Outcome mapping/Case Studies/SSE

NB This is a proposal, shared for educational purposes and to invite comment (and direct editing) during the process of its development. There is no guarantee that the actual programme will follow this approach.

For the moment, we share possible outcomes for consideration in the SSE initiative.

Introducing Outcomes
Outcomes reveal the extent and different kinds of impact of the initiative on the beneficiaries/participants. Simply put: what difference has been made in the lives of the people we have reached? This means that we measure impact via indicators of the amount of change in the behaviour, attitude, skills, knowledge or the situation of participants.

In order to develop the outcomes, the goals and activities of the project need to be considered. A commonly used outcomes-based process would define a project as follows: goals, objectives, activities, intended outcomes and corresponding indicators.

Goals and Objectives of the SSE Initiative
For example, the student social entrepreneurship initiative includes the following goals:


 * to establish a network of South African universities around the theme of community outreach and social entrepreneurship
 * the network should leverage the abilities of young people to partner with communities to create new initiatives for community development as well as support transparency and identification of bottlenecks for service delivery in these communities
 * the network hopes to generate youth unemployment opportunities by imparting the skills to start-up and manage organisations
 * As a whole, the initiative aspires to engender a “can do” attitude in communities to identify challenges and apply innovative solutions to addressing them.

These are indeed ambitious goals to be realised in a complex situation.

Objectives and activities that are designed to achieve these goals include:


 * creation or adaptation of free/libre and open source material in a wiki that can be utilized in a student community either regionally or nationally;
 * creation of a network of student social entrepreneurs locally and internationally that will communicate, and share learning and experiences online;
 * development of a database clearing house for all role players engaged in social entrepreneurship and community engagement projects;
 * development of a collaborative framework online game for students in higher education institutes to facilitate community engagement, and for students to present their projects using multimedia online, assess projects by peer review and evaluate them online; and
 * use innovative information technology for capturing data in communities that will give baseline data and indicate overall progress on service delivery.

Based upon the goals and activities a list of outcomes may be generated that is grouped according to the scope and focus areas described in the programme goals and objectives.

Impact
The types of behavioural changes we might like to observe include:


 * University lecturers, students, social entrepreneurs and community representatives collaborating on social entrepreneurship curriculum development.
 * Output: A relevant social entrepreneurship curriculum for the SA context that is used by tertiary institutions.
 * Personal (and productive) relationships being established as a result of people meeting via the network.
 * Long term relationships between tertiary institutions, community organisations and social entrepreneurs.
 * NGOs and CBOs with positive attitudes towards student social entrepreneurship programmes and active participants therein.
 * Social entrepreneurs who have identified financing opportunities via the network.
 * Students who practice social entrepreneurship.
 * Students using the network to learn from each other.
 * The network sustaining itself without outside intervention.
 * Disengagement by the organisations and partners seeding the initiative (i.e. a sustainable network no longer needing their support).
 * The network participants actively use the IT platform (wiki, mailing list, gaming system, etc.) effectively.
 * The network participants use these IT platforms in preference to their normal means of communication (e.g. sending email to each other).

Programme Development
Assessing the project core team and working groups:


 * The focus of the core team and working groups has shifted from intense active participation in facilitating formation of the network, to less intense catalysing collaboration among the participants and guiding them, towards self-sufficiency
 * NGOs and CBOs report that they have benefited by the student social entrepreneurship project and are prepared to use the systems and contribute
 * Students work together as teams with each other and with NGOs and CBOs
 * Students understand the needs of the communities with which they have engaged
 * Communities engage positively with the process and express empowerment through collaboration


 * Students have experienced meaningful community engagement and express positive outcomes.

Although the focus of Outcome Mapping is on outcomes described in terms of interactions among people and organisations, it is often useful to define some outputs.

List of Possible Outputs

 * A self-sustaining, self-organising network.
 * A South African curriculum for student social entrepreneurship that is comprehensive, of good quality and usable in different contexts by different users.
 * Research results on how to stimulate the birth and growth of a collaborative curriculum development network, and communities of user-producers.
 * Establishment of a prediction market for social entrepreneurship project proposals.
 * Research results on the effectiveness of a prediction market as a mechanism for giving people incentives to disclose information or knowledge they have.
 * New social entrepreneurs.
 * Funding mechanisms identified for social entrepreneurship projects.

Finally, in order to know whether the outcomes have been achieved indicators need to be developed.