B Impact Assessment

B Impact Assessment

B Impact Assessment

Developed by B Lab, a non-profit organization dedicated to using the power of business as a force for good, the B Impact Assessment helps companies measure their impact on workers, community, environment, and customers, empowering them to assess the performance, compare themselves to peers, and identify areas for improvement. This is a good choice for a for-profit organization looking to measure the social impact of their organization holistically. The tool is easy to use and available online free of charge.

Assessment is based on certain standards.

Who develops the standards?

The standards are created and revised by the Standards Advisory Council (SAC), a group of independent experts in business and academia.

Although the SAC creates the standards, we invite all interested to provide feedback to the standards. The best way to submit your feedback is to log into the B Impact Assessment and select “Leave Feedback” next to each question. If you are interested in learning about updates and opportunities to provide feedback as drafts are made available for testing and public comment, please subscribe to our V6 distribution list.

The Assessment also goes through a private and public beta period in which feedback is collected and integrated into final versions. Expert working groups are convened in order to explore our specific issues more closely in an objective manner. The Assessment is updated every three years in order to accommodate new and innovative practices, respond to the feedback of its users, and to more accurately assess the impact of all types of businesses.

In addition, B Lab has Regional Advisory Groups whose mandate is to deepen the engagement of regional experts in improving the Standards of the B Impact Assessment. Currently, B Lab has advisory groups in Latin America, East Africa, Australia and UK which provide constructive feedback and recommendations to B Lab and our Standards Advisory Council ( SAC) on regional specific issues. Learn more about the Regional Advisory Groups members here.

 

 

Taking the pulse on the Nordic Changemaker landscape

Taking the pulse on the Nordic Changemaker landscape

The Nordic Changemaker Map is a collaborative project with the objective to identify key stakeholders, networks, connectivity, and needed support to strengthen the Nordic ecosystem for social entrepreneurship and Changemaking.

The Map uses a Snowball Analysis method that enables a grassroots approach to and thus engaging Changemakers from all parts of the region. The Map will be conducted both through a quantitative approach of an online questionnaire, as well as through in-depth personal interviews.

The Nordic Changemaker Map invites 3 categories of Changemakers:
(a) established social entrepreneurs,

(b) young Changemakers, and

(c) Changemaker initiatives.

You can access the online map here.

Why do so few social enterprises go international?

Why do so few social enterprises go international?

Recently EUCLID posted a summary report on the scaling of social enterprises. It is quite interesting and insightful.

Here is a full link to the article.

Recent years have seen a rapid increase in the number of social enterprises across the world, introducing a broad range of innovations to different industries. Recent estimates suggest that already 21% to 26% of start-ups in Europe operate with a social, community or environmental goal as a primary organizational purpose. Many of these ventures innovate and create novel approaches to address such challenges.

However, even the best innovations can only unfold their impact potential when they are brought to scale.  In light of the many pressing challenges global society is facing and the limited availability of resources, time, and attention to solving them, scaling of the most effective and efficient solutions has been argued to be an ethical imperative. As a popular quote, attributed to former US president Bill Clinton, puts it:

“Nearly every problem has been solved by someone, somewhere. The challenge of the 21st century is to find out what works and scale it up.”

In spite of this clear need for internationalising innovative social enterprises, the vast majority of social entrepreneurs operate only on a local scale. A survey of social entrepreneurs we conducted in the global Impact Hub Network showed that only 5.7% of early-stage social entrepreneurs declared having been actively internationalising their work in the past year, and only about 17% of organisations reported attempts to scale their activities overall (locally or internationally).

