DEFINITIONS

» What is Socio-economics?

» What is Social investment?

» What is impact and how will we know if we have made one?

» Outcomes vs outputs – what is the difference?

» What is cause related marketing?

Socio-economics

Socio-economics is the study of the relationship between economic activity and social life. The field is often considered multidisciplinary, using theories and methods from sociology, economics, history, psychology, and many others. It is a relatively new social science that has emerged as a separate field of study in the late twentieth century. Most colleges and universities do not have a separate department or degree for socioeconomic studies.

Socioeconomics typically analyze both the social impacts of economic activity and economic impacts of social activity. In many cases, however, socio-economists focus on the social impact of some sort of economic change. Such changes might include a closing factory, market manipulation, the signing of international trade treaties, new natural gas regulation, etc. Such social effects can be wide-ranging in size, anywhere from local effects on a small community to changes to an entire society.

Examples of causes of socioeconomic impacts include new technologies such as cars or mobile phones, changes in laws (such as the legal right to abortion), changes in the physical environment (such as increasing crowding within cities), and ecological changes (such as prolonged drought or declining fish stocks). These may affect patterns of consumption, the distribution of incomes and wealth, the way in which people behave (both in terms of purchase decisions and the way in which they choose to spend their time), and the overall quality of life. These can further have indirect effects on social attitudes and norms.

The goal of socioeconomic study is generally to bring about socioeconomic development, usually in terms of improvements in metrics such as GDP, life expectancy, literacy, levels of employment, etc.

Although harder to measure, changes in less-tangible factors are also considered, such as personal dignity, freedom of association, personal safety and freedom from fear of physical harm, and the extent of participation in civil society.

Social investment

Social Investment, or CSI is about an investment in people, organisations or communities that is external to the work of that company. In other words, this investment activity is not undertaken for the purpose of generating business income. Traditionally CSI has been voluntary activity taken on mostly by South African corporate companies, trusts and international donor agencies. With the introduction of the Department of Trade and Industry’s Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act and the Codes of Good Practice however, CSI is increasingly seen as a valuable part of the transformation agenda and therefore a critical requirement for businesses who would like to benefit from trade.

Impact

What is impact and how will we know if we have made one? Besides getting points on your B-BBEE scorecard, one of the main reasons you are involved in Socio-Economic Development is to "make a difference"; to create (social) change. This effect of change you want to make is the impact. The challenge however is to be able to demonstrate the impact of the project. There is a tendency to confuse the listing of activities or outputs of the project as impact. These benchmarks tell you what you have done, but don't tell you about any change that has taken place as a result of these outputs, these activities. Mostly, 'change' or impact is best suited to qualitative data recording rather than the collection of statistics and numbers and traditionally takes longer to achieve.

Outcomes vs outputs

Outcomes vs outputs – what is the difference? Outputs are activities done, for example, 30 educators trained; five workbooks developed; 1 school built, etc. You can usually count your outputs. An outcome is the end result, or a consequence of the outputs. For example, if your project involves the developing of new methodologies for incorporating health care into community life. Your outputs are the new methodologies and your outcome is the impact, or change that occurs within the community as a result of using the new health care methodologies. By implication, determining change takes time, thus measuring true outcomes is only possible on a longer term project.

Cause Related Marketing

What is Cause Related Marketing? According to Sue Adkins’ book, 'Cause Related Marketing – Who Cares Wins', cause related marketing is a commercial activity by which businesses and not for profit organisations (NPOs), charities, or causes, form a partnership with each other to market an image, product or service for mutual benefit. Basically, a company partners with a charity to promote a product or service. A proportion of the income relating to that product or service is channelled as funding to the partner NPO, whilst at the same time enhancing the reputation of the company which as a result, benefits from increased sales, enjoying a platform to demonstrate its values and enlisting customer loyalty. In an every competitive world, research shows that consumers do pay attention to what the product, service or company stands for and thus companies that target end-consumers would benefit from such a strategy.