Concepts
Social Impact
These are the changes experienced by the stakeholders that are directly or indirectly attributable to an activity or action (project/program).
They can be:
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positive or negative
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intended or unintended
The social benefit created by a project (social impact) is the improvement in the living conditions of the beneficiaries that can be strictly attributable to the project, and not to other conditions that do not depend on it.
Impact Evaluation
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The primary purpose of impact evaluation is to determine whether a project has an impact (positive or negative), and to quantify the magnitude of these changes that have occurred.
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Social impact can also be described as the creation of value in the lives of the beneficiaries. Measuring value addition through the assessment of the social benefits created by program interventions is a powerful tool for leveraging funds and pay-for-performance relationships. It also supports organizations in designing effective projects through evidence-based planning, and in building public support for its activities.
Real vs pseudo impact evaluations
The most common pseudo impact evaluations are of two kinds: the ones that do not go beyond the level of outputs/results and the ones that begin the impact evaluation process after the project is finished, without having started it with a baseline.
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The challenge of impact measurement is the ability to prove that the change that has occurred is due to the intervention.