what the robots are doing for social impact

No-one can have missed the growing interest and debates surrounding the potential, risks, impacts, and future of AI in all aspects of our lives.

But an area where I’m yet to see any significant debate happening is to do with something I've been involved in since the 1990s - social value and social impact.

I’m aware that AI is already touching my business and work, having had a client share with me in December last year how they fed my face, and aspects of things about how I work that they particularly enjoy and appreciate, into their generative AI to create the image for their Christmas card. And whilst working with the social value team in a national firm recently, the conversation of how they might use AI to make better use of their time in understanding the needs of different communities came up.

But rather than just think about how I might use AI in how I manage my business' activities (which, to my perspective, is the overarching narrative to all conversations I currently see and hear on this topic), I want to explore more how the promises and potential of AI can help better inform how we think about, approach, and ultimately deliver and achieve positive impacts through how we work and act. 

As a 'starters for 10', I turned to ChatGBT with my first question:

"how can AI be used to support the creation of social impact and social value?"

to which, the robot replied:

"AI can be a powerful tool for creating social impact and value in various ways:

1. Healthcare: AI can be used to improve healthcare outcomes by analyzing large datasets to identify trends and patterns in diseases, assisting in early diagnosis, and personalizing treatment plans. AI-powered telemedicine platforms can also provide healthcare access to remote or underserved areas.

2. Education: AI can personalize learning experiences for students by adapting content and pacing to individual needs and learning styles. It can also provide tutoring and assistance to students, especially in subjects where there are shortages of human teachers.

3. Environmental Sustainability: AI can help monitor and manage environmental resources more efficiently. For example, it can analyze satellite data to track deforestation, predict natural disasters, optimize energy usage, and manage water resources.

4. Social Services: AI can assist in improving access to social services by streamlining administrative processes, identifying individuals in need, and predicting demand for services. It can also help detect and prevent fraud in social welfare programs.

5. Disaster Response and Management: AI can aid in disaster preparedness and response by analyzing data from various sources to predict and mitigate the impact of natural disasters. It can also assist in coordinating relief efforts and allocating resources effectively during emergencies.

6. Poverty Alleviation: AI can support poverty alleviation efforts by analyzing socioeconomic data to identify areas of need and develop targeted interventions. It can also facilitate financial inclusion by providing access to banking and financial services for underserved populations.

7. Humanitarian Aid: AI can assist humanitarian organizations in delivering aid more effectively by optimizing supply chains, identifying vulnerable populations, and predicting refugee movements.

8. Accessibility: AI-driven technologies can improve accessibility for individuals with disabilities by providing tools such as speech recognition, natural language processing, and computer vision to facilitate communication and interaction with digital devices.

9. Public Safety: AI can enhance public safety by analyzing data to identify crime hotspots, predict criminal activity, and optimize the deployment of law enforcement resources. It can also assist in disaster response and emergency management.

10. Crisis Counseling and Mental Health Support: AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants can provide round-the-clock support for individuals experiencing mental health issues or crises, offering resources, guidance, and empathy.

Overall, AI has the potential to address some of the most pressing social challenges by augmenting human capabilities, improving decision-making, and optimizing resource allocation. However, it's crucial to ensure that AI systems are developed and deployed ethically, transparently, and inclusively to maximize their positive impact on society."

What I'm taking from this response, is that the machines currently think that their role will help automate various practices that already exist and we already use, and in doing so, might offer quicker insights and understanding for us to make better decisions with. But ultimately, it's not able to do anything that we're not already doing... Also, that AI itself is 'aware' that we shouldn't blindly adopt it wholesale, but take careful and measured approaches in experimenting with it, and be careful to make sure that it doesn't end up only being a resource that those who have means already will be able to benefit from.

But what do others think? Have I mis-read ChatGBT's response above, as to how it sees its role in advancing social impact and value, or is there another (better) question I should be asking it?

