Measuring Innovation: Evaluation in the Field of Social Entrepreneurship
A review of concepts and practices in evaluation.
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This paper was prepared in 2005 to collect the prevailing practices in evaluation within the emerging field of Social Entrepreneurship, and document a range of examples so that those engaged in similar work can learn from each other’s experience and contribute to the current state of thinking about evaluation within philanthropy more broadly.
Measuring Innovation is based on research undertaken on behalf of the Skoll Foundation, which included interviews with several ‘social entrepreneurs’, the foundations that fund them, and the thought leaders who study and write about them.
Appreciating that the terms “social entrepreneur” and “evaluation” mean different things to different people, the author begins by reviewing various definitions and explains that, for purposes of this paper, the term “Social Entrepreneur” refers to a person “who has created and leads an organization, whether for-profit or not, that is aimed at creating large scale, lasting, and systemic change through the introduction of new ideas, methodologies, and changes in attitude”. On evaluation, the author states that “evaluation within Social Entrepreneurship tends to be less often about testing a pilot program or validating a theory of change, and more often about tracking the growth or potential for growth of an intervention or idea.
This report was prepared for the Skoll Foundation by the Foundation Strategy Group and can be downloaded from the publications page.
Website (URL): http://www.skollfoundation.org/media/skoll_publications.asp
Author(s): Mark R. Kramer