Social Impact Assessment of Nessuno Indietro, the project that supports Third Sector bodies amid pandemic in Tuscany

Title Nessuno Indietro

Location Arezzo, Firenze, Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato e Siena

Duration October 2020 – January 2021

Funding Unicoop Firenze

 

Context

The Coronavirus pandemic had imposed a heavy toll on fragile communities and territories. To contrast its social and economic effects at local level, Unicoop Firenze, in collaboration with the Foundation Il Cuore Si Scioglie, allocated approximately 1 million 350 thousand euros to support associations and Third Sector entities that support every day people in distress.

The project Nessuno Indietro helped the volunteers of 121 projects located in the provinces of Arezzo, Florence, Lucca, Pisa, Pistoia, Prato and Siena that act mainly in four domains: poverty, persons with disabilities, domestic violence and vulnerable youth.

Main Objective

ARCO, upon Unicoop Firenze’s request, carried out a social impact assessment to understand the effect, in terms of social value, of the contribution allocated to the organizations involved in the areas of intervention. The goal was therefore to carry out a qualitative and quantitative assessment, in the short, medium and long term, of the effects of the activities carried out within the comminities of beneficiaries in relation the goal identified by Unicoop Firenze.

 

Our contribution

Social impact assessment plays an increasingly central role in improving Third Sector organizations processes and strategies, as well as in strengthening accountability and transparency towards their stakeholders.

To carry out the assessment, ARCO proposed an innovative approach centred in the EHD, Evaluating Human Development, methodology. Conceived and tested by ARCO Researchers, this qualitative approach allows to measure the change generated by an intervention through the perceptions of its own beneficiaries. Based on the Capability Approach elaborated by the Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, the EHD methodology measures the expansion of opportunities in people’s lives, applying a multidimensional set of indicators inspired by the paradigm of Sustainable Human Development.

The results of the social impact assessment and the EHD analysis give a detailed photograph of the change generated by the intervention and can be easily communicated even to a less experienced audience.