The Social Enterprise Impact Lab (SEIL) started off in early-2018 as a research project, driven by a collaboration between the Centre for Social Impact (CSI) Swinburne University of Technology, The Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation and Family Life.
The project started off as a meta-evaluation, which explored the current approaches social enterprises take to measuring and report their impacts, as well as the challenges they face.
The SEIL project started out by working with five social enterprises through a process of workshops, interviews, and ongoing consultation with five local social enterprises and enterprising organisations.
We used a meta-evaluation approach to look at the ways these organisations conduct social impact evaluation and how they can be improved.
Now, almost three years into the project, the SEIL team have developed an academic and practical appreciation for the complexities and challenges embedded in social impact measurement. In response, we began thinking about how we can help improve and grow the internal evaluation capacity for the sector.
This idea evolved into the creation of an open-access Data Dashboard, which is now online for eligible social change-focused organisations to access.
The Data Dashboard SEIL platform is designed to help organisations with selecting the right indicators, entering data, tracking outcomes, and ultimately growing their own internal capacity to navigate the complexities in doing social impact evaluation.
Whether your social enterprise is grappling with evaluation for the first time or needs help keeping track of its impacts, the SEIL platform might be able to help.
The SEIL platform not only offers help in deciding what indicators you can use to measure your social impact, but also serves as a free, online hub to consolidate, measure, and track these indicators over time.
Led by Professor Jo Barraket and managed by Dr Kiros Hiruy, we are a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the Centre for Social Impact Swinburne.
Together, our expertise and experience span social impact research and practice, and we strive to conduct research that fosters strong and inclusive communities.
The SEIL platform is a collaborative effort between over 20 researchers working closely with our partner organisations. Whilst we can't possibly name everyone who contributed their valuable expertise over the course of this project, see some of the core team members pictured above.
The Centre for Social Impact Swinburne (CSI Swinburne) is part of the CSI network.
CSI Swinburne works towards a stronger society for all, through research and scholarship that engages the wider community.
CSI advances knowledge about the people, systems and practices that produce positive social impacts.
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