This is a topic I'm going to be exploring over this coming year where I see opportunity to, and will be sharing my reflections both ongoing in my blog here, and also in my next annual impact report on myself.

is it too big?

Each year I publish an annual impact report on myself - and currently hold the world record for the most number of such, that have been created and shared consecutively (this years' marks the 18th year in a row that I've done it!).

And each year, I always share it with the invitation for people to tell me what it might leave them still wondering about, or what they might like to see added to it. This has led to it now containing case studies and more images.

But after 18 years, I'm finding myself starting to wonder - when is it 'enough'?

The first reporting I did on myself back in 2007 had only 3 numbers:

1. what proportion of my travel was by non-car (public transport or bicycle);
2. what proportion of my turnover had I re-invested into my ongoing CPD;
3. what proportion of my supply chain purchases had been with the wider 'social economy' (co-ops, social enterprises, and charities).

These appeared on my website at the time, and each year I've sought to expand the scope of what and how I report. 

In 2014, I started to publish the report as a stand-alone document as part of my marketing materials for my business. It was 2 pages long.

In 2018, I expanded the framework to consider my impact against the UN's Global Sustainable Development Goals (something that didn't exist when I started doing this in 2007) - and it took the report to 6 pages.

This years report is now 25 pages! And if you look at any of them, you'll see that in most instances there's only 1 page that isn't crammed with information (the title page - and even then it's sometimes shared with starting to tell the stories of that year...). So it's not getting bigger because I'm getting fancier with graphics and page design. The framework, what's reported, etc really are getting that expansive from those first 3 numbers nearly 20 years ago (and it doesn't yet consider the 'cascade' impacts that are created by clients I support because of the work I do with them...). 

So my question now is - when is it 'enough'? As a sole trader. I don't have the dedicated resources that larger organisations do (salaried employees, department budgets, etc) to track and report on my impact, like they do - but at 25 pages, am I peaking? Or can/ should I take it further still?

At what point do we start to over report on our impact?

How people's forgetfulness is costing me a family home (or, maybe it's time I stopped trying to be so idealistic?)

A few years ago, I started to track how much time I'd 'lost' from people forgetting to turn up to meetings that they'd asked for with me, or from groups who'd booked me to run workshops for them, only to cancel them the day before.

My reason for this wasn't motivated by spite or indignation, but rather to try and quantify and understand the extent of the impact of such occurrences on my business; and what that meant in turn for how well I could earn money to support my family.

http://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2020/06/to-everyone-who-forgot-to-turn-up-to.html 

The first time I reported this figure was in 2020 - and it a showed a whopping £4,560 over the year; equivalent to treating my family to a meal out once a week every week of the year.

Sadly, that figure has continued to rise year on year, and since 2020 it's jumped by over 80% to the latest reported value of £8,325!

That's about £160 a week that I otherwise could have earned - nearly £700 a month: almost the average cost of renting a family home in the UK! 

Over the last 18 years since I've become self employed, I've always tried to practice the value of grace in different ways - which to date, includes not penalising people who are causing me to incur these lost earnings (which, frankly, would be very welcome in my bank account in light of current inflationary and cost of living pressures). I could have been charging them a percentage of what I would have otherwise realised from working with them in those periods of time: a common practice in the terms and conditions amongst my fellow consultants and training providers.

But in light of people and groups seeming to be becoming more dismissive of recognising the impact (hurt) that their not trying to make effort to have the courtesy of letting me know when they know that they they're not going to be able to spend the time with me that they'd agreed to, and with sufficient notice for it not to cause me further financial distress, maybe I need to start introducing some 'nudges' in my own T&C's?

And that sucks - because, as I wrote before, I'm aware of how messy and unpredictable the world can be at times, and we can't always know when we're going to be knocked sideways. But surely, if we all know how much we're all struggling, we should at least be trying to make an effort to recognise when a change in our own circumstances may affect others, by having the courtesy to give each other a quick heads-up?

Perhaps by starting to include some penalties in how I agree to work with people, that might help to start to nudge behaviours so that we can all become a little more sympathetic, understanding, and supportive of each other?

