Accountability and Impact

Two big words, which can often lose their power through over-use.  But being accountable for what your social business does is important.  Planning to have positive social impacts - then keeping an eye on them - then telling people about them - is vital too.

I'm hoping that once the Social Enterprise Mark settles into its stride that it will make a positive contribution to all of this.  I'm intrigued to find out more about their criteria around impact.  On their site it says:

Can you provide externally verified evidence that you are achieving your social or environmental aims?

In practice, social enterprises tend to do this by producing a social audit.  I've written before about how I think that we need fresh approaches to accounting for our impacts.  It's the second Social Impact Camp tomorrow (please come along if you're interested in all of this) - and I'm going to talk about the ideas I've had, and the work I've done, around trying to find ways to plan and record impacts that aren't as onerous as some social audit systems.  

At Voice a couple of weeks ago I asked a question in the plenary about whether the Panel felt that current social accounting systems were fit for purpose for the majority of small to medium sized social enterprises.  There were some interesting responses - with the consensus being that the current approaches have significant limitations.  Third Sector magazine have reported the discussion here.  

What will be the approach of the Social Enterprise Mark Company to this issue?  Will there be a working towards clause which allows businesses which are in the process of producing social accounts to get the Mark?  Or will it be a straight no to any social enterprise without externally verified evidence?  I'd be worried about my targets if the latter were the case.

Hopefully they can help to stimulate discussion and fresh approaches to this.  Much of the noise around the Mark so far has its roots, in my opinion, in the gut feeling that a lot of us have that profit distribution issues are of far less importance than the stuff around effectively planning for, and proving, your impacts.  It may help to move debate on if they start talking more about this in the months ahead.   

Comments

[adrian ashton]

it will certainly be interesting, if only for CICs - all CICs have to produce an annual report on their social impact, and while the original regulator was hopeful and encouraged CICs to adopt social accounting as a useful methodology to achieve this, most haven't and apparentely a research paper from last year found a high proportion of CICs submitted a single sentance on their social impact which was accepted...

maybe the Mark will act as wider catalyst in this respect?

http://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.com/2010/02/does-your-legal-form-make-you-social.html

[Rob Greenland]

Thanks for your comment Adrian. That's interesting about community interest statements and CICs. I saw the other extrem a couple of years ago with a CIC in Leeds which went through a lengthy social accounting process. I, a bit naively, welcomed what they were doing, but on reflection I now recognise that it was far too cumbersome for a small, start-up business. As you say maybe the Mark will help here. I'll talk more abou this at Social Impact Camp this evening.

[Graeme Loveland]

From information gained to date, it seems the cost of registration will be a big issue for many Social Enterprises and Voluntary Groups. I realise that there is a cost to maintaining the integrity of the mark, but it is a shame that it won't be as accessible as it could otherwise be.