Evaluation 2022 New Actors Working Group Week: Who Are the “New Actors” in Evaluation? An Evaluator’s Guide to Impact Investing, Social Finance, and Beyond by Shawna Hoffman and Courtney Bolinson

Hi! We’re Shawna Hoffman and Courtney Bolinson: evaluators, members of the Social Impact Measurement TIG, and part of the 2022 conference planning committee. 

A core focus of this year’s conference theme is “New Actors” – but who are these new actors, and why should we – as evaluators – care?

For decades, governments and nonprofits remained the dominant commissioners and consumers of evaluations and evaluative services.  Today, the social impact landscape is evolving with the proliferation of new market-based players endeavoring to do good. New actors like impact investors, social entrepreneurs, and even some corporations are investing hundreds of billions annually in the name of having an impact.

As evaluators, we have choices to make vis-a-vis these new actors:

• Whether and how to meet this growing demand for evaluation services that is coming from stakeholders we haven’t typically worked with – and, frankly, whose intentions we are sometimes skeptical of;
• How to meet these new actors “where they are” – while at the same time holding them accountable for real, tangible impact on people and the planet; and
• How to bring the best of our evaluative thinking and toolkit and apply them in a way that’s fit-for-purpose. 

It’s our belief that the opportunity for evaluators working in social finance extends beyond ensuring that investors are not “impact washing.” Instead, we believe evaluators should be supporting new actors to deepen the way they assess and manage their impact by engaging community members and including risks to impact and potential unintended consequences.

Hot Tip:

You can find a description of the conference theme, (re) shaping evaluation, on the AEA conference website. 

So who exactly are the “new actors” in this context? Check out the table below that describes who we see as the main new actors.

New actor	Description
Impact investors	Individuals, companies, or funds who make investments with the intention of generating social and environmental impact alongside financial returns.
Social enterprises	Businesses that are designed to achieve a social purpose alongside making a profit.
Assurance industry/accounting firms	Independent professional service firms that traditionally provide accounting and finance validation, and that are now branching into impact measurement.
Solution providers	An organization that offers any combination of computer hardware, software, and consulting. In recent years we have seen providers focused on the data collection and impact measurement space
Regulators	Independent government agencies whose primary purpose is to enforce the law against market manipulation. For example, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the EU Commission.  (Hot tip: See the AEA’s comments on SEC climate disclosure rules.) Quasi-public agencies, like the International Financial Standards Board, are another type of regulator.

Rad Resource:

The Impact Management Project’s Glossary clarifies the similarities and differences in language used among a number of impact-focused disciplines that often interact.

Hot Tip:

Join the Social Impact Measurement Topical Interest Group (SIM TIG) to learn more.

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