Sinzer news

Sinzer's Impact Standards - a free tool to search for relevant indicators linked to the SDGs - have undergone certification through the GRI Certified Software and Tools Program.The means that GRI confirms that the content from the GRI Standards is being used accurately in this software or digital tool. Sinzer cannot guarantee that the use of the software or tool will result in producing a sustainablility report that can be classified as a GRI Standards report.The complete GRI Standards have to be considered in order to ensure that the report will qualify as a GRI Standards report.

Social Value International review digital products and software and provide accreditation if there is alignment with the Social Value Principles. We are very happy to announce that Social Value International has recertified our software for the next two years meeting the stringent criteria against the Social Value Principles. They state: "Sinzer, one of Social Value International’s most longstanding members, provides a solution for social impact management that allows organizations to treat social impact management as seriously as financial management".

Are you a charity or social enterprise in the UK seeking to raise investments or contracts? You can apply for a grant through Access' Impact Management Programme, that can be spend on improving your organisation's impact management capacity and system(s). In order to be eligible to apply, ventures need to attend a one-day training course. The sign up window for these ventures trainings is open until 6 September. More info? Read on. 

The demo gives you a 23-min walkthrough of how to work with surveys to gather data for your SROI analysis. We support a range of different research methods such as

• collect prospective data with your target audience to underpin your SROI forecast
• collect retrospective data to do a project evaluation
• collect and automatically calculate the difference between two measurements for each individual: one before and one after your project
• surveying only a sample of your participants or surveying all of them

The SROI framework is built specifically to support your Social Return On Investment analysis and is currently the only tool accredited by ‘Social Value International’. It facilitates an established method that applies ‘social accounting principles’ such as attribution, drop-off and displacement effects. An SROI analysis helps you to forecast your social impact as well as to monitor and evaluate it by involving your stakeholders via the survey tool.  

Interested in learning more on SROI? You can download our Beginners Guide and/or Step 2 Step Guide or follow the SROI Practitioner training which we organise together with Social Value International on 12/13 September 2017 in Amsterdam. More info you can find here. 

If you wish to get a live demo of our product (via Skype) in which we can also demonstrate other impact management frameworks, you can register here.

For many social enterprises and charities, navigating the complex world of finding and securing social investment can be quite challenging. The recently launched Good FInance aims to bridge that gap, by improving access to information on social investment for charities and social enterprises. Their objectives are:

Europeana Foundation weaves together thousands of cultural heritage and technology professionals and organisations from across Europa who are all committed to the vision of transforming the world with culture. The Foundation has a network of data partners: over 3,700 institutions and aggregators provide cultural heritage collections for publications on Europeana. In addition, there are many EU-funded projects that contribute to, improve or use the Europeana services. It is Europeana’s job to coordinate activities, connecting projects and people working in the same areas and ensuring that their focus and work is in sync. The Foundation also advocates changes and policies aimed at fostering a strong digital cultural sector for Europe, and develops and maintains the technical infrastructure that underpins this. Part of Europeana’s strategy to promote and support digital cultural heritage, is the launch of three websites which focus on digital cultural heritage of photography, fashion and research.

With the aim of supporting the Foundation’s impact strategy until 2020, a special taskforce within Europeana started developing the Europeana Impact Framework in 2016. This framework consists of five ‘lenses’: 1) Utility 2) Community 3) Education 4) Existence 5) Legacy, each linked to an expected impact:

• Socially, by contributing to a sense of shared identity across Europe; of connectedness through culture;
• Economically, by reducing costs for cultural institutions or by enabling new and creative business;
• Innovatively, by making the network of cultural institutions stronger, more innovative and better equipped to handle challenges of the digital future.

The draft framework has recently been tested on a long-running service “Europeana 1914-1918”, which had the following objectives: 1) to explore the social and cultural impact of this service and 2) to use learnings from the test in order to transform the framework into an impact assessment tool for Europeana and its partners. 

Consultants of Sinzer will critically assess and possibly re-define (parts of) Europeana's current framework, as well as test the Impact Framework by using it to measure the impact of the three websites (photography, fashion and research). Besides fine tuning the impact framework, this test is also geared towards understanding the actual impact delivered through the websites for multiple stakeholders, in order to use these findings to continuously improve and maximize the impact delivered.

Wanna know more about our work?

Learn more about the Sinzer software and how to use Social Return on Invesment (SROI) framework by watching this up to date free demo.

