Articulating & Measuring Impact with Dandelion Support Network
Dandelion Support Network provides vulnerable families with essential items for their babies and children. They achieve this by accepting, sorting and safety checking preloved items from the public which are then provided to families via referrals from social workers at hospitals and welfare agencies.
As an organisation focused on demonstrating its impact, the team have invested a lot of time measuring its impact and in 2020 they created a Social Return on Investment (SROI) of $2.54:1. However, this calculation didn’t capture the full value of the services Dandelion provides and given this, the team wanted to update its impact measurement approach to encompass the full range of items being provided to vulnerable families. Doing so would enable Dandelion to better communicate the full extent of the impact it is creating for the communities it serves to its key stakeholders, including funding partners. Dandelion needed external expertise to support them on this journey given they didn’t have the in-house expertise and capacity to undertake this work alone.
Through the Social Sector Transformation Fund (SSTF) program, a consultant from the Social Impact Hub’s Professional Impact Network was able to provide expertise and an external perspective to help Dandelion to understand the impact it seeks to create, measure the outcomes associated with this impact and update its SROI calculation to quantitatively describe its impact. The organisation worked with the consultant to undertake 3 phases of work:
Develop a program logic to articulate the impact that Dandelion aspires to, specifically capturing the short, medium and long term outcomes that arise from the organisation’s activities.
Create an outcomes measurement framework, providing Dandelion with a clear view of what indicators would demonstrate outcomes had been met, and what data needed to be collected to support this. As part of this phase of work, the consultant supported the Dandelion team to identify how data could best be collected through existing data collection processes to streamline effort.
Update the SROI calculation. Working with the Dandelion team and Board, the consultant developed a fit-for-purpose template that could be used to capture the financial value associated with the social outcomes in the measurement framework, and then work through a process of attributing a meaningful amount of that value to the work that Dandelion does. The updated SROI figure was used to support Dandelion’s communication back to its funders, communities and supporters.
As a result of the work, Dandelion were better positioned to communicate the impact it creates to its community, funders and partners, better understand where it creates value and ensure its work aligned to its overarching mission.
