From “Social Impact” to “Social Value”. A holistic approach to the SSE Worth’ Measurement

After the financial-economic crisis of 2008 there has been an increasing diffusion of discourses by international institutions stressing the necessity towards the adoption of impact evaluation methods both by for profit and SSE organizations. This craze for impact measurement is generally led by the need of the stock exchange to find new financial markets (demand) for an increasing offer of socially or environmentally oriented financial products (such as the Social Impact Bond). This pressure had the effect to spread terms and concept typically of the financial world to other domains, such as the welfare policy (Social Investment State) and the traditional philanthropic sector (Social Return on Investment). Even the SSE has not been immune from this “epidemic” of measurement, standardization, quantification of its activities’ effects (Salathé-Beaulieu, G. in collaboration with M. J. Bouchard & M. Mendell, 2019). The paper’s main aim is to argue in favour of the adoption of a broader conceptualization of the SSE contribution to the local community (and to the society as a whole) that the one implied by the term “impact”. It proposes a conceptual framework based on the “social value” notion, which requires to consider the worth (Bouchard, M. J. ed., 2009) linked to the presence of the organization itself and not only of its activities/ programs/services. The paper will illustrate and comment the main results from an empirical research on the Social Added Value Evaluation of an umbrella recreation association in the Emilia-Romagna Region. The inquire adopts an experimental design based on qualitative methods such as: focus groups, face to face interviews and on site observations, in order to build a consensual system of social value/impact evaluation to be adopted by the local branches of the regional association.