Développement d’un Écosystème de Valorisation de l’Impact Social et de l’Utilité Sociale

There are 2.8 million social economy organisations in the EU, employing 13.6 million people. In 2021, as part of its action plan to stimulate the social economy and create jobs, the European Commission is stressing the importance of supporting these organisations, which are focused on their social aims and put their values at the heart of their management, giving priority to the human dimension, solidarity, participation, inclusion and sustainability. To report on their activities, these organisations have long adopted approaches based on the evaluation of their social purpose, often using their own qualitative indicators. Today, they are committed to the question of social impact and utility, and are aware of the challenge represented by this rapidly expanding concept. However, social impact and social utility remain polysemous concepts, as their definition, measurement tools and methods differ according to the approaches that exist in Europe and vary from one country to another. This project aims to co-construct a shared vision on the issue of the social impact and utility of the SSE in order to enable its dissemination in Europe.

The aim of the project is, through a series of exchanges of practices, knowledge, experience, skills and resources, to co-construct a shared vision of the issue of the social impact and usefulness of the SSE and a shared culture between European partners on the definition of social impact and usefulness, in order to then develop benchmarks and guidelines that can be disseminated throughout Europe. The ultimate aim is to improve the skills not only of coaches, teachers and trainers working in the SSE field, but also of the entrepreneurs, employees, volunteers and managers of the organisations that our networks bring together on this theme. These organisations carry out socially useful actions that need to be promoted. Lastly, this project aims to strengthen alliances within the SSE between the various European networks in order to promote the expertise of SSE networks on the issue of social impact and utility. At the end of the project, the construction of this common corpus will make it possible to prefigure a second future project for the development and dissemination of a training programme on this theme.

The project was carried out through 5 activities organised around 5 mobilities: Activity 1/Paris provided administrative management, coordination and monitoring of the activities.The drafting of the DEVISUS Project Guide, a common support document bringing together all the elements needed to carry out the project, and 8 coordination meetings to organise the project. Activity 2/Lille helped to build a shared culture of social utility and social impact (USIS) between the members of the consortium: production of a capitalisation document, a declaration on the common orientations of the USIS accompanied by a glossary and a dissemination article. Activity 3/Rome worked on the skills linked to the USIS evaluation methods, a capitalisation document identifying the skills needed to evaluate the USIS, Activity 4/Namur produced the basic elements for the development of a training module: Guidelines for a set of specifications for trainer profiles. Activity 5/Brussels produced a video presenting the project, a tool for monitoring dissemination, an evaluation session and a project communication day.

Our project produced : - the DEVISUS project guide: co-constructed and shared by all the members of the consortium, bringing together all the elements required to carry out the project and 8 coordination meetings to organise the project - a summary document on the USIS evaluation process: starting from the thematic field of social utility and impact, we explored the more specific issue of the challenges and mechanisms of its evaluation, in order to co-construct a shared vision of social utility and impact and operationalise these challenges in the form of a shared lexicon and a framework of common guidelines. - a document capitalising on the skills needed to evaluate the USIS, - a document capitalising on the basic elements for the development of a training module: containing, in particular, guidelines for specifications for the profiles of trainers in the evaluation of social utility and impact. - dissemination tools: video, presentation brochure, articles, wiki, conference-debate and presentation in Strasbourg as part of the workshop "Building exchanges between European partners: (re)discovering the possibilities of the ERASMUS+ 2021-2027 programme".