2022 SIMNA Awards

The 8th Annual SIMNA Virtual Awards Ceremony was held on Tuesday 6 December 2022.

SIMNA Awards celebrate the great work being done across Australia to evidence social change. Through the sharing of work, the SIMNA Awards shine a light on the leaders and learners in the social impact measurement space.

As in years past, we encouraged Australian for-purpose organisations of all sizes and types to apply – not-for-profits, social enterprises, funders, B Corps, corporates and government agencies and received a record number of applications in each of the four categories.

A very big thank you to everyone who entered the Awards this year and to our Finalists – congratulations! We had a record number of unique entries this year and an incredibly high calibre of applications and therefore commend you all for making it to the final round. You can read all about the 2022 Finalists here!

Our Event Sponsors

The Awards would not be possible without the generous support of our partners and sponsors, many of whom have been involved in the awards and with SIMNA for many years.

We would like to thank our Platinum Sponsor, the Australian Government Department of Social Services (DSS), along with our Category Sponsors SVA Consulting, Urbis and SmartyGrants for joining us in making the 2022 SIMNA Awards happen.

The Awards Ceremony

After the initial Awards Welcome and Acknowledgment of Country by our SIMNA Founding Director and host, Simon Faivel, the Awards Ceremony was opened with a live welcome message from Judi Drown, and James Vecchio from the Department of Social Services.

Judi Drown spoke to the Department’s active, ongoing support of SIMNA over the years. With a strong departmental focus on Social Impact and Social Impact Investing to make a difference in peoples’ lives, Judi congratulated SIMNA on the work that is being done in this space.

In the Department there has been a focus on outcomes, partnerships, innovation and investment. The Social Impact Investing work that we do shines a light on that and allows us to take the work and trials along the way to help influence more greatly across the Department.

Judi Drown, DSS

Discussion Panel

Our second annual SIMNA Discussion Panel was chaired by SIMNA Board Member and CEO of Type 1 Diabetes Family Centre, Benjamin Jardine. Joining our panel of experts were Awerangi Tamihere, Chief Operating Officer of the Whānau Ora Commissioning Agency, Edmund McCombs, Group Head of Social Impact at Lendlease and new SIMNA Board Director and Jen Riley, Chief Impact Officer at Our Community.

Benjamin opened the discussion with the provocation, “Critics suggest that social impact measurement has not delivered on its promise. That practices are scattered, inconsistent and are failing to impact meaningfully on public policy. Has social impact measurement delivered on its promise?”

Social Impact is a journey, not a destination. The journey is far more important than determining what the actual result is. Identifying that we have complex issues, identifying that we have got to look at Social Impact differently by valuing the journey we are on whilst looking at lessons learned in order to take the next steps.

Awerangi Tamihere

We saw an incredible amount of audience participation via our open chat which was then fed into the three questions asked of our expert panel. Some of the key takeaways included;

• To always be transparent and inclusive in your Social Impact work.
• That if the conditions around Social Impact are changed, then the system will change and we can change the game and value the learnings.
• That if we distil the ideas around Social Impact and rigorous measurement standards so that everyone can embrace and understand them, these will trickle down to the people who are actually delivering the social outcomes.
• The future of Social Impact Measurement is really at the systems level and beyond the transactional individual evaluations. How do we create the conditions for this to happen and happen consistently?

The full Panel Discussion along with the Awards Ceremony and finalists pitch videos are now available on SIMNA’s YouTube channel.

Your 2022 SIMNA Awards Winners

This year’s Award Winners and Runners up were announced in the following order:

• Winner
• Clear Horizon & Hands Up Mallee | Measuring change together: co-design and implementation of Hands Up Mallee’s joint Measurement, Evaluation and Learning Framework

Hands Up Mallee is a place-based collective impact initiative established in 2015 that brings local leaders, community and organisations together to address complex social issues and achieve positive health and wellbeing outcomes for children, young people, and their families in Mildura.  Clear Horizon led the co-design process of the Hands Up Mallee Measurement Evaluation and Learning (MEL) Framework including the Nested MEL components for the work focused on 0-8 and 9-18 year-olds and their families.

• Runner Up
• For-Purpose Evaluations | MYAN NSW Youth Ambassador Program Social Impact Assessment

The MYAN NSW Youth Ambassador Program (YAP), running since 2016, aims to create a culturally safe space for young people from diverse cultural communities to develop a sense of belonging and to build skills, knowledge, networks and confidence so they become empowered and influential active citizens in Australia, participating fully in their own right and on their own terms. 

