Nowadays CSOs are more and more required – by funders and supporters – to prove their ability to create positive impact. With this in mind, we challenged a number of partner organizations, from the Bosch Alumni Network, to build a new Civil Society Cluster pilot that aims to support CSOs’ effort to prove their impact, while fostering an organizational culture of transparency, sustainability and efficacy.
Funders, policy-makers, citizens – and even CSOs staff – all have moments of concern when questioning the value of CSOs becomes mainstream. The urgency to find instruments of both assessment and accountability, as well as efficient management for the average CSO, is central to civil society’s sustainability. Organizations, think tanks and even the OECD now have joined in the discussion, and propose new instruments. Not all are feasible and simple to use, some require a great deal of time and capacity building – not all are adaptable to different contexts, realities and types of CSO.
This Civil Society Cluster pilot’s ambition is to gather, discuss and present a digest of different metrics and tools derived from other ecosystems (entrepreneurship, international cooperation, healthcare assessment etc.) in a form of a ‘do it yourself’ toolkit for a broad concept of ‘social impact management’.
The desired outcome is to build the capacity of within the cluster and a small step into finding new ways to relate to assessment, funding, transparency and even the sustainability of CSOs.
Organizations involved – alongside 4Change: Făgăraș Research Institute (Romania); Cromo Foundation (Hungary); Turkey Europe Foundation (Turkey).