But doing so would mean I'm starting to compromise on what I try and hold as one of my core values - perhaps after 18 years it's time I accepted that I can't carry on being so idealistic?

laser discs, pagers, and social accounting

History is littered with examples of technologies and systems that were of higher standards and quality, but which were supplanted by inferior products and offers.

And that's the frame I want you to have in mind in this piece on 'social accounting' - a practice that dates back centuries, and in recent years, has seen substantive growth in interest in it through the adoption of Social Accounting, SROI, and such like which businesses and social enterprises have developed amongst themselves.

In large part, this has been driven by government interest in how public services can provide more 'bang for its buck' - starting in 2001 as a policy aspiration, this led to the introduction of legislation to start to mandate how the delivery of government contracts should now include going 'above and beyond' the core deliverables to generate wider benefits to communities and society at large. 

This drive by government is in turn largely responsible for the emergence of 'TOMs' - a relative newcomer to this arena of reporting social impact and value (it wasn't until 2017 that it's first framework was released). And whilst many who've been working in the impact sector for some time aren't fully convinced by it, it's quickly gaining traction as the de facto/go to model for local authorities and other public sector bodies to design and understand how social value will be being created and should be recorded and evidenced in the services they commission and contract.

And that creates a tension in how our services and activities are designed and managed - should the impacts that they can create be constrained to the narrow focus that TOMs has pre-defined (and in doing so, ignoring the wider value we create through how we work); and also only consider our impact through the lens of what it can be financially valued at? (which may make reporting simpler, but misses the point that some things are valuable but can't be reduced to a £). 

But it's not just TOMs - the housing sector created the 'HACT' framework in 2012 to identify and monetise services relating to where and how we live, and the construction industry is also piloting a new national value standard.

Such developments not only add to the confusion over how we should best approach thinking about, and understanding, the ways that our activities and services create benefit in the wider world and for the people and communities whose lives we touch. This is further complicated in that the resources associated with each of these new standards can make it hard to be able to justify adopting more than one of them.

So it seems we have a choice - do we stick with models of social accounting that many feel are of a higher rigour and relevance, and go the way of the laser discs and pagers; or do we accept that the world is shifting around us in ways we can't control, and pragmatically change our thinking and practices so we remain 'in the game' along with everyone else?

It feels like we're approaching another 'betamax vs vhs' showdown, and maybe this is one time that although we feel we're working to higher standards, we have to accept that to remain able to engage with commissioners, funders, and others, we have to shift how we think about how we report our impact to a 'lower standard', in order that we're not 'left out in the cold'... 

the impact of a pandemic on the impact we create

Some of you reading this will be aware that for the last 15 years, I've annually published an 'impact report' on my activities as a sole trader/freelancer - and each time I do, I try and pause to reflect here on some aspect of it that's particularly struck me.

Most businesses, charities, and social enterprises who are currently talking about the impact they've created through the pandemic, successive lock-downs, and the disruption to communities and people's lives over the last year, seem to be largely focussing on what they've done over this last year. Which is fine and proper, but it doesn't help us fully understand the wider, longer-term impacts of the pandemic on how we try and achieve our respective missions - only what our immediate responses to it have been.

But I've been using a consistent framework and measures in how I monitor, report, and reflect on, my impact for over a decade. That means that this year's impact report has allowed me to better explore just how far the disruption to how we work, think, and feel, has truly had on my practices - and as such, I'm better able to consider what changes I might need to introduce as we emerge into our brave new vaccinated world (and which I can politely pass on).

Spoiler alert: it seems the pandemic has had little (or as expected) effect on the metrics I use to capture the impacts I create across different themes.

But what I do find of particular note is:

tax paid: it's been already shown by others that in being self-employed, I already pay proportionately more tax on my income than my counterparts both on payrolls, and those taking their earnings as company Directors. But this year, the amount of tax I've paid has significantly increased - and tracking this back into the data shows that it's because I was fortunate to be eligible for some of the government's coronavirus business support schemes: but that support I received to help me sustain my business (and family) was always going to be subject to being taxed - so although it may have initially seemed I could have breathed a sign of relief when HMRC said I was eligible to apply for SEISS, I always knew that there'd be at least one painful sting in the tail associated with it...

grace: in my last impact report, I'd started to capture and monetise my 'grace': the amount of lost earnings I'd suffered due to people either forgetting that we had arranged to speak/meet, or cancelling training sessions with only a days' notice (with no recourse for me to claim any late cancellation fee). Perhaps the most distressing part of this year's impact report is not that this figure hasn't changed, it's that if anything, its actually increased. Which means that the respect we're showing each other in making sure we turn up (or phone in/log on) when we've agreed to, or at the very least, sending apologies in good time if we know we can't, is on the wane...

But there's lots of other things in this years report. It now runs to 11 pages, with 12 indicators, 3 charts, 3 tables, and a slew of summary case studies and testimonials - in the first year I created it, covering the year 2006-7, it only had 3 numbers and was a footnote in my corporate CV!

And you can view it in all it's glorious technicolour and images, here.

Therefore, please do take a look through it - I'd be keen to hear what strikes you about it as being of particular interest in help me better understand it myself, and to therefore continue to create as much positive impact as I can into the future.

to everyone who forgot to turn up to their meetings with me last year - can I have my £4,500 back, please?

We all know the feeling of frustration of having arranged to meet with someone, only for them to not turn up when agreed; and after waiting the polite 5-10 minutes before calling them, only learn that they'd forgotten.

At the best of times, this can make us feel like they don't think we have any importance or value (or else they'd have remembered we were in their diary), but as a sole trader, it also represents a painful loss of cash as well - because I'm not salaried.

Unlike others in paid employment, who have a guaranteed income each month - against which they decide how to best allocate their time to justify receiving it; I have a fixed amount of time each month - against which I have to maximise my opportunities to generate an income. 
So if you're not a client of mine and I offer to share some of my time with you, then that's me saying that I think who you are and what you're trying to achieve is more important than my earning cash to help pay the rent, or keep the fridge stocked up.

But it goes beyond that - because it's not just the need to generate an income that's the sole determinate of how I use my time, but the importance of being with my girlfriend, and kids. And beyond that, having opportunity to hang out with parents, siblings, friends - and indulge in personal interests (reading, whiskey, walking, classic movies, galleries and museums, gardening,...).

So when you say 'sorry, I forgot' - that's akin to your saying to me "You've chosen to sacrifice a lot to spend this time with me, but I don't think your ability to retain a home, spend time with family, or any of the other things that enrich our lives, are worth bothering to even recognise."

But I'll never say that to you. 

I'll never say it because I try and live by a set of values that inform who I am, how I think about things, how I approach my work, and how I try and build relationships with different groups of people.

So instead, because of the value of 'grace', I'll politely and demurely brush it off and offer to reschedule with you.

These values are something that I've always tried to keep front and centre in my day to day life, and part of the way I do this is through my annual impact report, the measures in which reflect these values.

And over the last year, I've been thinking about how to capture this value of 'grace'... It seems that the easiest way might be to measure the number of times the above scenario has played out over the year.

And to subsequently help me understand the true extent of what this value of 'grace' costs me (and how it can be recognised by other people), I've monetised it in the same way I have my pro bono activity.

The first reading on this new indicator is a bit of a shock: £4,560.

The financial value of the time I've lost because people acted in a way that suggested: "You've chosen to sacrifice a lot to spend this time with me, but I don't think your ability to retain a home, spend time with family, or any of the other things that enrich our lives, are worth bothering to even recognise.", is in excess of £4,000.

Averaged out over the year, that's getting on for £100 a week - for comparison, that's akin to the cost of taking my family out for a meal together; the cost of renewing one of my professional memberships; or the cost of a basic portable hearing loop (for when I'm working with people who experience deafness).

