social Return on Investment (SROI) is an internationally recognized framework for understanding, measuring and valuing social, economic and environmental outcomes. This two-day SROI practitioner training course is accredited by Social Value International and will equip you with a working knowledge of social value and SROI. The course will cover:

• The philosophy behind SROI and the seven principles of social value
• Practical exercises to understand, measure and value outcomes
• Real applications and examples to show how your organisation can use the principles of Social Value and SROI to increase your impact

Social Impact Institute of Taiwan Became Full Member of Social Value International

In its meeting on April 25th, the Board of Social Value International approved the application by Social Impact Institute of Taiwan (台灣社會影響力研究院) to become a full member of Social Value International.

台灣社會影響力研究院
本會宗旨：本會以促進台灣社會影響力與社會價值之在地創新研究並與國際學術界建構交流網絡，以發展台灣在地實務應用框架與流程為宗旨，並配合國內經濟發展需要，結合學術界、產業界、第三部門與公部門的資源，以協同發展與合作為運作模式，從事有關發展和提升台灣社會影響力與社會價值之創新研究之學術和實務的質量與水平，透過積極探尋台灣多元社會議題的解決方案，來達到台灣永續發展為目的。

Earlier this month three delegates from the Taiwan Network attended the SVI annual conference in Istanbul. The group hosted a roundtable to share their experience in establishing a new member network and the challenges they faced.

In the above photo (from left to right) HKI-SIA Executive Director Terence Yuen had a photo opp with Alfred, Chiayuan and Tracy from Taiwan.

Social Value Matters 2017: Workshop on Craft of Stakeholder Segmentation

 

Social Value Matters 2017 – the annual conference of Social Value International – was held on April 10th-11th at the beautiful campus of Koç University in Istanbul, with over 200 participants coming from 25 countries. The Conference was hosted by the Koç University Social Impact Forum (KUSIF) which is a core member of the newly constituted Turkey Social Value Network.  HKI-SIA Executive Director Terence Yuen, who also serves on the Board of Social Value International, attended the two-day conference as representative of the Hong Kong Social Value Network.

On the second day of the conference, Terence joined with Dr Adam Richards, Senior Researcher of Social Value UK, in delivering the practice workshop “The Craft of Stakeholder Segmentation: Improved Decision Making in Service Design and Policy”:

The Craft of Stakeholder Segmentation
The session would consider the risks associated with failing to segment stakeholders, and different techniques that can be applied to reduce the risks and improve the ability of decision makers to maximise the value of activities. Discussion and case studies would be used for participants to appreciate how segmentation can be conducted in line with the Principles of Social Value at varying degrees of rigour to provide proportional responses.

The workshop examined the Why and How of stakeholder segmentation, and was attended by social impact practitioners having an interest to improve program design and service delivery by way of linking impact measurement with approaches to provide tailor-made services to specific beneficiaries groups through stakeholder segmentation.

Impact Measurement Masterclass Delivered in Delhi

The Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) organized its inaugural Impact Assessment Masterclass in Delhi in November 2016, in partnership with Social Value International and India’s capacity building intermediary Dasra.

Impact assessment frameworks including the Theory of Change (ToC), the Balanced Scorecard and Social Value were introduced. The following three strategic actions are considered foundation to all frameworks to ensure the success of impact measurement:

1. Impact is a value chain – and measurement needs to follow this

Funders provide funding to a social purpose organization (SPOs) and the SPO delivers the intended impact to the beneficiaries – this is a value chain. Funders can structure their impact assessment by using different tools for different points of the value chain.

2. Impact measurement needs management support and actions from the entire organization

Regardless of the tools you choose, impact assessment can only be successful if there is leadership support and execution across the organization. Hiring a third-party provider or specialist often does not work well.

3. Communication is the foundation

Communication of impact is vital because it not only matters in terms of external reporting or showcasing, but it also plays a key role in driving future decision-making internally.

Check out the AVPN blog post for further details: https://avpn.asia/2016/12/22/3-strategic-actions-for-successful-social-impact-measurement/ (original article by Kevin Teo and Martina Mettgenberg-Lemiere of AVPN)

SVI Annual Conference 2017: Social Value Matters (More than ever)

Partnered with Koç University Social Impact Forum, the next Social Value International annual conference will be held at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey on 10 & 11 April 2017.

This year’s conference will focus on how to amplify stakeholder voices to inspire change and maximize social value to improve equality. One focus would be how we can use social impact data to drive innovation and ensure stakeholder involvement in service design. Participants will be sharing experiences of what’s worked in changing culture, systems, techniques and legislation and running smaller group discussions and round tables so that everyone can contribute. Sessions will mainly be in English with some in Turkish.

Earlybird tickets offered at a discounted rate of £130 for members and £150 for non-members. Early bird tickets can be purchased via Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/social-value-matters-2017-tickets-29642281863

Summary Account of Social Impact Deliberations in Two Recent Social Enterprise Conferences

Two international events on social enterprise development – the Social Enterprise Summit and Social Enterprise World Forum – were held in Hong Kong during the International Philanthropy and Social Enterprise Week in September. A good number of conference sessions of the two meetings were devoted to addressing the topic of social value and social impact assessment.

Check out the following synthesized report (in Chinese) on relevant discussions on social impact measurement compiled by Social Enterprise Insights from Taiwan.

