The 18th September, 2017 marked the latest GivingForum event, where senior Corporate Responsibility professionals gathered at Estée Lauder Companies’ offices in London to discuss the challenges of measuring impact in CSR.
The event began with a presentation from Guy Battle, CEO of The Social Value Portal. Guy’s talk focused on two big changes: the introduction of The Social Value Act, 2012 and the upcoming removal of local government grants. Guy spoke of how corporates, like the public sector when awarding contracts, should consider social value when selecting suppliers.
He went on to discuss how, due to funding changes, there is an increased responsibility on corporates to invest in social value in their local area, and that by aligning CSR with the needs of local councils we are able to better identify outcomes and therefore quantify and measure results.
His question for the room: ‘Should we place a value on Corporate Social Responsibility?’ prompted some insightful discussion among the audience, including questions of whether financial measurements are better than current qualitative methods.
Sanjay Joshi, founding director of SoGive, then delivered an animated presentation exploring how we are ‘largely blind to the impact of charities’. He analysed the causes of this problem, and presented the uncomfortable claim that ‘some charities achieve nothing’. Sanjay threw open the question of tackling this issue to the room, which provoked lively debate, and even called into question the feasibility of accurately measuring impact at all.
The event concluded with an informal networking session, where discussions were continued, and attendees given the chance to meet and make connections with their fellow leaders in CSR.
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