Maximizing Social Program Effectiveness Through Compulsory Impact Assessment: Insights from Expert Panel

Conducted on 16th November 2022, India CSR summit's day 2 observed an interesting discussion on leveraging mandatory impact assessment for better social program delivery. The stage was honoured with Ms Shagun Sabarwal, South Asia Region and Global Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Director, WomenLift Health; Ms Anagha Poojari - General Manager of CSR, Kalpataru Foundation, Ms Smita Sharma - CSR and Sustainability at UST; and Mr Milind Mhatre, Executive Member of CSR Committee SGS India. 

Before delving into the conference, it's important to understand the purpose of CSR initiatives. At the heart of it, CSR is about driving positive change, whether it's in people's lives, the environment, or children's welfare. However, the crucial question we need to ask is: is this change really happening? Are we measuring it effectively? Are we headed in the right direction? Has our implementation been successful? To answer these questions, impact assessment can serve as a powerful tool to gain insights and work more efficiently.

Beyond Checklist Reports: The Value of Impact Assessments for Demonstrating CSR Work and Promoting Accountability

As we are all aware, the government has made impact assessments mandatory since 2021. However, the question remains whether this rule will truly help us identify the impact after implementation or whether it will simply result in yet another checklist report sitting in our files. How can we provide proof or demonstrate all the CSR work we have implemented? Impact assessment not only serves as proof of the work we have done, but also provides a valuable tool for organizations to learn about methods, challenges, and solutions that can be implemented in their regions or states. Moreover, impact assessment promotes accountability and serves as a positive example for other organizations and stakeholders as a case study to learn from when they undertake similar projects.

From Needs Assessment to Impact Assessment: The Importance of Understanding Community Needs for Effective CSR Projects

When it comes to accountability, the social sector has always recognized the importance of impact assessment. However, for corporations, this tool may need to be introduced and explained in terms of how it fits into planning for CSR projects. The ultimate goal of CSR initiatives should be to create a meaningful impact, whether that impact is immediate or takes time to materialize. Simply focusing on numbers and checklists may not always be the most effective approach. Impact assessment can help demonstrate and amplify the positive transformation we want to see in society. However, before we can even begin to think about impact assessment, we must be truly invested in understanding the lives and conditions of the people we are trying to help and the changes we hope to bring about. This is where the importance of needs assessment comes in. Once we have a clear understanding of the needs of the community, we can then develop plans, impact goals, and implementation methods that will ensure that the project is successful and that impact assessment becomes a natural and easy process.

Key Principles for Effective Impact Planning: Aligning Programs with Community Needs and Ensuring Sustainability

There are several challenges when it comes to impact or baseline planning. Hence, there must be alignment between the programs we plan and their usefulness to the end community. While we may plan great things and have funds flow towards them, if the grassroots level, where panchayats and citizens are struggling to earn the bare minimum, does not match the need for implementation, it will lead to a waste of effort. Therefore, a baseline assessment is mandatory, and impact assessment must be planned ahead in the initial stages to avoid double work.

When planning for impact assessment, we need to keep in mind three key principles:

Effectiveness: Matching the objective with goals and outcomes

Efficiency: Budget and resource allocation, over or underutilization

Program sustainability: Afterlife, exit plan, and phase-out must be planned well.

Shifting the Focus: Leveraging Gaps and Learning in Impact Assessment Reporting

Data sometimes poses a challenge, and corporates expect 99% rosy assessment reports with pictures of the work done. We not only need to make sure the impact happens but also leverage the importance of knowing the gaps in implementation and impact to be put in reports. Lack of trained resources has led to only knowing the main task of assessing and recording events. There must be a shift towards learning as well so that the ground-level facilitators are sensitive while implementing the program. This may better the impact and scaling of the project.

Periodic outcome assessment helps way too much before impact assessment. An anecdote from Ms Anagha about their "Women drivers project in Maharashtra" helped us understand that when they first trained 300 women to drive four-wheelers in Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur, after a certain period, they learned that only 28 women out of all actually used the training. When they looked closer, they learned about the struggles of women to at least get out of their houses, do their daily chores, afford to buy or associate with taxis, and their safety during night travels. So, a small outcome assessment led them to make major changes in the project, adding all points and resulting in better and larger scale impact.

Balancing Quantity and Quality in CSR Impact Assessment Planning

Apart from these, management is also results-driven, and welcoming feedback is not been much appreciated before. The gap is being bridged as time passes, and CSR donors and implementers are trying to be open about it. The best way to go about it is to keep the implementation team in sync with the evaluation team and the manager kept in the loop for understanding ground realities and making better decisions and plans. Learning in concurrent monitoring situations and moving accordingly is something we can try to achieve goals.

We must also realize that everything in this field cannot be quantified, qualitative assessment is also important. The unwillingness to not see the quality and getting beyond quantity, beyond mandatory, and looking at the project with a little more sensitivity qualitatively will help reach the main issues on the ground, give ideas for making proper plans and scale the impact to a larger level. Go with the intent of improving qualitative assessment as well. There needs to be a balance between quantity and quality for program delivery.

In the end, good impact assessment planning in the initial stages, periodic outcome assessment, and involvement of trained resources will help in getting great results.