The Sector

Embedding SDGs in your organization: an impact strategy – EMMA VERHEIJKE

More and more organizations are working on sustainability and social impact, and link this to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): the 17 sustainable development goals that were launched by the UN in 2015 as an action agenda up to 2030. The SDGs provide a good starting point for sustainable strategy, measuring results and reporting: but where do you start? In this blog series, we share some examples of our customers and how we support them to anchor SDGs more firmly in their organizations.

In this blog: an SDG strategy and Theory of Change for Oneplanetcrowd and StartGreen Capital. About Oneplanetcrowd and StartGreen CapitalOneplanetcrowd and StartGreen Capital stimulate the transition to a sustainable and inclusive economy by financing innovative entrepreneurs and facilitating investors. They offer ‘more than money’ (in addition to financing, including business support, network and strategic advice), helping entrepreneurs to contribute to the creation of a sustainable society for people and the environment and, more specifically, to one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Theory of Change as an SDG strategyThe wish of Oneplanetcrowd and StartGreen was to make more explicit how the investments and activities of both organizations contribute to the SDGs. The reasons? On the one hand to clarify the strategy and vision internally and to link objectives to this, but also to communicate clearly to external stakeholders who Oneplanetcrowd and StartGreen Capital are there for and how they create social value.

Sinzer thus helped StartGreen and Oneplanetcrowd to draw up a Theory of Change at the organizational level: a visual description of the activities that the organization undertakes, and how these lead to certain effects (outcomes) and social objectives in the short and longer term.

Strategy and then? The next step is to translate the strategy and Theory of Change into measurable indicators and targets to monitor and report on the realization of the social objectives, more about this in the next blog of this series. Knowing more? Would you like to know more about Oneplanetcrowd’s vision on SDGs, and the reasons and the process surrounding strategy and measuring the SDGs? Then read Oneplanetcrowd’s blog, including an interview with Sinzer, here: https://www.oneplanetcrowd.com/nl/blog/zo- Maken-we-uw-en-onze-impact-meetbaar

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The Sector

Impact study Fund 21: Helping young people with their financial development – JONATHAN BROEKHUIZENA

Financial literacy is a vital life skill for citizenship in the 21st century. Children grow up in an increasingly complex world in which, as they grow older, they have to learn to stand on their own two feet. However, research shows that many Dutch young people do not handle money well and that they have payment arrears or debts at an early age. It is estimated that about half of young people between the ages of 18 and 27 have been in debt in the past year. This is a social concern, partly due to the lack of financial education in the curriculum of primary and secondary education.

Impact study young people and money

Fund 21 – a socially engaged fund focused on idealistic goals around art, culture and young people – supports a series of initiatives that aim to fill this gap and teach young people financial knowledge and skills.

The question with which Fund 21 approached Sinzer is to gain clarity. Fund 21 is effective in filling this gap: how much social impact is created by financially supporting these projects? As a result, Sinzer, together with Fund 21 and the projects involved, conducted a study with the aim of learning together about impact measurement and about the working elements of the participating projects.

By means of a ‘before and after measurement’ evaluation design and a questionnaire drawn up in collaboration with Nibud, the effects of the projects on the financial knowledge and skills of young people were identified. In addition, the research provided a source of knowledge about the financial literacy of young people in the Netherlands and the challenges they face.

What have we learned?

In addition to helping answer the above questions, these types of research also provide insights that are relevant to anyone involved in youth financial education. The main insights are:

(1) Parental involvement is crucial for the financial development of young people

Perhaps the most important insight of this research is the central role that parents play in the financial development of their children. It is not only important for children that it is part of their upbringing, but also young people need a conversation with their parents about money. The study showed that young people who were initially able to talk to their parents about money matters were often better off – for example, these young people save more – but also that these young people made a greater leap in financial literacy through the projects than young people who cannot turn to their parents to discuss this. The latter is probably the result that young people can discuss ambiguities afterwards and what the learned means for their own situation with their parents.

(2) Project duration and intensity determine effectiveness

Many projects attempt to fill a gap in the standard school curriculum with mostly short-term interventions (on average a number of lessons over a number of weeks). This leads to versatile but also small effects. This makes it unrealistic to expect significant behavioral changes in young people.

(3) Extracurricular projects seem more effective than projects during teaching hours

This difference is most likely related to the motivation of young people to participate in the projects. Extracurricular projects are usually voluntary while projects in the classroom are mandatory. In addition, due to the extracurricular design, the scale of these projects is often smaller and more personal, because it requires that young people must be recruited on an individual basis. Finally, projects within the classroom often focus on the general youth population, while extracurricular projects focus more on young people with a specific risk profile. This clear demarcation allows these projects to make their teaching materials and methodology more personal and more tailored to the needs of a particular group of young people.

What can Fund 21 as an ideal fund do with the results of this study?

