Measuring Social Enterprise

FOREWORD

It is always pleasing to see the academic community work with practitioners in developing methodology to quantitatively assess the impact of social enterprise, which is an area many organizations struggle with, in their own self-assessment.

In this resource book, Professor Dacanay and her team elaborate, in great detail, the development indexing (DI) and social return on investment (SROI) models so that they can be utilized, not just in the Philippines, but internationally. Organizations with a social development mission can use the tools provided in this book to measure the social impact of their business activities. Likewise, companies that are expanding their Corporate Social Responsibility programs could employ these methods to monetize social development and put social enterprise in terms that the business community is familiar with.

I urge anyone who is serious about poverty eradication to look through this resource book to determine which models they can employ as a means of quantifying social development. Simply having "great ideas" is not enough to deal with the complex challenges facing the world today. An organization must be capable of honestly looking at its own development programs to see what is successful and what is unsuccessful.

MECHAI VIRAVAIDYA
Chairman
Population and Community Development Association (PDA)
Thailand