Measurement of the social impact of nonprofit organizations in their specific community : design of a measurement methodology for Portugal

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Statistics and Information Management, specialization in Marketing Research and CRMSocial responsibility is becoming an increasingly relevant topic as organizations search for an involvement with their stakeholders. Instead of promoting a short-term economic vision, it promotes a social vision that if measured can allow organizations to know if their actions are being conducted in a way that produces the greatest social impact possible. The present work aimed to create a methodological guide to measure social impact across nonprofit organizations among their specific communities and to understand if social impact is divided in social dimensions. A case study, analyzing the Rendimento Social de Inserção (RSI) project of Campus Social of Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Amadora in partnership with a statistical company working in the social sector, was developed with the intent to create a model to measure social impact that could be comparable between nonprofit organizations. Focus groups and semistructured interviews were conducted in order to gather indicators. This was followed by a questionnaire and group interviews to collect data about the degree of change experienced by the beneficiaries of the project. Factor analysis and regression analysis were then performed to select the variables that have the most influence on social impact. A questionnaire and a model (formula) using these variables were then proposed to calculate social impact. Gathered data made it possible to notice that the social impact of the RSI project is not uniformly divided in the dimensions that were hypothesized – individual, family, society, and profession – and that they explain very little variance, making it better to produce models with all the variables simultaneously. None of the variables of the family dimension were significant and the remaining dimensions presented distinct contributions to social impact. The social impact of the RSI project of Santa Casa da Misericórdia da Amadora was fully measured and reported. Other organizations interested in measuring their social impact should follow the developed methodological guide, where it is stated how an organization should gather specific indicators and calculate weights for its social impact measurement processes. It is expected that the methodological guide will allow Portuguese nonprofit organizations to measure their social impact regarding the specific community stakeholder, and therefore take the necessary actions to improve their social impact