Impact Measurement and Reporting for a Social Service Agency
WE CARE Community Services is a Social Service Agency in Singapore and provides support and counselling for different forms of addiction. The center is staffed by professionals and volunteers and offers several programs for recovering persons. It also runs a community-based drop-in center to help provide a social environment during recovery. WE CARE works closely with community agencies and halfway houses. They conduct awareness talks, community education and prevention outreach to the public and corporate agencies. The agency works on grants and donations and like many SSAs and faces the challenge of expanding the outreach to more clients versus deploying resources for measurement and reporting of the impact that is created by WE CARE. This challenge is compounded by manual systems for recording data.
Students had to collect primary data through surveys, conducted both remotely and face-to-face. They supported this data with secondary research to understand the different impact measurement and reporting models used by agencies doing similar work in other parts of the world. They used these inputs to build an impact measurement model for WE CARE. They delivered their findings in form on an impact report that measured the impact of WE CARE in monetary terms, that is, the benefit generated by WE CARE relative to the cost of running the center. The project gave three specific areas of learning for the students
- Data collection and statistical analysis: This required collaboration within the teams as workload had to split and yet maintained in a centralized database, thus allowing each group to do their own independent analysis. They also gained hands on experience of learning from WE CARE, the challenges faced by both the agency and their clients.
- Understanding and building impact models: The students were asked to survey the literature on impact reporting. In the final report, students used a range of models including Social Return on Investment, Theory of Change, Quality of Life and tailored a model for WE CARE.
- Presentation to Stakeholders: This activity involved each group making a presentation to the stakeholders from the agency and gave the students exposure of communicating effectively with industry partners. The recommendations helped in the digital transformation journey for WE CARE. The students were also challenged and helped them develop skills for objection handling and effective communication.
“As a social service agency, WE CARE’s mission is to help transform the lives of individuals and families affected by debilitating addictive disorders. We are indeed thankful that in 2018, the SMU-X team conducted a Social Return on Investment (SROI) study that enabled us to quantify the social impact of the work that we do. It allowed us to compute the economic value of the change that has occurred as a result of our interventions and programmes. With this, we are able to demonstrate to our stakeholders and donors the tangible impact and economic value of the services that WE CARE provides, not just to our direct beneficiaries but to our society as a whole. We are grateful to the SMU-X project team, and the leadership of Prof Madhav and Adjunct Lecturer Mr Swapnil, for helping us undertake the first SROI study of this nature in the Singapore social service context.”
– Mr Tham Yuen Han, Executive Directive/Clinical Director, WE CARE
“My experience with EDA SMU-X was one of the best experiences that I had during my SMU journey. I find motivation in endeavours that allow me to apply my knowledge to resolution of social issues. I found that exact motivation in this project because we were building a social impact measurement model for a de-addiction charity (WE CARE). I think that the project as a whole was very well-scoped, providing us ample room for learning. I really enjoyed having discussions with my team on what methodology we could use, what assumptions would be reasonable etc. There were also regular checkpoints to get constructive feedback from We Care, our professor and mentor. As such, we never felt lost at any point. Realising how challenging it can be for an organisation like We Care to quantify the value it delivers to its stakeholders and being able to address that challenge through our work, was a fulfilling experience. I am really happy that my journey with We Care did not end with the SMU-X project. Along with some of my teammates, I got hired by WE CARE to review and adopt best practices from project ideas delivered by different teams, and come up with a consolidated impact report for WE CARE.”
– Sanaya Mahajan, SMU Student, Class of 2017