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On 14 October 2013, we participated in a stakeholder consultation on measuring social impact at the European Economic and Social Committee, hosted by the rapporteur Ariane Rodert, in presence of representatives of the European Commission.

Ariane Rodert is currently working on an opinion regarding social impact measurement and wanted to discuss its preparation with stakeholders. During this consultation, several key issues were raised.

First of all, many participants highlighted the risks linked to the fact that a unique European definition of social enterprise does not exist. In fact, the Communication on the Social Business Initiative (SBI) contains a “description” of the concept of social enterprise. The recently adopted regulation on the European Social Entrepreneurship Funds (EUSEF) and the draft regulation on the European Programme for Employment and Social Innovation (EASI) contain a legal definition of social enterprise which adds some elements that are not present in the SBI: a social enterprise needs to prove that it produces a measurable positive social impact. Depending on which definition you apply and on the legal framework that exists at national level, you can have very different practical implications. To give an example, in the frame of EASI, if you apply the definition given in this regulation and if you want to measure the positive social impact of a social enterprise as a pre-condition to assess funding, the risk is that you might exclude social enterprises that produce positive social impact that is difficult to measure. For this reason, it is crucial to define at which stage the framework that the expert group of the Commission is developing to measure the social impact, will be applied – as a pre-condition to get funding or at the end of the funded intervention, to evaluate its impact?

From what we have just said, it becomes clear that the framework to measure the social impact has to be different depending if you are in the frame of the EUSEF or in the frame of EASI. In fact, in the first case, you have private investors that before funding a social enterprise want to be sure they can get a social and economic return on their investment. In the second case, EU funds are public money and social enterprises need to be financially supported to design and implement interventions; in case of social experimentations, failure of projects and interventions needs to be allowed.

Furthermore, considering all the different definitions of social enterprises existing across member states, it is essential to clearly define what we understand by “social impact measurement”: priority is to define what we measure and not just define a methodology.

Social impacts are really diverse, therefore measurement should concern both qualitative and quantitative data. Long-term perspective should also be included into measures; some social programs need several years before producing all their impacts. Savings and positive impact for society, as well as positive impact on individuals, should be taken into account in this measurement.

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