6.2 Centre for Social Impact – Catalysing Change
The Centre for Social Impact recognises that translating knowledge into tools and levers , and enabling students to achieve great work , is the way that it meets its vision of ‘ a better world ’. One way of achieving this knowledge translation is through a specific suite of activities called “ Catalysing Change ”. Recent pieces of work that align to this vision are as follows .
Principle 6
The Impact Webinar Series
This series began during the first COVID lockdown in 2020 with Impact2020 , an ambitious project to create , facilitate and produce daily webinars over a six-week period , featuring a range of CSI team members , board members and advisory council members , exploring their areas of expertise . The webinars featured CSI teaching staff , students , researchers , and even board and advisory council chairs , Professor Peter Shergold and David Gonski . They covered a broad range of topics and reached a new audience – 8,000 and counting .
The series was so successful , it has continued with the
Impact2021 series , albeit at a more sustainable pace of one per month , and often featuring an external partner . The webinars and subsequent
YouTube videos reach thousands of people and are used in a variety of teaching materials . The series is now a fixture on the CSI communications calendar of activities .
Roadmap to Social Impact
CSI recently launched a new step-by-step guide , ‘ Roadmap to Social Impact ’. Lead author Dr Ioana Ramia , CSI Research Fellow , aims to help for-purpose organisations plan , measure and communicate their social impact . CSI hopes the guide and recorded webinar is useful for those working towards the creation of positive social impact in Australia and wants to measure the change they are making for individuals , organisations and communities .
Download the guide and watch the recording here .
This program of work has multiple distinct pieces , including research reports , “ Amplify Insights ” and an online platform , due to be launched in late 2021 . The inaugural report was launched in 2021 with the National Australia Bank . Titled
Amplify Insights into Financial Wellbeing , the report showed that financial wellbeing is not straightforward , and has multiple , complex factors at different layers , that all influence outcomes .
CSI is in the final stages of developing its Amplify Online platform called Indicator Engine . This multi-million-dollar platform is set to change the face of measuring social impact in Australia , enabling organisations to identify outcomes , choose from more than 500 validated indicators , and collect meaningful data to measure their impact . The platform has an easy , user-friendly , online interface that guides the user through the process step by step . The platform will be free for small not-for-profits , with a small license fee for larger organisations to enable its sustainability .
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