The Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (ACSEP) Training Programme: Social Impact Measurement is a series of training sessions for practitioners who are keen to improve the way they measure the impact of their social programmes.
Social Impact Measurement: Control Groups and Counterfactual Thinking
In February, ACSEP conducted the fourth and final session that focused on Control Groups and Counterfactual Thinking, facilitated by ACSEP Research Fellow Dr Frank Hubers.
The session had 12 participants, practitioners from foundations, social enterprises and government agencies. In a four-hour session, Dr Hubers demonstrated the approaches to design evaluation using control groups, which is crucial for determining the effectiveness of social programmes implemented.
The group also learned to implement the counterfactual approach, which investigates what would have happened without a social programme. This method of evaluation helps practitioners to better understand the changes that can be attributed to the social programme.
“There’s rigour in the content and I’ve learnt new concepts and ways to looking at social impact measurement,” mentioned by a participant.
