Oikocredit-ISEA Facilitators’ Training for Social Performance Assessment

ISEA co-sponsored with Oikocredit EDCS, a Training of Process Facilitators for Social Performance Assessment (SPA) using Social Return on Investment (SROI) and Development Indexing (DI) as Tools, on May 19 to 23, 2008 in Quezon City, Philippines.

The training was participated by 35 potential SPA facilitators from Oikocredit EDCS and its partners and ISEA founding organizations from the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore. The objective of the activity was to train process facilitators for social performance assessment using SROI and DI as measurement tools in their respective social enterprises and social enterprise resource institutions.

Development Indexing is a tool for quantifying intangible social outcomes such as empowerment or improved quality of life, useful for social enterprise planning, monitoring and evaluation. Social Return on Investment is a tool for articulating in monetary terms, the value of the development impact of social enterprises, specially useful for current and potential investors.

A highlight of the training was the presentation of cases on the application of SROI and DI in three segments of social enterprises in the Philippines: Alter Trade Group (fair trade), Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation (micro-finance), and the National Federation of Cooperatives of Persons with Disability (cooperatives). These case studies were sponsored by Oikocredit EDCS as input for the training.

The main trainers/facilitators were Peter Scholten, co-founder of Scholten and Franssen and the European Network on SROI, and Marie Lisa M Dacanay, President of ISEA and Adjunct Professor of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM).