NYU Conference for Social Entrepreneurship Keynote: Jason Saul, Mission Measurement

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2008-11-07 13:50:00 UTC
Topics:

Bringing some serious pragmatic heat, Mission Measurement founder Jason Saul just closed the conference by articulating a different vision for where the social benefit sector is headed and what it means for social entrepreneurs and the way they assess their impact.

His basic point is that the nonprofit sector is increasingly becoming a 'social capital market' (that term sound familiar?) in which organizations need to be focused on the outcomes they produce and measurement that allows them to improve their impact. As he put it, social entrepreneurs have allegiance to the outcome their trying to create, but should often be agnostic till the means. His perspective is that there are three major shifts happening in this context:

  • Fundraising is done – You’re selling a product called impact. You have to figure out how to measure it because the currency of the social capital market is the impact you have.

  • From activities to outcomes - We don’t define ourselves by what we do – we define ourselves by what value we create

  • A shift from “evaluation” to “measurement” – Its not about “proving” its about “improving”

Additionally, he provided a clear picture of what it would take to be successful in this new social capital market

Four key principles to survive in a social capital market

  • Engage your stakeholders

  • Align your strategies

  • Translate strategies into meaningful outcomes

  • Connect to the market

It was a great presentation with a lot of wisdom for social entrepreneurs. Will debrief and write more tomorrow.

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
PREVIOUS STORY:
Acumen Fund's common sense model to existence and assessment
NEXT STORY:
Facing Forward: The End of the Social Entrepreneurship Blog on Change.org

COMMENTS (0)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.