Special features

Social Venture Technology Group (SVT) enables organizations to measure, manage and communicate the intangible value, or human impact, they create. While we use a variety of means, our core framework is social return on investment …

This article is an attempt to chronicle the emergence of a new generation of concepts, tools, platforms and organizations designed to measure quality social change work. To give away the end of the story, it …

I evaluate the programmes of organizations that are committed to social change: innovation, modifying systems, transforming structures and relationships of power – no less! They want to understand the impact of their activities, but accept …

Market-based approaches, which can sustainably provide needed goods and services once donor dollars have dried up, must be a part of the solution to the problems of poverty. However, building new models that provide such …

An evaluation showing the economic impact of older volunteering sits on a shelf gathering dust alongside an annual report aggregating a charity’s impact on the wellbeing of individuals in its local community and a piece …

Though many foundations claim to believe in the value of having a strategy for giving, few actually have one, suggests a new report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Beyond the Rhetoric: Foundation Strategy. Only …

Theories of change and logic models are now part of mainstream evaluation practice in most fields. Advocacy campaigns, too, could benefit greatly from their use in evaluations, since they can show how advocacy tactics connect …

Funders are generally agreed that more and better evaluations of funded projects would be a good thing. They would help in assessing the impact of projects and, consequently, in judging whether donors are spending money …

Donors work in a context where it’s often impossible to measure success in numerical terms, and where assessing impact at all can be problematic. Taking risks is intrinsic to grantmaking. But if the outcomes of …

Intelligent Giving evaluates the transparency of the 500 best-known charities in England and Wales and lists the results on its website at http://www.intelligentgiving.com. The resulting profiles are presented in a populist style to make them …