And it's more than half of what I gave in pro bono support over the same period.

So the next time you ask or agree to meet with me, or someone else who's not salaried, please try and make the effort to check your diary or let us know if you know you're going to be running late...

reporting social impact - 150 years in, and 8,000 to go...

If you're getting involved with starting to report social value/impact, and find yourself confused about all the different models, standards, bodies, and approaches, then don't panic - you're right where you should expect to be!

Preparing 'social accounts' is often likened to the preparation of a set of financial accounts - tracking what resources have been used, and what's changed (good or bad) at the end of a period.

However - as a species, we've been collectively agreeing how to 'do' financial accounts for about 8 millennia (the earliest reference I can find dates back to about 8,000BC in ancient Sumeria...). But we've only really been doing 'social' accounts for about 150 (the earliest references I'm aware of are co-operative societies in the mid nineteen century sharing how they were impacting on their members and communities).

So if we've been working on agreeing consistent standards and approaches for financial accounts for this long, why is there the sense of urgency and panic to nail the way in which we report the social value and impact alongside the financial stuff?

And just to add to the complication, financial accounting had only a few key audiences who were interested that it was gotten 'right' (investors, regulators, government), whereas social value and impact has far wider groups that it needs to satisfy (providers, commissioners, communities, employees, beneficiaries, customers, grant making bodies, policy makers, and so on and so on...)

So isn't it about time we stopped panicking that we've not yet reached a global consensus on the measures we should all be using when we talk about our value and impact..?

(Unless you're the Bank of England, who've just set a 2 year deadline on us all to figure them out before they make up and impose their own!)

the problems with prioritising social value maybe aren't that straightforward...

Having worked in the 'social value' arena for about 20 years now in guises ranging from developing reporting toolkits for national sector bodies, supporting national programmes from the likes of nef and Social Investment Business, and delivering masterclasses with commissioners and individual groups, there seems to remain a widespread frustration as to why more charities, social enterprises, businesses, and others simply aren't getting on with just (fukcing) doing it...

And I have an idea (well, several in fact) as to why despite the rhetoric and good intentions, it's proving so hard for so many to start with even the first steps of starting to think about how they capture and report the impact they're already making, let alone start to grow it to benefit more people and communities in need:

1) most groups and businesses face a daily trade-off between investing in systems and processes, and being able to 'keep the lights on' - until we can find better ways of presenting the imperative of social value reporting in the context of their current operating pressures and immediate consequences, then it'll always be being put off to the next month...

2) despite social value now being a compliance thing for charities, companies, and even societies (public benefit reporting requirements, legal responsibilities of company directors, and such like), there's little by way of enforcement by these respective regulatory bodies - so if there's no stick, then what's the motivation..?

3) the introduction of the social value act in 2012 was going to herald a new era of social value in public procurement - except it's not that obvious or widespread yet (with most contracts only giving a 5% weighing to social value)

4) we see grant making trusts and bodies seemingly at odds with each other in how they're prioritising social value and impact, with some being so vague as to leave the applying groups more confused, and others contradicting each other, so is it any wonder that charities applying to them are focusing more on outputs and budgets than outcomes..?

5) and the 'professionalisation' of reporting our social value (despite it originating within the social enterprise sector) is starting to see our own people becoming disenfranchised and demotivated when they're asked to start to report and manage it, according to recent research papers...

So is it any wonder why despite the efforts of nationally funded programmes, sector bodies, and rhetoric of others, that 2 decades in, we're still seeing so many groups struggling to begin to even engage with social value, let alone report, manage, and develop it..?

Maybe we need to create more carrots to incentivise and nudge behaviours and thinking, rather than relying on an approach of 'tell people why it's so important, and they're bound to come round...' (after all - how many of us actually manage our recommended '5-a-day' of fruit and vegetables, or religiously floss after every meal, despite knowing how important both are...?)

A question of grace and bad debt...

