The Value Herald: Issue 6, Spring 2013

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THE VALUE HERALD - The Voice of Demonstrating Value: Issue 6, Spring 2013

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Welcome to the Spring 2013 Demonstrating Value newsletter!
The Value Herald quarterly newsletter shares engaging ideas, useful advice and informative resources from Demonstrating Value at Vancity Community Foundation.

Spring in Canada is a wonderful thing.   The daffodils are growing, and so is the DV community!  Our website's new visitor traffic is growing by 60% every year and we continue to launch new tools and resources.  If you like our newsletter, share it with a friend!

In This Issue
 The Value Herald shares thoughts, insights and conversations from our blog. In this issue...

Don’t forget to browse through Upcoming Events for exciting opportunities to learn and network. And as always, we love to hear your thoughts on Demonstrating Value and social enterprise measurement and evaluation!
Issues & Ideas

Five keys to impact measurement for social innovation

Social change leaders hit the ground running: challenges come up, forks in the road present themselves, and their business models constantly evolve.   Ideally, they have some good data on hand that can help with tough decisions, and that provide insights about social, environmental and financial bottom line. The problem with many impact measurement efforts is that organizations get stuck tracking easy-to-measure indicators that aren’t fundamentally important to the emerging work, and don’t ultimately support decisions on the ground.  Information that could be more beneficial is not tracked, and processes to learn (and potentially share) about what works, and doesn’t can be lost...

Read more

The Technical Corner

Understanding financial success: three questions for social enterprises

Keeping an eye on the right financial metrics can allow you to respond to issues before they spin out of control. Financial performance is a key part of the Demonstrating Value Framework. Three key financial questions:

1. Are you profitable? What does this mean for social enterprise?
2. What is driving your revenues and costs? Set up financial statements to maximize your insights and to support decision-making and budgeting.
3. Do you have enough cash? Having enough cash when you need it is a big concern for small business and social enterprise alike.

Read more


DV Resource Highlight

Showing the value of green building and community design

If you're in the business of green building or promoting sustainable building and communities, check out our new guide that has recently been added to Demonstrating Value's Resource Library.  In it you'll find guidance on approaches to monitoring and assessing the mission-related impacts of green building and community design.
Rather than present a list of indicators, we present different methodologies for assessing impact that can be applied to different types of projects (and budgets!)   Approaches to measurement in this area include using tools to assess the impact of alternative design practices, assessing whether there is a change in practice, and assessing the impact of the change in practice on the use of materials, water and energy, and ultimately environmental systems.
Read more.



Tools Out There

Cool smart phone apps for demonstrating value

It’s not all about the games.  The advent of smart phones and tablets can simplify the collection and analysis of data, as well as powerfully capture narrative, in ways we only could imagine until recently.  The number of apps available grows daily and it can be hard to know what is even possible to do.  Here are a few apps that showcase the range of what apps can do in this area including tracking indicators for reporting, surveying on the move, and digitizing documents to PDF with your camera.
Read more

 

 

May 1, 2013
(Webinar)

Collective Impact: Embracing Emergence
This FSG webinar will focus on why collective impact is a relevant approach for complex problems and how leaders of successful collective impact initiatives have embraced a new way of collectively seeing, learning and doing that marries emergent solutions with intentional outcomes. For more information and to register, click here

May 7, 2013
(Event, Vancouver)

Using Videos to Tell Your Story
This Net Tuesday shows non-profits how they can take make effective videos with minimal budget. For more information and to register, click here

May 21, 2013
(Event, Vancouver)

How Individuals are Using Technology to Support Vulnerable Populations
Panel discussion of trends in hackathons, mobile/web application development and use, open and crowdsourced data, online advocacy, and crowdfunding. For more information and to register, click here


June 9 - 12, 2013
(Conference, Toronto)
Evaluation Across Boundaries: Canadian Evaluation Society 2013 Conference
The annual gathering of the Canadian evaluation community with a range of workshops, panels and presentations. Check out  Bryn Sadownik's 2 sessions:   'From Hindrance to Help: Repositioning the Role of Funders in Evaluation' (with Alison Brewin) and 'Developing and Piloting a Farmers’ Market Impact Toolkit'.  For more information and to register, click here


June 13, 2013
(Conference Call)

Planning and Evaluating Policy Change

Mark Cabaj will share his perspectives on how to plan and evaluate policy change. For more information and to register, click here
 


Contact Us

Demonstrating Value
Vancity Community Foundation
810 - 815 West Hastings St.
Vancouver, BC V6C 1B4

604.877.7646

website: www.demonstratingvalue.org

blog: www.demonstratingvalue.org/DV-blog

twitter: @demvalue

Contact Demonstrating Value


Demonstrating Value is an initiative led by Vancity Community Foundation to enhance the capacity of community-based organizations to strategically plan, manage and communicate the value of their work, and in particular the measurement of social and environmental impact.


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