Social Impact | Forth Sector Development

Maximizing the social impact of any investment, grant, funding allocation or spend from the public purse is a priority for public service providers, social investors & funders and third sector organisations alike. Whether a policy maker, public sector service commissioner or procurement specialist, funder or investor in social change, understanding how you can achieve positive outcomes for the people and communities you support is an essential part of ensuring value for money. For third sector organisations, social enterprises and others involved in the delivery of projects and services supporting the most vulnerable in society, being able to understand and evidence your impact has never been more important.

Forth Sector has played a prominent role in the development of the discourse of social impact and social impact measurement in Scotland in the last 20 years, and is well positioned to support you in your role, whatever your sector, to understand, measure and improve your positive social impact for the people and communities you support.

FSD training courses

Measure and maximise your Social Impact
Social Impact Scotland runs seminar on introducing Social Impact measurement and outlining some of the key approaches and methodologies. The seminar answers the following questions:

What is Social Impact?
Why does understanding the impact of your organisation's activities matter?
What are some of the key methodologies and how do they work?
How do we identify our stakeholders and understand our outcomes?
How does this fit with reporting you are doing already?
Getting started

Time: half day.
Venue: Forth Sector, Duddingston Yards, Duddingston Park South Edinburgh. EH15 3NT.
Cost: Call for details. 0131 201 2450

Social Media
Forth Sector Development "introduction to Social Media", outlining some of the key approaches. The seminar will explore the following topics:

What is Social Media and how can I use it?
Building an online community on Facebook and Twitter

Time: half day
Venue: Forth Sector, Duddingston Yards, Duddingston Park South, Edinburgh, EH15 3NT.
Cost: Call for details 0131 201 2450

Social Impact Measurement

We take a bespoke approach to helping you understand, evidence and report on your social impact. With experience across a range of different methods including SROI, we can help you to identify the approach best suited to your needs and facilitate an evaluation of your social impact.

Outcomes Monitoring for Services Programmes and Projects

Whether you are a commissioner wishing to monitor the success of a spread of services to deliver outcomes in line with your objectives, a funder or an investor wishing to monitor the performance of the projects you support, or a service or project keen to better understand and evidence the outcomes you are delivering, we can help you. We can work with you and key stakeholders to identify the outcomes to be monitored and to select or develop the tools and process that you’ll need to monitor outcomes effectively. We can work with you to collect, collate, store and analyse outcomes data, whether at service level or across a spread of services. And we can help you apply what you have learned to embed co-production principles and outcomes approaches to improving current services and developing new ones.

Delivering Better Outcomes for Individuals and communities

For commissioners, funders, social investors and third sector leaders alike, it is becoming ever more important to ensure that all activities you undertake deliver real and measureable social impact. Whether you deliver services directly, or whether you work with external or internal suppliers, how can you ensure that you are achieving positive outcomes for the communities and individuals you support? Forth Sector Development can assist you to develop outcomes focused solutions to the challenges you face, through support in policy making, strategy development and resource allocation and planning.