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Social Enterprise

Social enterprises—also called social purpose ventures—are mission-driven organizations operating commercial businesses toward social goals as well as financial success. Workforce development is an example of such a goal.

BTW has years of experience helping social enterprises measure their impact and plan for the future.

BTW helped REDF and Pacific Community Ventures establish metrics, implement their data tracking systems and generate analyses that fuel program improvements and public interest. Over the years we have also provided services to many of REDF’s grantees, including Community Vocational Enterprises and New Door Ventures.

Read about these examples of our work:

 

REDF

REDF’s purpose is to improve the lives of San Francisco Bay Area residents who face chronic poverty and homelessness. A leader in social entrepreneurship, REDF works to expand the capacity of nonprofit “enterprise employment”: enterprises that put people to work. Committed to monitoring results, REDF hired BTW to measure and analyze the impact of those efforts.

BTW collected outcome data on portfolio employees from 1998 through 2008, and are now analyzing the results. Our culminating report will provide REDF—and the nonprofit organizations it supports—with an understanding of the impact of enterprise employment in the Bay Area.

Pacific Community Ventures

Pacific Community Ventures (PCV) invests in and supports businesses that provide economic gains to low- and moderate-income communities in California. Since its founding in 1999, PCV has helped companies access capital, business advice and other resources for accelerating company growth.

BTW has worked with Pacific Community Ventures since its inception to measure the social returns of its work. Among other services, BTW:

  • Wrote an internationally distributed case study of the organization’s approach
  • Provided PCV with vital data on the portfolio’s ability to create quality jobs for low/moderate income employees
  • Evaluated PCV’s Business Advisory Service
  • Helped build PCV’s internal capacity to evaluate social and community impacts

With BTW’s strategic support, PCV continues to bring together principles of venture capital and community development to enhance communities across the state.

Community Vocational Enterprises

Community Vocational Enterprises (CVE) is a primary provider of vocational services to people with mental illnesses. CVE was particularly interested in tracking vocational outcomes and factors of emotional and psychosocial stability. They hired BTW to help.

BTW designed a comprehensive, agency-wide client information system for evaluating and monitoring the progress of CVE’s vocational programs and social enterprises.

Our systems allowed CVE to track client indicators over time, and to generate reports to use for external consumption as well as for internal management and reflection.

New Door Ventures

New Door Ventures (NDV) helps youth living in high-risk situations to prepare for work and life through job training and community building. NDV wanted to better understand the impact of its work, and called in BTW to assess the program’s current and future strategies.

BTW worked with NDV to articulate a theory of change. We developed a system—carefully tailored to NDV’s capacity—that the organization could use to measure outcomes and impact. At the end of the three-phase process, BTW had equipped NDV with strategies for self-evaluation:

  • A clear road map for charting change
  • Rigorous but achievable evaluation plans
  • Skills and tools to implement ongoing evaluation, using the Efforts-to-Outcomes software by Social Solutions