The Lithuanian Social Business Association (LiSBA), together with its foreign partners BrainLog (Denmark), The Newdoor (Latvia) and SwIdeas (Sweden), have successfully completed the international project "Measured Green Impact" and are presenting the results to the public.
The situation analysis and a compendium of good practices and inspiring stories have already been made public: the Guide for Facilitators to drive impact self-assessment can be found here.
About the project
Impact measurement is one of the most important criteria and commitments for social business to demonstrate the impact and change it creates in society. The ability to measure impact is also a sign of social business maturity.
Measuring impact is important for a business to be able to assess for itself whether it is actually solving problems and to know if it is achieving its core mission. It is also important to be able to communicate impacts to the public, stakeholders and potential investors, who are increasingly asking for impact assessment as a form of accountability.
"Working directly with social businesses, we find that they often struggle to measure the impact they create. That is why we initiated the Green Impact Measured project to respond to the social business ecosystem's needs and help social businesses operating in the green economy assess the impact they are creating using innovative tools. A training guide is now publicly available for impact measurement experts, who will inspire and guide social entrepreneurs in the right direction during workshops to evaluate the available indicators and methods. Case studies of other successful impact measurement projects will serve as an effective learning tool," says Viktorija Bražiūnaitė, Director of LISVA and Project Manager of the "Measuring Green Impact" project.
Other Baltic and Nordic countries are facing similar impact measurement challenges. Measuring impact is challenging for social businesses because it is often unclear how best to measure their impact with limited resources and when. And the social innovations they create often do not have standard ways or indicators for measuring impact.
The diversity of experiences in different countries
The project partners (BrainLog (Denmark), The Newdoor (Latvia), SwIdeas (Sweden) and the Lithuanian Social Business Association) visited 4 countries - Denmark, Sweden, Latvia and Lithuania - to learn more about the work of social businesses to find out more about their government and local government support and to learn more about how they measure and evaluate the impact they are making. They also sought to share good practices by presenting unique examples of social business in their countries.
The project analysed and presented in their study the experiences of 8 social businesses: Burka, Owa (Latvia), Aterbruket and Folkets Pops (Sweden), "Mes žydim" and Textale (Lithuania), Nordjysk Fodevare Overskud and Comeback (Denmark). All of these social businesses specialise in the green economy and focus on responsible use of the environment and energy resources.
Project webpage – www.green-impact-measured.site
The Green Impact Measured project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Office in Lithuania's Nordplus Adult 2022 programme.
