Who is the right audience to target for social impact reporting? HomeKeeper advisor and consultant, Rick Jacobus, talks about this topic in the Spring issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Report.

Rick explains why the social sector hasn’t made more progress in building an infrastructure for gathering and sharing impact data. The problems, he found, results from a fundamental misunderstanding both of the value that social impact data can provide and of the parties that are most likely to benefit from (and ultimately to pay for) access to those data.  

“If funders aren’t the ultimate customer for information about social outcomes, then who is? In my research on impact data projects, I discovered that the most reliable customers for impact data are likely to be the very organizations–nonprofits and social enterprises–whose work is being measured. Although a given set of data may be of interest to both funders and funded organizations, the latter group simply has a keener need for such data. Here’s why: The challenges that nonprofits face in planning their work and securing financial support for it are far bigger than the challenge that foundations face in choosing which nonprofits to fund.”    

– Rick Jacobus, Street Level Advisors

 Check out the article in the  Spring issue  of the Stanford Social Innovation Review.