I've recently published my 13th annual social impact report on myself - and as with previous years, continued to 'evolve' the framework by adding further indicators (specifically, in relation to how far I'm adopting working practices that reduce environmental impact). 

The framework I've developed is overall designed to reflect my values, but I'm wondering how far I should include additional indicators relating to 'grace', and more specifically, 'forgiveness'...

You see, businesses of all types will, at some point, face the prospect of having to deal with bad debt - a customer or client that either refuses to pay, or whose venture has become insolvent. In such circumstances, conventional wisdom decrees that we (as the people the debt is owed to) enact recovery processes: debt collection agencies, applications for court orders, striking them off our Christmas card lists, and such like. 

But sometimes, the people we've worked to support and now can't make good on the payments we've agreed, haven't made a conscious or deliberate choice to run their businesses into the ground, or to happily walk away from their dreams and ambitions with little care for the consequences. They're just as, if not more, upset than we are that circumstances have played out as they have and are simply trying to minimise the fall out (albeit that usually means by 'doing an ostrich' and hoping it all goes away by itself...).

In such instances, grace would seem to require that we at least consider the option of forgiving them their debt - not as a 'carry on and mess up other businesses' type approach, but rather as a measured and reflective conversation about how working relationships have been bruised, and helping all involved understand the cost that such a forgiveness of debt will entail (but the benefits it could also offer in the longer-term to all concerned as well). 

As a sole trader, my experiences of exercising grace in this way is 'quite painful' as I've no larger company or wider team of colleagues to help soften the hit of not now receiving the income I'd anticipated. I also need to work at least doubly hard to find additional work to replace the earnings I've lost and budgeted to receive, (earnings that help sustain my family, home, and other commitments).

So the question I'm grappling with is - when I exercise grace in this way, should I record and report it, as I do with other workings out of this value (such as the extent to which I currently report on the pro bono support I've given to various people and groups).

Would such open reporting simply encourage a culture of clients 'crying off' when they see that I'd be willing to forgive them their debt, or would it mean we can all start to have more grown-up and mature adult conversations about money, and the way in which we recognise and have responsibility for others through ensuring that we pay them what we owe?

make noise vs. making an impact - how social media reacted to my impact report

Earlier this month I published my latest annual social impact report on myself - and my deciding to frame it against the UN's Sustainable Development Goals seemed to be well received judging by comments and feedback I've received to date.

A few years back, I started to publish the report on twitter, using the hashtag #AAimpact14 (and adding 1 for each subsequent year). But I never really thought about if twitter was the right channel to be doing this with - sure, there are various hashtags that relate to impact reporting, but that doesn't mean it's the right place for something like this.

So this year, I decided to experiment on myself (again!) - and posted out the sections of the impact report each day across different social media channels that I have a profile on, and then looked at what the numbers suggested 1 week after their original postings.

It's interesting reading, and almost counter-intuitive (if you listen to some of the hype around which social media channel you should be broadcasting your messages on):

Taking a chart based on the average number of impressions per social media post which is how most people I know seem to judge their success on social media (some channels got 1 per day, and others several, based on available characters allowed), I also looked at the number of engagements as a proportion of my total connections/followers on each respective channel.

So it seems that when it comes to reporting our impact and social value, LinkedIn is the place to be for getting it noticed, but if we want people to actively engage with it, then we should be looking more to instagram and blogs.

However, when I re-cast this chart using the number of impressions as a percentage of my total community on each channel (rather than an absolute number), a very different picture emerges:

A 'truer' picture emerges of instagram and blogs being the place where people like to see what's happening in the worlds of impact reporting, but in a much more passive sense than over on LinkedIn...

Thankfully, in an age where we can easily cross-post content and messages across different social media platforms, sharing our impact reporting like this isn't an either/or choice. But it's perhaps an interesting question to pose to ourselves: what are we hoping to achieve by posting about our impact reports - are we simply 'showing off', or trying to stimulate conversations and reflection amongst others as to how we're doing it?

how social impact reports sometimes tell us more about ourselves, than about the changes we've created for others

To my knowledge, I'm sill the only freelance/self-employed consultant to openly publish a social impact report on myself - and this year marks the 13th one!

