If you are trying to do good in the world (as opposed to just making money), how do you know if you’re having an impact? How do you measure and manage that good? The recent Global Social Venture Competition culminated with a full-day symposium on Social Entrepreneurship. Sara Olsen, founding partner of SVT Group and a leading practitioner of impact management, led a workshop on social impact assessment at the symposium. Candace Taylor, director of Corporate Strategy and Sustainability at Wal-Mart and co-founder of Urban Oasis Development discussed her work as a case study example.

Impact measurement is a new and evolving discipline. Practitioners, like Olsen, are developing environmental and social accounting methods. Historically we have focused on financial value, which misses the broader picture of people and planet.

One emerging tool is social return on investment (SROI) analysis. SROI is an attempt to understand and manage the non-financial value created by an organization relative to the investment required. SROI is comprehensive, and measures the net impact of an organization, so that both positive and negative impacts are taken into account. While some people look for a monetary measure of SROI (dollars per impact) only, SROI includes quantitative, qualitative and narrative information about impact as well

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