When financiers draw up criteria that projects must meet on the basis of the above insights, this helps to increase the effectiveness of the portfolio. The research results can help Fund 21 in the selection of effective projects, but also contribute to improving the projects themselves.

A special result of the research project was a meeting in which Sinzer shared the research results with the participating projects. This resulted in a substantive exchange in which the projects substantiated their learning points from the research and gave each other tips on how to improve their programs.

In this way, a fund can not only be an important lender, but also a facilitator of a learning process with its grantees. One in which they increase their social impact together.

The full research report can be found here.

The Sector

Sinzer launches the Impact Guide: impact-oriented work for charity organizations – NINA KOOPMAN

For charities to better support organizations impact oriented work has Sinzer in partnership with Charity Netherlands and Partos and with input from CBF and other organizations united in the Impact Challenge online Impact Guide developed. The Impact Indicator is a practical guide for charity organizations to help them better understand their impact, increase that impact and make it more visible. In short: to work more impact-oriented.

Impact-oriented work

Impact-oriented working is different from measuring impact, it is a continuous growth process in which you continue to learn and improve based on previous findings. The focus of the Impact Indicator is therefore less on ‘proving impact’ as in traditional monitoring & evaluation, but more on ‘improving impact’ within the entire organization. It is about continuous learning and improvement based on best practices and best failures. This affects your strategy, how and what data you use and your organizational culture and systems. The Impact Indicator distinguishes between four pillars in this cycle: Strategy , Monitoring and Evaluation , Learning and Reporting and Cultureand offers information per pillar at different levels, from basic principles to deepening. At each level, theoretical knowledge is linked to practical information (such as worksheets, tools, templates).

The launch of Impactwijzer by Emma Verheijke, Partner at Sinzer. Photo: Jostijn Ligtvoet ©

The Impact Indicator

The Impact Indicator shows the breadth of what is possible in terms of impact, but also provides insight into what is ‘good enough’, what is ‘impact maturity’, per organization and the phase in which that organization is different, and that growth and development is possible in this. Some organizations start out small and continue to expand; some are already further and want to deepen that even more; the point is that it is appropriate and usable and that it provides insights that increase impact. The Impact Indicator is designed in such a way that it can be used for organizations that start with impact, but also for organizations that want to further expand their impact management.

The idea is that the Impact Indicator will be further supplemented in the future with new knowledge and with case studies and from organizations in the sector. So a double invitation: take a look, and share with us your case studies that are a nice addition to this.

View the Impact Indicator at www.impactwijzer.nl and read more about the initiative of the Impact Challenge at www.impact-challenge.nl .

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The Sector

The Strategic Impact Framework

The Sector Inc’s partner Sinzer has developed the Strategic Impact Framework (SIF) which is designed to be easy to use and flexible in structure. The Strategic Impact Framework allows you to create your own building blocks that represent your strategic impact pillars. Once you’ve created your building blocks you can develop a template in which you can pre-set metrics to measure the impact performance related to each strategic pillar. Important note: this framework doesn’t value impact in a currency. It can use standardized indicators (such as the IRIS indicators). Here is a detailed tutorial on creating templates!

The flexibility of the Strategic Impact Framework of Sinzer allows for many types of templates and applications. Here are some of the common applications for SIF we have seen:

Impact investors can measure (standardised) indicators for input, output and outcomes. Their custom Strategic Impact Famework allows them to structure, monitor and report their impact of their investees. Example customers for this application are impact investors Noaber Foundation and Aglaia Biomedical Ventures that have developed their own framework and are measuring their results using Sinzer. Donwload there case studies via the links.

Charities that offer services to a community can monitor the impact they are creating on a specific target audience by measuring the before- and after scores of a set of metrics. These metrics can be based on standardized questionnaires or indicators such as those published by the Global Value Exchange or on metrics that are specific to the impact goals of the charity. An example of this is the use of Sinzer as an ‘Impact and Data Management Tool’ for Aleron (a social impact consultancy firm) who are setting up this tool for a UK charity via the Impact Readiness Program.

Foundations that offer grants to many different projects can have individual projects measure the impact they are creating. The foundation can evaluate if the impact goals of the projects are aligned with the foundation’s goals and can give guidance to projects to improve their impact. An example customer is the Dutch VSB foundation.

Each of these applications requires a specific set of features. The choice of the right building blocks and community settings will determine in part the success of your endeavor. Once the template is published you can use this for each investments, projects and/or activity. With minimal effort, you can enter targets and actuals and manage the performance in a dashboard. Furthermore, you can create surveys to collect data and export data in Excel and Word!

#sinzer #socialimpact #sdgs #csr #socialinnovation #socialenterprise #charity #wbs #mba #impact #toronto #love #peace #ESG #bradfordturner #thesectorinc #csi #MaRS #socialfinance #fundraising #impactinvesting #consulting #digitaltransformation