http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/07/social-return-on-investment Mon, 08 Sep 2008 09:27:53 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/07/social-return-on-investment#comment-437 Bruce Trachtenberg Fri, 20 Jul 2007 21:39:43 +0000 http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/07/20/social-return-on-investment/#comment-437 You are certainly right about the challenges of measuring a social return on investment. Perhaps, for now, the best we can do is use proxies to approximate return. For instance, let's say we know that an investment in a nonprofit that serves disadvantaged youth enabled that organization to serve x-number more young people. And of the additional number served, a percentage of those young people grew to productive adulthood, escaping entanglement with the legal system or becoming dependent on public assistance, which might have otherwise happened to them had they not benefited from the nonprofit's programs. The savings to the public from that is a measurable -- and quantifiable -- return on philanthropic investment. You are certainly right about the challenges of measuring a social return on investment. Perhaps, for now, the best we can do is use proxies to approximate return. For instance, let’s say we know that an investment in a nonprofit that serves disadvantaged youth enabled that organization to serve x-number more young people. And of the additional number served, a percentage of those young people grew to productive adulthood, escaping entanglement with the legal system or becoming dependent on public assistance, which might have otherwise happened to them had they not benefited from the nonprofit’s programs. The savings to the public from that is a measurable — and quantifiable — return on philanthropic investment.

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