In 2015 the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) at the University of Western Australia published the first of the Bankwest Foundation Social Impact Series.

The difficulty for small community service organisations (CSOs) implementing social impact measurement was one of the challenges identified:

͞”Larger organisations are more able to develop expertise in measuring outcomes and evaluating programs and thus gain funding. However, less experienced organisations feel they lack both the time and skills to compete in bidding (Milbourne 2009). This may have a negative impact on smaller, more localised organisations to obtain funding. This is unfortunate as it is these organisations which may have specialised local knowledge and, therefore, a greater ability to meet local needs.” (Flatau P, K Zaretzky, S Adams, A Horton and J Smith (2015), Measuring Outcomes for Impact in the Community Sector in Western Australia, Bankwest Foundation Social Impact Series, No. 1, Bankwest Foundation, Western Australia).

The CSI research identifies that small CSOs need to compete in the funding environment, and elsewhere in the paper makes the point that improving impact is the key reason for measuring impact. Perhaps an equally important issue for small CSOs is to demonstrate that they do have “specialised local knowledge and, therefore, a greater ability to meet local needs.”

In other words, to demonstrate that if small organisations operated less, or ceased to operate, many people may not have their needs so well supported.

It is therefore important that small organisations implement social impact measurement.

However, whilst funding contracts that include an amount specifically for this are highly desirable and long overdue, they generally aren͛t here yet, and small CSOs “feel they lack both the time and skills…”

It seems like a ‘Catch 22’, however larger organisations that already have the expertise and capacity can provide a solution: share it freely with those that don’t. This is not ignoring the realities of competition for funding or limited capacity of practitioners. Large organisations that are already on the social impact journey can help a few small organisations that are not their competitors to get started on the journey.

It doesn’t take much time or effort to help another organisation progress incrementally, and will be of enormous benefit to the people being supported by those small organisations.

Blog by Ric Dale, Mission Impact Specialist, YMCA-WA