Building a Shared Language for Social Innovation Impact
Measuring impact is one of the toughest parts of social innovation work. So much of it happens through convening, building relationships, shifting mindsets, and opening up new possibilities. When it comes time to show the value of that work to funders, partners, or community members, the usual metrics often fall short.
That is the challenge the Social Innovation Impact project is working on, in collaboration with SI Canada, The Winnipeg Boldness Project, and Maison de l’innovation sociale. The focus is on developing tools and approaches that better reflect the unique contributions of social innovation labs and lab-like processes.
The project is funded through Employment and Social Development Canada’s Sustainable Development Goals Program, which also ties the work to efforts to “localize” the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The aim is to connect grassroots innovation with broader national and global goals.
Why this matters
At its core, the project is about supporting practitioners. As Gwen Joy, Managing Director at SI Canada, explains, “We’re really trying to unpack the types of changes that consistently show up when this practice is followed, things like new partnerships, cross-sector relationships, or communities developing a stronger sense of agency. These aren’t side benefits. They’re core outcomes of the approach.”
Yet too often, these kinds of outcomes are seen as “nice to have” rather than central to the impact story. The project aims to shift that by developing ways to value and communicate the contributions of labs in a way that makes sense both within the sector and to funders, governments, and communities.
What is happening now
The project builds on years of conversation in the field, from the Future of Labs Gathering and report, to the CaNeoLabs Learning Circles, to the Canadian Forum for Social Innovation. These conversations have consistently surfaced the need for better ways to talk about the impact of labs.
Now, the team is moving into a co-design phase. This fall, SI Canada and its partners intend to invite practitioners across the country to join in shaping a prototype tool or framework that could help labs articulate their impact more clearly. The process will include interviews, focus groups, and workshops designed to create something relevant, practical, and rooted in the experience of practitioners themselves.
How this fits in the bigger picture
The Social Innovation Impact project is part of a larger story about strengthening Canada’s social innovation ecosystem. Together, the project partners are working toward a shared vision: a more coherent and connected community of practice across Canada. By creating tools to better capture and communicate the value of social innovation, the project is not only about measurement. It is also about building legitimacy for the work, strengthening relationships with funders and governments, and ultimately helping communities respond to challenges and opportunities with greater capacity.
As Gwen puts it, “We’re serious about wanting this to be actually relevant. That means keeping the feedback loop going and building on the insights that the community is already holding.”
This is just the beginning. Over the next couple of years, the team will prototype, test, and iterate on the frameworks and tools that emerge, with the goal of strengthening the entire social innovation field in Canada.