23
May 2016
Impact – the Heart of the Matter
By Sandy Blackburn-Wright. The following article appeared in Generosity Magazine on 5 May 2016 Why does impact matter, how has it become important and how do we measure it? These are fundamental questions that we have been asking recently but they also speak to the very heart our ongoing search for meaning. One of the most fundamental human needs is for validation – “do you see me, do I matter
When I first started working with One Earth Future Foundation in the USA, we were a small team looking at how to suppress maritime piracy off the coast of Somalia. In the initial stages of our counter-piracy strategy, we and our international partners, were focused on deterring the crime. The emphasis was on keeping the lid on the criminal activity. However, it didn’t take long to realise that you can’t
13
Apr 2015
Innovating With Development Impact Bonds
The following article was published in Conscious Company Magazine, Spring (USA) edition, 2015. The article is available here. Photo credit: GAVI Alliance In his 2015 State of the Union address, President Obama spoke of the importance of using the lesson of Ebola to “build a more effective global effort to prevent the spread of future pandemics, invest in smart development, and eradicate extreme poverty.” What if this “investment” he mentioned wasn’t just
Through our work with the social sector, we at Social Outcomes quickly came to realise that many stakeholders in the sector want more training and information about the measurement of social outcomes. As a sector, how do we measure our impact and performance? How do we robustly measure who our interventions benefit? What about the potential cost savings of our programs? How do we build budgets for programs? With all these
By Anna Bowden, Social Outcomes It seems almost impossible to go a day in Australia without the topic of property coming up, and more specifically, the rapid rate at which housing prices are escalating. For low-income earners in Australia, access to housing is a serious concern. Across the country, the proportion of households spending more than half their incomes on rent rose from 20% in FY2007-08 to 25% in FY2009-10.
Social Outcomes is collaborating with the NSW Council on Social Services (NCOSS) to provide NCOSS members with a Social Finance Innovation 101 Workshop for Senior Managers. The workshop will be split into two half-day sessions from 9am – 12:30pm on Thursday 12 March and Thursday 19 March, in Sydney. Background to the Workshop is provided below: The social sector is undergoing a period of rapid change and increased pressure. Traditional sources
18
Dec 2014
Collaborating for Better Outcomes
You know something is shifting when a senior Government executive says of a two day design forum “I’ve never had a conversation like that in all my time in Government”. The Department of The Premier and Cabinet and Queensland Corrective Services, Department of Justice and Attorney General invited 80 colleagues from the community sector, half a dozen other Government agencies, social enterprises, philanthropists, universities and the private sector, to attend
The first Financial System Inquiry (FSI) in over 16 years has called out impact investing as a valuable and needed mechanism to fund social service delivery in Australia. The FSI called impact investing an important tool in the Australian context, especially given reduced government capacity to fund social services. The Inquiry also noted that impact investing presented an opportunity for Australia to: Reduce costs, and improve the impact of social
The dust might have begun to settle after the G20 meeting in Brisbane, but we’re still buzzing about the possibilities of social innovation to help shape the kind of Australia, and world, we want to see. At its heart, the G20 meeting was about coordinating international policy to achieve greater economic growth and stability. The G20 Innovation Hub, hosted in the lead-up to the G20 Leaders Summit in November 2014,
The following article was published in Pro Bono Australia on November 19, 2014. Last weekend, the G20 brought together world leaders from government (the G20), business (the B20), and community (C20). The groups worked on broad goals ranging from increasing trade, to infrastructure development, and reducing corporate tax evasion. At the most basic level, the meetings were focused on expanding economic, political, and social progress. With this in mind, Social