Introduction to Life 4 Leads' Social Value Policy
Life 4 Leads’ policy outlines our approach to measuring social value and managing its administration.
The policy is divided into seven sections that each highlight different Social Value Principles and how we will integrate them into how we conduct and monitor our activities. Definitions are listed near the bottom of each page for easy reference.
The contents of this policy are reviewed annually with the manager on the 14th of July.
Policy Brief and it’s Objective
Life 4 Leads’ social value strategy represents our dedication to measuring and managing the effects of our business on society at large. We recognize this process is essential due to four reasons:
- Customers deserve our full consideration and accountability; to fulfill that role in their lives.
- For successful work management, it is imperative that we maximize social value creation while upholding best practices within organizations.
- At Life 4 Leads, our expectations about how our activities create value must be reduced in order to bring tangible benefits to stakeholders.
This policy covers our operations.
Section One: Stakeholder involvement
1. Identification of Stakeholders
Life 4 Leads will create an inventory of stakeholders through discussions with staff who possess sufficient expertise and any additional stakeholders that might directly benefit.
An extensive stakeholder group may include not only staff, funders, board members, government, and beneficiaries as traditional categories but also additional stakeholder groups that should be taken into consideration, such as staffing costs, funders’ contributions to board membership fees, or government assistance, but also intended beneficiaries.
Life 4 Leads’ Senior Management Team and Board will review this list annually and try to include stakeholders or important groups within each stakeholder category that could have different outcomes from others in that same stakeholder group.
The list of stakeholder groups will serve as a roadmap to guide both frequency and intensity of stakeholder involvement every year.
2. Stakeholder Involvement in Outcome Definition
Life 4 Leads will take charge as lead. Life 4 Leads will work towards ensuring stakeholder participation:
- Complete about stakeholder groups we aim to engage all of our stakeholder groups and sub-groups at least annually through focus groups; alternatively, we may employ engagement techniques tailored specifically for our organization’s requirements and resources.
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- Representative
The stakeholder groups that we engage with to determine the results of our company will represent all sectors of society through diverse participation criteria such as gender, age, and socioeconomic background – among others – in its activities, participation levels, or any specific demographics that pertain specifically to its operations.
We will engage a stakeholder pool that meets our degree of decision-making and ensure that any sample of selected stakeholders reflects the overall stakeholder community as accurately as possible.
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- Unconstrained and Objective
To minimize our influence on possible outcomes, we will ask open-ended questions of stakeholders to enable them to identify negative and undesirable results as well as positive or desired ones they have experienced.
Section Two: Understanding change
1. Anticipating Change
Life 4 Leads will adhere to a consistent method for understanding change:
- We are focusing on outcomes rather than objectives.
Our stakeholders will engage in an interactive dialogue regarding any changes they encounter, and we will allow for ample discussion of any results, positive or negative, both expected and unintended, including unplanned ones.
At C-CAMP, we prefer an objective-based approach to understanding changes. This provides only a limited picture of our impactful contributions to outcomes and is likely shaped more by an organizational rather than stakeholder-centric perspective on change processes.
- Emphasizing causality
Each stakeholder group will need evidence of causal links between inputs, outputs, and results for that group – including reasonable judgments based on logic – as well as supporting information or research from stakeholders or external researchers.
Life 4 Leads will establish indicators for every outcome it manages to assess whether these outcomes are occurring and in what proportion.
Section Three: Value the things that matter
1. Understanding Inputs
To better assess the efficiency of our investments, we must gain an awareness of all necessary inputs (resources and time). Keeping this policy in mind requires we account for these necessities when taking actions that fall within its guidelines.
Investing can be understood by exploring all forms of investments and nontraditional elements like volunteering hours.
2. Assessing the relative importance of results for all stakeholders
Life 4 Leads will develop an understanding of the relative significance of outcomes we choose to report or measure for every stakeholder group.
We will achieve this through any or all of the following techniques:
- Engaging each stakeholder group directly in defining which outcomes are of the greatest significance for them, either through scoring/weighting the outcomes or linking them directly to money through appraisal methods.
- Research to estimate the values of each outcome and validate them with stakeholders through discussions about their perspectives on its worth.
Section Four: Only include what is material
Consider all the details surrounding our findings and review what follows below.
We will calculate and collect details for any results we choose to assess or report, such as:
Quantity: How many stakeholder groups have been affected?
Timeliness of Results: How long are these outcomes expected to remain effective according to stakeholder experiences?
Causality: How strong is the correlation between Life 4 Leads actions and results, such as deadweight costs or other attributive values?
Value: What are the implications of my results?
Taken as a whole, these elements can assist us in assessing whether an important decision has a bearing on us personally and professionally.
Certain outcomes may be essential, even if they do not seem significant, so we will ensure they are included when we analyze the results.
If possible, information can be gathered by interviewing stakeholders directly about their experiences.
Section Five: Do not over-claim
1. Understand the expected timeframes for crucial results
Life 4 Leads will consult with all stakeholders to estimate the timescales associated with outcomes under our control and conduct any necessary research to do so.
2. Discover Deadweight and Its Implications (in-depth)
Life 4 Leads will consult stakeholders or conduct external research to ascertain any material outcomes, by asking stakeholders or researching with external sources, what could have transpired if participants hadn’t participated, as well as questioning whether any outcome would have come about and, if so how much.
3. Recognize the significance of assigning credit to key results.
Life 4 Leads will consult with stakeholders or research to ascertain which other organizations have contributed to changes our customers are experiencing and which proportion are their fault rather than those from Life 4 Leads.
Section Six: Be transparent
Life 4 Leads will ensure all external and internal reports reflect our extensive analysis and what activities are under study.
We will also present the timeline, audience and objective of the analysis.
We strive to provide links and clearly outline the rationale for any research we cite and our decisions.
Section Seven: Verify the results
Life 4 Leads’ verification policy depends on our intended audience and the purpose of the analysis.
1. Checking results to ensure internal reporting
Verifying internal analyses designed for internal use or management feedback requires asking members from each stakeholder group to review the recommendations and results section so as to ensure it reflects their experience.
2. Analyzing results for external reporting purposes.
External stakeholders such as partner organizations and funders require at least two people – at least one from the Executive Management Team as well as stakeholder representatives of each group receiving the report – to view it.
Life 4 Leads will solicit feedback from an external group of critical friends to provide more informal comments prior to making their announcement more widely available to external sources.
Below is a list of critical friend organizations we will enlist for this purpose:
When necessary, we will adopt more formalized assurance processes.
Life 4 Leads commits to implementing policies that enhance management practices and maximize social impact.
Every year, we will review your plan and make any necessary modifications or additions as required.
Key definitions
This document makes use of the following definitions:
Attribution is ascribing responsibility for changes produced by other organizations or individuals’ efforts.
The deadweight analysis assesses any changes that would occur regardless of any intervention by Lead Genera.
A financial proxy refers to an assignment of value expressed as currency for different outcomes that are assigned as such.
Life 4 Leads considers materials significant when making decisions and taking action for its activities and future decision-making processes.
Outcome: Any positive or negative change a stakeholder experiences due to an event. Outcomes can take several forms, usually comprising changes to circumstances, behaviors, capacities, awareness, or ways of thinking.
Outcomes that need to be monitored: Any significant outcome (such as being of high importance to major stakeholder groups or occurring frequently enough) that leads Life 4 Leads to take steps to extend or increase its duration or frequency through our actions is something Life 4 Leads should actively work to extend or increase.
Stakeholders: individuals or organizations that experience tangible results from our activities.