for
Clients
is the measure of their success, achieving the changes in their lives they seek in services.
Providers
is the certainty of helping more clients overcome barriers and achieve successful departures from service.
Funders
is the assurance of value for money with reports of the number of people in service and the effect of the services they receive.
Donors and Investors
is the assurance that $1 invested in a social impact venture is creating a growing and sustainable social return for people in need.
Community
is the measure of the changes they see in family, friends and associates receiving the help they seek in services.
measures the value of services.
A human service provider that enables clients to achieve 100 outcomes with $1 million in funding can, at best, enable 200 with $2 million. Outcomes double, but the Rate of Social Impact (RoSI) remains 100 outcomes per $1 million in services funding.
On the other hand, when a service provider increases RoSI from 100 to 150 outcomes per $1 million in services funding, that provider adds $500,000 to the value of services. That $500,000 per $1 million in services funding can be expressed as the Return on Service (ROS) of 50¢ per $1 of service funding.
That 50¢ per $1 in services funding is the measure of social value created by the provider by their own effort. That 50¢ per $1 is an asset of the provider that the provider alone can trade with donors, funders and investors.
Share Your Success
- Every human services provider has impact and value.
- From the date of first funding, every provider has always had impact and value.
- Every provider changes the impact and value of services from one period to the next.
Social Impact Solutions (SIS) measure the social value that human service providers, alone, have created by increasing the rate of social impact of their services.
- The impact of a provider’s services is the outcomes achieved by clients in service, resulting from the effect of services rendered. The impact of a provider’s services is neither the outputs of their services, nor all the outcomes that clients achieve in service. Outputs measure the cost, not the value of services. Clients achieve outcomes by their own efforts, with the help of family and friends, and even with the help of other services when in a provider’s care.
- Funders of human service providers buy the social value of the baseline rate of social impact of a provider’s services. If, for example, a provider enables clients to achieve 100 outcomes with $1 million in services funding, then, 200 with $2 million, the outcomes achieved have doubled, but so has the funder’s cost. The baseline rate of social impact of 100 outcomes per $1 million in services funding remains the same. The social asset of $1 million, or $2 million, representing 100 or 200 outcomes, remains an asset of the funder.
- When a provider increases the rate of social impact, for example, from 100 to 150 outcomes per $1 million in services funding, the provider adds $500,000, per $1 million in services funding, to the value of services. By increasing the rate of social impact by 50%, the provider has generated a social value of $1.5 million in 150 outcomes, per $1 million in services funding. The first $1 million in social value is the baseline social asset purchased by the provider’s funder. The additional $500,000 is the value of the contribution to clients created by the provider, and is the only social value that the provider can trade with funders or investors.