In a new Innovation Coffee, in which 11 Catalan and Basque member organizations took part.

Yesterday, May 31st, the iSocial member organizations held a new Innovation Coffee, in virtual format, this time dedicated to reflecting on the systems for measuring social impact. Professionals from 11 organizations, 9 Catalan and 2 Basque, took part.

After a welcome from the president, Montse Cervera, an interesting dialogue took place with 4 member entities that in recent years have measured their impact on people and society with different methodologies: Ampans Foundation, Educational Platform, Foundation Sant Pere Claver and Fundació Support-Girona. On behalf of Ampans, Jordi Mir spoke, giving his point of view on the methodology Integrated Social Value Methodology – VSI that this foundation has been using for six years. On the part of Plataforma Educativa, Sonsoles Garcia spoke about the MasBusiness company, which explained the ONLBG methodology. Speaking on behalf of the Sant Pere Claver Group, Raul Alcazar spoke about his experience in using the SROI methodology. And Josep Maria Solé spoke on behalf of Support-Girona, also in relation to the use of the SROI system.

The dialogue between the four speakers and the subsequent debate with the other participating professionals, about twenty, were led and masterfully facilitated by Carmen Castrejon of Plataforma Educativa.

As a next step, the iSocial Foundation will draw up a comparative document on the various methodologies for measuring social impact, which will allow member organizations to make progress in tackling this challenge.

Measuring social impact is a useful action to learn and improve management. It facilitates decision making. And it gives legitimacy to the entity in front of the agents involved and in front of the community where it is inserted.

However, it is a complex task, both because of the important qualitative component of the methodologies and because of the difficulty of dedicating resources to this activity.

The desirability of measuring the impact, the diversity of existing methodologies and the difficulty of the task led the iSocial Foundation to choose this topic of discussion for Innovation Cafés with member entities.

The project is promoted by Found.iSocial, Found.AMPANS, Found.Maresme, Found.Catalana Síndrome de Down and Found.Support-Girona.

This May, the iSocial Foundation has launched a new innovation project in the field of social action, “All by myself”, that will develop over the next two years a global and intelligent software tool that adds the best ICT tools at the service of inclusion and support for the independent living of people with intellectual disabilities and / or mental illness. This is a project promoted jointly with four iSocial member foundations: the AMPANS Foundation in Manresa, the Maresme Foundation in Mataró, the Catalan Down Syndrome Foundation in Barcelona and the Support-Girona Foundation in Girona.

The new digital tool “All by myself” will help people with intellectual disabilities and / or mental illness to empower themselves, encourage their pro-activity and facilitate their autonomy in all areas, especially in the framework of Independent living, both for people who are moving to live alone and for those who continue to live with their families. The project was born from the need expressed by people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness who use mobile phones with some ease to solve the dispersion of existing ICT tools and have a single tool that classifies, evaluates and makes them easy. accessible.

“All by my self” will provide a digitally inclusive, cognitively accessible and easy-to-read tool for people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness, and will facilitate improvements in community inclusion with the support of ICT solutions in such diverse fields. such as social and family relations, parental function, education, training, work, health, citizen and political participation, culture, leisure, sport or leisure activities. To achieve this, the ICT tools that the tool will add will facilitate knowledge, liaison and participation in all those initiatives that provide services to make possible the Independent Living of people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness, with the added benefit of cross-border technology and being able to connect people with initiatives and solutions from other environments and countries.

The new digital tool will also facilitate the professional or voluntary work of personal assistants and professional, family and volunteer referrers to Independent Living programs for people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness; contribute to the advancement of a new way of providing distance services for people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness that is useful to specialized agencies and public systems; and will provide useful knowledge for improving Independent Living programs and planning future services for people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness.

The project has the support and funding of the Department of Social Rights of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

The project is expected to promote and promote dignity, personal freedom, equal opportunities, lowering barriers and the social inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities and mental illness, strengthening Independent Living programs and contributing to move towards the social model of disability enshrined in the United Nations International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.