And this year I've taken a different approach to how I present the findings of the indicators that track my 'social performance' from the stance of economic, environmental, and social themes. As well as continuing to benchmark the results externally where I'm able to source relevant comparisons, I'm also now using them to consider how far I'm contributing to the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. After all, small enterprise and freelancers make up the overwhelming majority of all the businesses in the world, so the best chance of being able to make progress against these goals is through our collective efforts, right?

And while this take has been widely lauded so far (some even referring to me as 'genius' in doing so!), it's not this new format which is my stand-out takeaway from this years impact report.

Instead, it's the footnotes and narrative that I add where the results seem to be significantly different to the previous year - a sign that somethings not played out as I'd hoped, or, as has been the case in the past, actually an indication that the quality of my provision is actually far better than might have otherwise been expected in the circumstances (one year learner satisfaction fell 15% on the previous year, but digging into it, I found that over 1/3 of all learners on courses I delivered that year had attended under duress, so the satisfaction scores should have been correspondingly much lower!).

And during the period that this impact report covers, I had a significant change in my personal circumstances - as well as the tail-end of recovering my business from the impact of the massive flooding that hit the Calder Valley at the end of 2015, I also moved out of the family home and relocated in another town (don't worry - I'm still a Northerner in the Pennines).

My professional self felt that I'd be able to manage this transition pretty well, and client feedback has shown that my standards of delivery haven't been affected by this change. However, what this latest impact report shows is that the way in which I try and manage my business has been perhaps more affected than I might have otherwise hoped:

• I've not been able to continue to use public transport for business travel to the same extent;
• my ability to procure from other social enterprises, co-ops, and charities has been lessened;
• the amount of pro bono support I was able to offer was down.

And these are perhaps to be expected during a period of family change and upheaval, rethinking priorities about life, and no longer living in such close proximity to rail and bus terminals as I used to. 

However, these things aren't an excuse not to try and rethink how I adapt to my new circumstances in trying to maintain my commitment to working out my values in how I work - and to that end I'm looking to change how I offer to meet people, seeking to make better use of video technologies: something I'll be adding to my reporting matrix next year.

And I think that that's something which is often missing from many impact reports I read from others - as well as the lack of external benchmarks and previous trends to help make sense of just how far achievements are worthy of recognition, an openness in committing to change their business models as a result of what they show.

(by the way - my full impact report for the year 2017/8 is now available on this link)

social value - more impact or more talk? (reflections from Social Value 17)

Part of my approach to my CPD is to tweet from events I attend to capture my thoughts and reflections from them, and then subsequently turn to my blog to try and crystallise my learning from them, and what difference it will subsequently make in how I support clients in the future - and my attending Social Value 17 is no exception...

The conference is one of a series of events that Social Enterprise Yorkshire and Humber stage throughout the year, in response to interests expressed by its member social enterprises in the region. It was designed to look at how social value is being introduced into the sector and public commissioning, and subsequently, how social enterprises might better approach identifying and reporting their impact to aid in their winning public sector contracts.

And against that agenda, I personally found it to be something of a mixed bag (as anyone who was following my tweets on the day would have likely already surmised...)

Having now 'slept on it', I think my overall impressions remain what I left with on the day:

• probably a bit too much of being 'talked at', rather than sharing stories and facilitated networking (if you do a picture search on twitter for the events' hashtag, all the images are of people holding a microphone and standing in front of a powerpoint screen)
• there wasn't really much given by way of reason as to why as a sector we should be getting more serious about reporting our impact, beyond the fact that some public sector commissioners are starting to write it into their tender specifications - but in my experience, this is usually the weakest (and least relevant for most) reason...
• given that the main focus of the event was on how social value strengthens the commissioning of public services, a conspicuous absence of anyone from any health bodies
• a lot of gaps with regards to practicalities for attending enterprises and charities to be able to follow up on to support themselves with identifying and starting to report their social impact (Social Value UK's free webinar series, the Global Value Exchange set of standardised outcome indicators, and the Inspiring Impact self-help resources to name but 3 that no one made any references to...)