• Winner
• Global Sisters | #BackHerBrilliance: Global Sisters gender-lens impact roadmap

Global Sisters exists to make business possible for women, helping them to own their economic future.  Their globally unique model combines direct impact work to “beat the odds” and advocacy to “change the odds” for women. Direct impact enables women to participate economically and be self-employed via micro business. Systems change work tackles women’s economic security and address some of the most significant issues facing women today: old age homelessness, poverty, domestic violence and mental/ physical health. Impact innovations include the integration of direct impact and macro impact/ systems change domains in their Impact Roadmap (Theory of Change). Their approach is intentionally pro-women and gendered to increase accessibility, data autonomy and accountability – and challenge the idea that robustness and rigour only come through traditional, academic approaches. These innovations are resulting in powerful impact data and story-telling evidence base to create systems change for a more equitable, inclusive society for us all. #BackHerBrilliance

• Runner Up
• Victorian Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation (VACCHO) | Culture + Kinship

Reconnecting First Nations people to Culture, Country and Community has been associated with improvements in educational outcomes, increases in employment levels and reductions in specific risk-taking behaviours. VACCHO has piloted the Healthy Communities program. Overall, the aim of Healthy Communities is to continue developing the body of evidence that Culture, Country and Community play a significant role in improving health and wellbeing outcomes for First Nations people in Victoria. 

• Winner
• Urbis (on behalf of Family Safety Victoria) | Capacity building in the family violence system

Family Safety Victoria provides grants to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) under the Community Initiative Fund (CIF) and the Preventing the Cycle of Violence (PCV). These grants support projects aiming to prevent family violence. FSV invested in a capacity building project that sought to strengthen social impact measurement and evaluation capability within funded organisations. FSV engaged Urbis in partnership with Yorta Yorta woman Karen Milward and Cox Inall Ridgeway (a majority Aboriginal-owned social change agency) to provide extensive support to a network of 30 funded entities.

• Runner Up
• Equity Trustees | Equity Trustees – Empowering Change

In 2018, Think Impact held the first workshop with the Social Impact team to commence their impact management journey. They developed a Blueprint (framework) to serve as a tool that informs their giving and enables them to articulate externally their approach to funding. Over the last five years they have matured in their understanding of impact management, and have developed impact narratives, a reporting framework (continual evolution) and underlying grant making principles.

• Winner
• Launch Housing | Launch Housing’s Integrated Impact Measurement Framework

Over the past two years Launch Housing developed an Integrated Impact Measurement Framework to measure and report on progress against their mission to end homelessness. The framework includes Strategy 2020-24 and Theory of Change (ToC), an Outcomes Framework, an annual Impact Report aligned to ten consistent impact measures, and a three-year business plan which identifies program evaluations and service reviews. 

• Runner Up
• The Salvation Army | The Salvation Army Doorways Emergency Relief Outcomes Measurement

Doorways Emergency Relief (ER) service is an important element of The Salvation Army’s mission and vision. ER workers provide financial and material assistance to people across Australia experiencing hardship and financial distress. 

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Sarah Barker, SIMNA Co-Chair and Chief Technology Officer at SmartyGrants said:

The SIMNA Awards enable the Australian social impact sector to shine a light on the leaders and learners in the social impact measurement space. 

This year saw a record number of unique entries and we sincerely thank everyone who took the time to apply for the 2022 SIMNA Awards. The quality of this year’s entries demonstrate positive evolution in social impact measurement in Australia which is exciting to see. 

To our Winners and Runners-Up, a very big congratulations! Watching your pitches and listening to you and your teams describe the ways in which you are measuring social change and social value was truly inspiring. We will be sure to follow along and see how your various initiatives progress and grow, please be sure to update us along the way! 

To those that didn’t take home an award, do not be disheartened. This year was incredibly competitive and your work is amongst the best in the country. We encourage you to take on board the feedback from each of the judges and continue on your learning journey. 

My sincere thanks to our generous sponsors for making the SIMNA Awards possible, in particular the Australian Government, Department of Social Services (DSS), SVA Consulting, Urbis, and of course SmartyGrants. 

We look forward to seeing you all at the 2023 SIMNA Awards!

Sarah Barker

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Thank you to everyone who came together to make this year’s Awards such an incredible success. Thank you to our Sponsors, the Discussion Panel, Judging Panel to our winners and to everyone who entered. A big thank you also to our SIMNA Board Members, SIMNA Committee Members, and to our Executive Officer, Laura Glynn, for coming on board and ensuring a smooth and successful Awards Ceremony.

Be sure to join us as a SIMNA Member, sign up for updates via our newsletter or LinkedIn and find out about our upcoming Events & Trainings for 2023.

Organised annually by the Social Impact Measurement Network of Australia (SIMNA), the SIMNA Awards recognise the leaders in Australian social impact measurement. For more information on the SIMNA Awards, please contact SIMNA Executive Officer, Laura Glynn on laura@simna.com.au.