Training and professional development

I have worked with the CSR BootIQ team on evaluating ING Bank’s CSR strategic initiatives, benefitting from an assessment report developed based on the feedback offered by the bank’s internal and external stakeholders. In a very limited time, the CSR BootIQ team has managed to abide by the agreed methodology and reach the agreed outcomes. The assessment report was used by the ING Bank CSR Board in their decision-making process related to the future mid- and long-term social investments.

We talk very often about projects, beneficiaries, results, figures… but in the end do we really know what we did rigt and what we could do better? What did we gained, what really mattered? Was our intervention meaningful for the community? If yes, who is really able to tell us that our intervention was proper or not for the others? I know that CSR BootIQ can answer these questions. I know it because I have worked with CSR BootIQ and I would gladly go through the same experience again.

The SROI analysis, at least for the Greenfield project, was a very useful instrument. We have discovered the real value of the project, and we learned more about the other components: from the insightful stakeholder mapping and their feedback, from the different correlation of the input-output-outcome mix; from the assessment of the final result and the impact on all categories of beneficiaries, whether they are users, management team or other stakeholders. I would do this type of evaluation in every single project as it gives you tangible results especially when it comes to complex projects with social consequences.

The collaboration with CSR BootIQ has had surprising benefits towards improving the development strategy of our organization. The complexity of assessing the social value of „The garden on the roof” project, a process that came with very precise rules, offered us a different perspective towards our own activity. The interviews with our volunteers, that were carefully and professionally conducted, brought us benefits and helped us develop professionally significantly above the most optimistic „empirical: assessments. We took seriously into account the SROI analysis and the recent results indicated that we selected the winning path.

Maybe the most significant lesson learned, at least to us, is the realistic and objective attitude we need to have when writing funding applications, a moment when we need to anticipate the potential impact, the change, even the benefits that seem easier to obtain on paper rather then in reality. Nonetheless, critically evaluating and maximizing the value of those activities that are process, not product-centered, is in itself a sustainable alternative to the culture of overvaluing every aspect of our daily life.  

I have decided to participate in the SROI training course in order to better understand how to evaluate the goodwill and explain the process to others. I understood that all our actions can make a change in the community, that is important to know what type of change we produce, whether it is a good or nor such a good change, short- or long-term, if our intervention solved an issue or addressed a symptom. Some of the changes can occur with no intervention from our side, they might be intended or unintended, therefore it is advisable to identify the impact ...