You’re evaluating a social impact project. How do you know if it’s worth your time?

Evaluate a social impact project by assessing its alignment with your values and mission, measuring tangible outcomes against set goals, gauging scalability, considering the community impact, analyzing the sustainability of impact, and ensuring it's ethically sound and resonates with your long-term objectives.

One of the fundamental sources of information when defining your goals is your beneficiaries or service users. What are their needs? Challenges? What has worked for them (or not) in the past? Answering these questions is the start of understanding how realistic, required and remedial your goals are or should be. Without putting your beneficiaries' voices front and centre, there's a risk of short-sightedness, outcome naivety and unequal power dynamics. Projects should remember that they exist to serve the needs of their service users or beneficiaries, and that project goals must begin and end with their positive progress in mind.

Primeiramente, examine a clareza dos objetivos e metas do projeto, garantindo que estejam alinhados com as necessidades reais da comunidade. Avalie a abordagem metodológica, incluindo a viabilidade técnica e a sustentabilidade a longo prazo. Analise o histórico da organização executora, observando experiências anteriores e parcerias bem-sucedidas. A participação ativa das partes interessadas e a inclusão de suas perspectivas são indicadores valiosos. Considere também a mensuração eficaz do impacto, utilizando indicadores relevantes. Ao ponderar todos esses elementos, é possível ter uma visão abrangente e tomar uma decisão informada sobre a viabilidade e o valor do projeto de impacto social.

I believe that the most important thing is to know the problem or challenge you want to solve. We should not define a priori what would be the best solution, but be open to the different solutions that can be brought. Good knowledge of the problem will allow you to make a good choice within the proposed solutions.

Evalúa el proyecto considerando su alineación con tus valores y metas. Analiza el potencial impacto social, la sostenibilidad a largo plazo y la viabilidad financiera. Investiga el contexto, evalúa la necesidad real y la eficacia de la solución propuesta. Colabora con expertos y solicita retroalimentación para tomar una decisión informada sobre la inversión de tu tiempo.

The logical model is fundamental for a good evaluation of a project and the best way to predict (in theory) its real impact potential. A good logical model should be simple, but not obvious, being able to highlight the nuances of the approach and its risks and assumptions.

Importante diagnosticar as principais demandas sociais e promover diálogos com as comunidades para validar demandas e eleger quais às imprescindíveis, urgentes e necessárias. De forma a minimizar impacto que altere a qualidade de vida das pessoas que vivem nessas comunidades.

Evaluating a project's logic model is fundamental in assessing its potential. This model visually outlines the project’s theory of change, clearly mapping inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes. It's a tool to understand how the project aims to achieve its goals and the underlying assumptions. A thorough review of the logic model can reveal the project's strengths and potential areas of improvement, including gaps or risks in design and implementation. It allows for a critical assessment of whether the project's approach is structured effectively to meet its objectives. Understanding this causal chain is key in deciding if a project is worth investing time and resources.

It's crucial to examine the comprehensiveness and soundness of its theory of change. A key aspect of this assessment is ensuring that intersectionality is thoroughly considered. Systemic inequities shape diverse experiences and access to opportunities, which means the impact of any initiative can vary greatly among people from different backgrounds. By scrutinizing how the project's design accounts for intersecting identities—such as race, gender, ability, and socio-economic status—we can gauge its potential effectiveness. This approach helps identify potential gaps or risks that might not be immediately apparent, ensuring the project is not only impactful but also equitable and responsive to the needs of all communities it aims to serve.

Comparing a social impact project with other existing or potential solutions is vital to ensure the most effective approach. This comparison involves analyzing various factors like cost, scalability, feasibility, sustainability, and ethical implications. It’s crucial to weigh the pros and cons of each alternative, seeking to maximize impact while minimizing resources and redundancies. Collaboration or complementarity with other initiatives can enhance efficiency and effectiveness, avoiding unnecessary competition. This critical evaluation not only identifies the most promising approach but also encourages innovative, integrated solutions for social and environmental challenges.

If you have partners in the initiative, be clear if you need them to do some monitoring and evaluation. The partner may not have the resources or capability to conduct such a process, which is a big factor. Assess overall gaps prior to the project start to ensure measurement is accurate afterwards.

Monitoring is essential, but be careful not to overload partners with demands for information and analysis that contribute little to the project. A good monitoring process generates immediate and significant actions.

Ongoing monitoring and evaluation are crucial in a social impact project’s lifecycle. It's essential not only to support or join a project but also to continuously assess its progress against expected outcomes. Employing suitable indicators and tools for data collection and analysis helps in tracking performance, identifying areas for improvement, and ensuring the project remains on course. Regularly reviewing and adjusting goals and strategies based on concrete evidence and feedback ensures the project adapts to changing circumstances. This process reinforces accountability, transparency, and effectiveness, and is fundamental in maximizing and sustaining the project’s impact

In my experience, if the social impact measurement is the first of its kind in the community, I am prepared to spend more time on evaluation. For example, say I had a project on measuring the employment outcome of the ethnic minorities neurodivergent. Since no one conducted this before, I would probably need to refer to different studies to create a case for such impact measurement before setting any benchmarks.