Archive for category: Sinzer

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.

Social and Environmental impact

Everything we do affects people and planet: the changes that occur for stakeholders, society and the environment as a result of our actions, is our social impact. This impact can be positive and negative, intended and unintended.

Impact management

Impact management is the process of investigating which outcomes are material (of sufficient significance and size); and then trying to prevent and minimize the negative and increase the positive outcomes. Impact management goes beyond impact measurement, as impact management entails an iterative (repetitive) process in which insights are continuously used for learning and improving.

What qualifies as “good enough”?

Many organisations agree that managing social and environmental impact is essential for organisations that wish to improve their impact, but demonstrating impact can also be a strong tool in communication or fundraising. Nevertheless, the number of organisations actively managing their impact is still very small. Why? Impact management is a relatively new field: although there are many methods, not many are widely accepted yet; and the many methods ‘out there’ vary from counting outputs to highly rigorous randomized experiments (RCT’s). In this variety of tools, methods and frameworks that can be used for impact management, it can be difficult to determine what  “good enough” looks like, exactly. As a consequence, many organizations become discouraged or frustrated by the presumed complexity and magnitude of the task ahead, before they even get started.

Start small – and expand from there

At Sinzer & The Sector Inc., we see impact management as an iterative process, in which it is often not realistic – or desirable –  to immediately develop and implement a fully rigorous process. On the contrary: impact management can best be seen as a growth path in which the organization starts with small steps to manage their impact, and then continue to expand their impact management practices within a program or the entire organization, leading to full impact maturity.

Impact maturity model

The Sinzer team has combined their knowledge and practical experience with impact management into the impact maturity model.

In this model we distinguish five components of impact management: 1) impact strategy; 2) impact framework; 3) data collection; 4) analysis and reporting; 5) impact maximization.

The maturity model distinguishes three growth phases for each of these five components, and describes what each growth phase looks like in terms of the elements of impact management. The further an organization moves from left to right through the model, the more rigorous the impact management is. This way, the model helps to determine where on the maturity spectrum one is, in terms of managing impact in the organization, and to make substantiated choices for potential next steps in this process.

The more rigorous, the better?

It is not desirable, feasible or suitable for every project or organization to work all the way to the highest steps of the model. Keep in mind the principle of proportionality: is the budget for managing impact in proportion to the budget for execution of the project or activities? In some cases, contextual factors might pose obstacles to taking certain impact management steps, for example in the case of data collection, where control groups might not be available.

The rigor with which impact is managed should always be tied to the organisation’s primary motivation for managing impact. Don’t measure for the sake of measuring, but measure to learn, improve and to be able to report on your findings. The impact management process should serve these objectives.

Let’s get started

Where to start?

Start with an objective: why do you want to work with impact management?

Start as small as needed: making a start with impact-driven choices is better than using no data at all to base your strategy and choices on.

Make it iterative: evaluate the benefits of impact management annually, and determine what could be the next steps to better understand, manage and improve the impact that is realized.

Would you like to assess where your organization stands in the field of impact management and jointly formulate objectives for further growth? E-mail us at info@thesectorinc.ca

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