Dinsdag 28 maart is het zover en vindt het eerste Change Club event van dit jaar plaats! Nieuwe introducees die geïnteresseerd zijn in een lidmaatschap zijn welkom vanaf 14:00 uur. Arjen Pels Rijcken informeert hun over de missie en doelen van de Change Club. Vanaf 15:15 uur ben je als Member welkom, vanaf 15:30 uur hebben wij inspirerende sprekers op het programma staan en doen verschillende pitchers hun verhaal. Natuurlijk is er weer een korte update vanuit de deelgebieden. We sluiten het event af met een gezellige borrel, kortom een event waar we je graag op verwelkomen!

De sprekers tijdens het event zijn:

Marlon van Dijk, managing director Sinzer (www.sinzer.org/nl)
Marlon neemt ons mee in de wereld van impactmetingen en impact ondernemingen. Hoe ziet het landschap van Corporate Social Responsibility eruit, dat van Social Enterprises en andere impact ondernemingen. Ze zal een breed overzicht schetsen vanuit diverse cases, zowel in Nederland als vanuit het buitenland.

Jan Pool, eigenaar van o.a. Staff Support BV (www.staff.nl)
Jan is Member van de Change Club en noemt zichzelf Visionair Manifesteerder. Jan heeft de afgelopen jaren een flinke transitie doorgemaakt, zowel privé als zakelijk. Jan gaat het over bewust ondernemen hebben en ondernemen vanuit bezieling. Hij gaat meer vertellen over ondernemingen als middel voor een betere wereld. Met nadrukkelijk profit for purpose. Hij zal ons uitdagen. Is er ruimte voor een Change Club 2.0?…

De locatie van het Change Club Event is inmiddels bevestigd: het kantoor van Byte van Change Club Member Gruus Van Woerkom in Amsterdam.

Datum: Dinsdag 28 maart 2017
Inloop introducees: 14.00 uur
Inloop Members: 15.15 uur
Aanvang programma: 15.30 uur
Einde: 19.00 uur
Locatie: Byte, Watertorenplein 4-A, 1051 PA Amsterdam

Neem je een introducee mee? Stuur dan een e-mail naar contact@changeclub.nl.

You are cordially invited for the non-financial information (NFI) management workshop, a preface meeting from Deloitte to the GRI Standards Launch Event in Deloitte’s Amsterdam office The Edge. GRI reporters have ambitions to make their NFI disclosures more reliable and to make the process of data collection and reporting more efficient. This hands-on, interactive workshop seeks to empower you with best practices and lessons learned from outstanding GRI reporters. Deloitte organizes this workshop in collaboration with software providers for non-financial data management and reporting.

Agenda

09.30 – 09.40 Welcome and introduction

09.40 – 10.00 Introduction in challenges and opportunities in non-financial data management

10.00 – 10.30 Best Practice on data collection: Manfred Heil, CEO and Daniel Supke, CTO at WeSustain

10.30 – 10.45 Coffee Break

10.45 – 11.15 Best Practice on Collaborative Reporting: Dilyana Ivanova, EMEA Product Marketing Manager and Natalia Kaleta, Solution Architect at Workiva

11.15 – 11.45 Best Practice on Impact Reporting: Gert-Jan Sikking, Senior Advisor Sustainable Investments at PGGM and Marlon van Dijk, Managing Director at Sinzer

11.45 – 12.15 Discussion and summary

12.30 – 13.30 Walking lunch for networking and Q&A’s with reporters and data solution providers.

Practical information

Location: Deloitte Amsterdam (The Edge), Gustav Mahlerlaan 2970

Parking: Please let us know if you would like to reserve a parking space

Lunch & drinks: Included

Language: English

For more information and registration you can send an email to hhindriks@deloitte.nl

In the afternoon starting at 13.30 the GRI Standards Launch event will take place in The Edge. Please be aware that although the event is free separate registration is necessary: event website !

The Impact Management Project is a multi-stakeholder effort, supported by a consortium of thoughtful funders including Ford Foundation, DFID, Omidyar Network, Anthos, PGGM, BlackRock, Mars Inc. and PIMCO, facilitated by Bridges Impact+.

The objective of this project is to understand each other’s impact expectations to work together and agree on how best to measure and manage performance. Over 75 partners from different disciplines are currently involved in co-creating the convention, developing norms and positioning measurement approaches.

Sinzer has been asked to partake in this project and will share expertise in sessions about:

• The impact we expect, based on the information we know (today!)
• The information we need + how we collect and use it
• The impact management cycle

Furthermore we have been asked to invite some of our clients from different parts of the value chain (charities, social enterprises, mission-led businesses, corporations, asset owners and investment managers) to partake in the user journey sessions.

Are you a client of Sinzer and interested to join this project? Download more information here (including dates and time slots when these sessions take place) and send them an e-mail.