「社會影響力評估」的挑戰與因應方案

今年9月社企流來到香港「社企民間高峰會（Social Enterprise Summit）」與「社會企業世界論壇（Social Enterprise World Forum）」現場，為讀者帶來第一手的採訪與觀察！跟著我們從社企認證和評估、政府採購、以及創新案例等面向，一探全球的社企發展趨勢。（文：龍映涵）

文章節錄：
回顧在2016年「香港社企民間高峰會」與「社會企業世界論壇」中和社會影響力評估相關的講座，可大致歸納出幾個講者們共同提出的問題：

1. 執行門檻高，小組織難負荷
   熟悉一套適合組織的完整評估架構並不容易，除此之外，為了在過程中納入不同利害關係人的聲音，得花許多時間進行各方訪談驗證、資料蒐集和篩選；尤其在首次執行評估時，由於還在摸索階段，在沒有過往經驗支持的情況下，所需投入的時間和人力成本往往是最大的。因此，許多規模仍小的社會企業，不一定有足夠的人力和財力踏出執行社會影響力評估的第一步。
2. 工具複雜，選擇不易
   一般企業皆以獲取財務報酬為目標，從會計報表資訊衍伸出的各項指標，基本上是多數企業都認可的溝通語言。反觀社會企業，社會議題的多元和個別性使不同組織的目標通常相去甚遠，也因此，為了評估不同組織在特定目標上的達成度，出現了各式各樣的評估工具，有些聚焦在員工培力、有些重視社區經濟發展，有些在評估成效時也想同時幫助組織達到管理的目標等等。雖說做影響力評估時，在工具的選用上可說是「沒有最好，只有最合適」，但要在茫茫工具海中找出「最合適」的那個，對許多初探影響力評估領域的組織來說，會是不小的挑戰。
3. 成本高昂，效益未知
   影響力評估雖說對內可協助組織改善營運績效（improving），對外可作為和投資者與社會大眾溝通影響力的依據（proving），但實務上對組織的幫助有多大、與付出的成本相比是否合理仍是待解的問題。

要閱覽整篇文章，請按此連結

Role of Valuation and Monetization in Social Impact Assessment

HKI-SIA Executive Director Terence Yuen was one of the invited speakers to do a sharing with a group of green innovation project implementors from the Jockey Club CarbonCare InnoLab on September 30th.

Terence gave a presentation that examined the role of valuation and monetization in social impact assessment, and shared examples of evaluation frameworks that either avoid monetization (e.g. B Impact Assessment of B Corp) or completely embrace the monetization of material social outcomes (e.g. Social Cost Benefit Analysis and SROI). As a basic rule of thumb, the choice of social impact assessment framework is dependent upon the purpose of conducting social impact assessment – whether it is meant for external reporting (proving) or mainly for serving internal program design and evaluation purpose (improving). In helping to ascertain the relative importance of diverse program outcomes from the perspective of beneficiaries and stakeholders, valuation and monetization serve the unique function in allowing decision makers to make choices between different alternatives and ultimately helping social entrepreneurs optimize social value creation in program design and implementation.

New Measurement Methods: A Panel at the 2016 Hong Kong Social Enterprise Summit

HKI-SIA Executive Director Terence Yuen on September 24th joined the 2016 Social Enterprise Summit and served as the facilitator for the sharing session on New Measurement Methods.

Local think tank researcher Alvin Cheung from Our Hong Kong Foundation joined two overseas speakers Prof. Wu Jialin from Taiwan and Prof. Jang Jongick from Korea and presented three interesting cases on quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct social impact assessment. Two distinctive quantitative methods –  the contingent rating method and the wellbeing valuation method – were introduced in the Hong Kong and the South Korean cases respectively. A qualitative evaluation framework was introduced in the Taiwanese case which was developed inductively through analyzing four social enterprises in Taiwan.

In the ensuing discussions, the panelists discussed the underpinning rationales of the different methods in making comparisons for decision making support. The extent to which qualitative methods and quantitative methods could complement one another for a more holistic approach of impact evaluation was also deliberated.

New Measurement Methods:
Date: September 24th, 2016 (Sat)
Time: 11:15am – 12:45pm

Facilitator:
Dr. Terence Yuen, Executive Director, The Hong Kong Institute of Social Impact Analyst

Speakers:
Mr. Alvin Cheung, Researcher, Public Policy, Our Hong Kong Foundation
Prof. Jia Lin Wu, Professor, Public Policy and Management, Shih Hsin University
Dr. Jongick Jang, Associate Professor (Economics), Hanshin University

SROI Practitioner Training Workshop Delivered on September 28-29

Nearly three years ago, in November 2013, HKI-SIA introduced the first 2-day SROI practitioner training workshop to Hong Kong. Since then, four more rounds of SROI accreditation training were organized. All workshops were led by our UK CEO Jeremy Nicholls who stopped by in Hong Kong to deliver the training amidst his frequent travels in Asia.

This week Jeremy visited Hong Kong again to give presentations in the Jockey Club Philanthropy for Better Cities Forum and the Social Enterprise World Forum 2016. HKI-SIA again took this opportunity to organize the 2-day SROI workshop on September 28-29. It was the 11th SROI accreditation workshop organized in Hong Kong and the session was attended by 11 local practitioners and one overseas participant from Thailand. As usual, the mix of the participants was cross-sectional, with representatives from social innovation intermediaries, a think tank, an international impact investor, a developer, and social service agencies serving the youth and the elderly.

The contents of the 2-day workshop have been sharpened over the past three years and new focus on how to undertake rapid program evaluation that syncs data gathering and decision making (so as to fuel social innovation) was introduced.  Rapid prototyping and user segmentation were the key themes throughout the 2-day training, and participants were given practical guidance on how to experiment with new program ideas for better allocation of resources and the maximization of social impact for stakeholders.

The Our Hong Kong Foundation was the venue sponsor of the two-day event.