Session 4: Measuring Impact and Success

Measuring Success

Measuring the success of incubators is difficult and there is no standardised metric currently available.  Rather, the effectiveness and performance of incubators should be considered.  Outcomes can be judged in relation to expected outcomes or goals.  It is important to consider the goals of an incubator as this can account for differences in outcomes.  Effective indicators can include the selectiveness of the incubator, the success of its graduates in obtaining follow on funding and the graduates’ sustainability over a specific time period.  Some examples are provided below. 

 

‘BACK’ by the Hong Kong Jockey Club

 

 

The Hong Kong Jockey Club Charities Trust’s ‘BACK’ is designed to measuring impact by including more outcome-level measurements.  The approach is based on the more widely used ‘K-A-B’ or ‘K-A-P’ (Knowledge –Attitude- Behaviour/Practices) but incorporates ‘condition’ dimension to better capture work being done by SEs.  This is as sustained behaviour change can results in long term changes in conditions. 

The BACK approach looks to measure Behavioural change, Attitudinal shifts, Condition improvements and Knowledge transfer through considering the SE’s impacts on those it is looking to aid.  Behavioural change considers the regularity that an activity is completed by the beneficiaries of the SE as well as the amount of time spent engaged in these activities.  Changes in attitude are evident in the level of belief the beneficiaries of the project have in themselves and their abilities as well as their interest, motivation and perception towards an issue.  Changes in the environment or situation as a result of the SE’s projects comprises the condition measurements while awareness of key information on a given topic and the SE’s contribution to capacity building or skill acquisition form the knowledge metric. 

 

The SIE Fund Assessment

The Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund (SIE Fund) in Hong Kong acts as a catalyser for social innovation, through connecting communities with different sectors to harness social innovations for addressing issues such as poverty and social exclusion.  The SIE Fund operates mostly through intermediaries, organisations or individuals with relevant knowledge and experience, to furnish potential SEs with resources for research and capacity building to support them from idea generation to scaling up.  The Fund is assessed on its performance in achieving its objectives, both in terms of its overall financial and non-financial impacts, the intermediaries engaged by the Fund and the projects that it funds or supports. 

The assessment of the SIE Fund and its projects is based on a social impact assessment and social return-on-investment approach.  The social impact assessment identifies and measures the social impact of an initiative, which starts with identifying the social outcomes of the project.  The assessment can then move on to collecting relevant data, such as that from archives, interviews, focus groups and surveys, which can then be analysed and reported.  A cost benefit analysis can then occur through the social return-on-investment approach, which assigns monetary value to the social impacts created by the project and assess it against the costs incurred.  The greater the value of social return-on-investment, the more social returns that project has generated in respect to its costs. 

When assessing the SIE Fund, data was collected from the Fund’s archives, through interviewing project implementers, fieldwork observations and surveys.  The assessments consider both direct social benefits (increase of earnings for beneficiaries of the projects/reduction in living costs) and indirect social benefits (raising public awareness/promotion of social inclusion) and then monetarise these benefits based on current market values so the costs and benefits can be assessed.

 

 

The Centre for Civil Society and Governance

In general, the Centre’s incubation projects and their SEs are assessed against the Centre’s core principles for sustainability to ensure their integrity and that real sustainability gains are being realised.  These principles are social-ecological system integrity, livelihood equality, participatory governance, precaution and adaptation and cross-spatial integration.  For further information, please see the e-case on Sustainability project impact assessment.  The incubated SEs are required to self-report and interviews and surveys are also undertaken. 

 

 

A more specific example is the Partnership for Sustainability Leadership in Business project provides a Sustainability Self-check Tool for small and medium businesses (SMEs) or start-ups to assess their company’s performance in regard to business sustainability.  The Tool evaluates the company’s performance against successful business practices of sustainable value chain management sourced from the five Business Sustainability Dimensions.  These Dimensions are governance, workplace culture, customer supplier relationship, resource management and innovation.  As well as assessing the company’s overall sustainability performance, the Tool also allows firms to identify areas where further improvements can be made. 

 

Impact of Projects

The Centre’s projects have impacted a range of people, communities and environments.  On the individual level, the Leadership Training Programme equipped individuals with the necessary skills and knowledge to undertake farming in rural areas.  Many of these individuals then went on to form groups and joined the 3 Dous incubation project, which forms the basis of community farming at LCW, revitalising the agricultural backbone of the village.  The Co-creation of the Community scheme has incubated ventures that have undertaken projects to reinvent rural capital, and by doing so, traditional culture and values are safeguarded while ensuring their place in modern society.  Similarly, the Rural in Action Start-up Scheme has incubated ventures involved in the sustainable development of rural areas, to better integrate rural areas with urban communities.  

The Centre’s projects have also been particularly impactful in that they support and empower SEs that otherwise would have fallen through the gaps, either as there was no funding available for such projects or as they were not the ‘conventional’ incubatees.  As a result, the social impacts of Centre’s incubation projects are wider than simply the sustainability actions and outputs of its incubatees as it has contributed to developing the social innovation ecosystem in Hong Kong. 

 

Continue to “Session 5: Building Innovative Ecosystems: lessons learnt from Hong Kong”