but there were also some moments that were encouraging:

• the open recognition that most private companies are shaming the sector in being able to better report impact than many local social enterprises and charities can
• in the workshop, hearing local commissioners share some of their frustrations and hopes for social value commissioning, (and being open to learning from previous strategies and directives from the last 15 years that I shared with them)

What I also noticed is that despite this being an event about social value, there were very few examples of impact reports on show (with the exception of the 3 social investment bodies present - Key Fund, Charity Bank, and Unity Bank) - but I also took a handful of copies of mine and left out on the tables, and all of which were taken with interest and enthusiasm when people realised what they were...

So - overall, a disappointing day in terms of being able to learn anything new that I didn't already know (and in fact, it turning out that I knew more than some of the keynote speakers during opportunities for questions I put to them, and the number of people subsequently approaching me after the formal event to the conference...), but also encouraging to see that commissioners are becoming more open and wanting to progress the debate and discussion. And also useful in helping me better understand the messages that clients I work with are being exposed to, in being able to better structure and direct my support for their future benefit.

What I also took away from the day was that there's also more appetite to be open in taking about when we make mistakes, recognising that there's great value in the learning we can all benefit from through such openness (however embarrassing and fearful we might feel in admitting it...)

(and as an additional 'personal highlight' from the event - my most popular tweet from it was a picture of Key Fund's Dave Thornett apparently playing some bizarre 'social value' game...) 

compared to what..?

There are lots of reasons banded about why we should try and be capturing and reporting the social impact/value of our enterprises - and that's not just something which is confined to the social enterprise or charity world: the private sector have been pioneering a lot of clever approaches to it to over recent years as well (Puma's environmental Profit & Loss, the international impact accounting standard, and McDonald's own infographics to name but a few...)

However, one of the key questions that any impact or outcomes reporting should answer is "so what?" - what difference has achieving this reduction, or engaging that number of people, made? But within the context of impact reporting, I think the "so what?" question also needs to be extended to be framed as "compared to what?". If an enterprise reports that it's reduced carbon emissions by 10%, is that good or bad? It might compare itself to its performance last year, but that's not really that objective or honest of a measure - it's surely only when we can compare that 10% to what comparable enterprises have been able to achieve that we can fully appreciate if that's a score to be scoffed at, or to be applauded.

And yet, how many social impact reports seek to reference any external benchmarks or comparisons in presenting their findings?

As ever, I'm not one to suggest something without being willing to try it myself - so this year I've sought to source external benchmarks against my own social impact reporting framework.

And I wanted to see what people thought about this before blogging about it, so published the report via twitter, and various LinkedIN groups, sat back, and waited for a week or two, before sitting down to draft this reflection.

And what the wider world seems to think based on engagements and comments to the post about the report is that while my doing an impact report on myself is a good idea, no-one really engaged or picked up on the fact that I'm starting to benchmark it externally to see if what seems to be a 'good' figure is really good, or if its outstanding instead.

For myself, I think that in finding I'm contributing more in taxes than my counterparts in regular employment is an encouraging sign that I'm still sticking to my principles of wanting to support public services, and my investing more in my ongoing CPD to keep myself 'on top my game' should be a great reassurance to clients (as well as all the awards I seem to keep winning...)

And while it's not perfect by any means (kudos to Liam Black for keeping me grounded as ever with it via his latest tweet), it's surely a start in furthering the conversation and encouragements for things like this to become more commonplace and therefore useful in helping us make better informed decisions about how we're approaching trying to make the changes in the community / society / world we seek to? 

You can access the full report via this link - https://www.scribd.com/document/348140111/Adrian-Ashton-Social-Impact-Report-2016-7