Why internationalisation is a challenge for social entrepreneurs

These small numbers of internationalisation and scaling efforts among social entrepreneurs can be attributed to a number of reasons. First, there are fewer monetary incentives for growth in social entrepreneurship than in commercial entrepreneurship. Unlike for-commercial entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs often serve disadvantaged groups and address problems affecting disenfranchised groups or future generations – in these cases the need for their services does often not translate into (financial) demand. Second, in comparison with commercial enterprises, growth is not as strongly driven by investors and shareholders, who often have more space-bound interests or mandates. Similarly, founders’ motivations can be hard to scale as well, as they often stem from a sense of responsibility towards their local community and the desire to fix a problem that they experience themselves.
It is ok not to be a social entrepreneur

It is ok not to be a social entrepreneur

Not every NGO has to become a social enterprise in order to reach its mission.

When I came to North Macedonia for the EU-funded project on Social Entrepreneurship on the last day of August in 2020 I was pumped. I was pumped about making a change and enlighten local activists and social entrepreneurs. After all, we all want to be sustainable and strong, aren’t we?

Soon after arrival, I started to question myself. Is this really what locals need now? Imagine you are asked to break a wall with your bare head. What would you do? Imagine we as consultants are being told to tell you to hit the wall with your bare head. What would you do?

I have been meeting online and offline dozens of Macedonian NGOs. Most of them have been aware of social entrepreneurship but did no really had a pressure to become one or incentives that would make sense for them to do so. After all, if you get a grant why would you need to worry about developing your service or product, investing in the capacities of your staff, buying some production equipment (if necessary), starting to look for customers, competing with public and private companies as well as NGOs that sell the same stuff but are backed wither by governmental connections, private investments or donor’s funding. All of this sounds like a stupid idea. At the end of the day, you have to invest more into reaching your social mission and doing some impact than any other of your competitors out there. However, nearly 10 percent of the economy in the European Union belongs to the social economy. Do you think they are as stupid as you as well? Don’t you see the room for potential and action?

Finding your place in this mess may look like an impossible idea. But think long term. Imagine one day there will be no grants. What will you do? Social enterprise can give you wings.

So here comes our project. Despite 0 incentives and support from the government today, we want you to think about becoming a social enterprise tomorrow. We want to give you a helmet so that hitting the wall is less painful.

We want to provide you with the necessary skills, information, and connections that can make you better, faster, more professional, and more competitive. We want to give you nonreturnable startup capital of up to 30.000 EUR (separate grant from the EU Del) for your product development. We want to show you that there is life beyond being reliant on grants only as well.

Imagine you can make money and help destitute people every day, by providing them with work integration solutions, jobs, food, shelter on a rolling and sustainable basis. This is how we see it. Being a social entrepreneur is not easy, but it is very rewarding!

It’s up to you what will be your choice at the end of the day but getting enrolled in our training program, assistance, and grant scheme will not hurt for sure. Even if you will not use the opportunities we will still respect your choice.

After all, not everyone can be a social enterprise. But at least, you may try to become one! Will you try?

by Mindaugas Danys, Capacity Development Expert

How These Danish Bees Give Hope to Refugees

How These Danish Bees Give Hope to Refugees

Recently an interesting article about a flagship Danish social enterprise – Bybi, has been published by YES Magazine. Please, have a look:

“It was wonderful before the war,” says Aref Haboo, a 48-year-old agricultural consultant describing Shie, the small village in the Afrin province of northern Syria he called home. There, for 18 years, Haboo had taken care of 50 honeybee colonies spread among olive groves, orange cultivations, and vineyards.

“If I got sad or stressed, I would make some food and coffee and go lie in the shade near the bees to see how they fly, how they collect nectar, and I would listen to them,” Haboo says.

But in December 2013, as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) started taking control of the country, he knew he had to leave. ISIS militants blocked the road to Haboo’s village and threatened to kill him. Haboo sold everything he owned and rented out his house to gather the $12,000 needed to flee the country.

He went first, leaving behind his wife and children in hopes of sparing them the treacherous journey ahead. If he could make it to Europe, a reunification policy would then allow his family to join him. Haboo crossed the Turkish border by foot, then hid in a delivery truck that smuggled him into Greece, and finally crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Italy on a boat.

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