Evaluating Social Impact Across Our Wisconsin Communities: FIVE CASE STUDIES Evaluating Social Impact Across Our Wisconsin Communities: Five Case Studies AUTHOR Rebecca Paradiso de Sayu, PhD, MSW, BCC Program/Social Impact Director Invest in Wisconsin Contents I. Overview 1 II. Social Impact 2 III. Methodology 4 IV. Case Studies 5 V. Preliminary Results 16 VI. Next Steps 19 References 20 Appendix: Case Study Interview Guide 21 January 2018 Acknowledgements In 2015, Invest in Wisconsin was awarded a $2.68 million The author of this report, Rebecca Paradiso de Sayu, grant by the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. The grant, as well as the entire Invest in Wisconsin team – Craig part of the Foundation’s PRO (Partnerships for Raising Anderson, Wendy Baumann, Lesley Hutchins, Salli Opportunity in Neighborhoods) Initiative, has enabled Martyniak, and Mary Patoka – would also like to express Invest in Wisconsin to promote economic opportunities our gratitude to all of the borrowers who participated in and reduce disparities throughout rural Wisconsin via a one-on-one interviews to share their impact stories: five-city hub strategy. Allen Danforth PRO Neighborhoods is designed to give Community Go-Green Painting, LLC Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) the flexibility Green Bay, Wisconsin to work together on community challenges in their city or region and to develop innovative financing options Heather Deegan for projects that are unable to qualify for traditional Buttons & Bolts Fabric & Quilting Supply, Inc. loans. The program consists of more than $14 million in Salem, Wisconsin grants to five programs nationwide that are dedicated Stacy Warner to creating sustainable solutions to significant economic Home Owner challenges in our communities. Stevens Point, Wisconsin On behalf of Invest in Wisconsin, we express our Abha Thakkar heartfelt thanks to the JPMorgan Chase Foundation Northside Planning Council (FEED Kitchens) for supporting our work. Madison, Wisconsin Marlo Mielke One City Early Learning Centers Madison, Wisconsin Learning from borrower feedback is a critical evaluation tool that allows us to grow and hone our strategies to support even greater community impact. Thank you for your time, patience and thoughtfulness! Invest in Wisconsin believes that when we work together to support community development, everyone achieves more. Overview In 2015, the opportunity to submit a proposal Learning of this knowledge gap among community to the JPMorgan Chase Foundation PRO leaders, as well as potential borrowers, Invest Neighborhoods Initiative – a grant supporting in Wisconsin partners took action, organizing the work of Community Development Financial the first ever CDFI Day at the Wisconsin State Institutions (CDFIs) collaboratives – united four Capitol where we engaged state leaders around leading Wisconsin-based CDFIs. The partnering the important work of our Wisconsin CDFIs. organizations that comprise Invest in Wisconsin Connecting with legislators and their staff allowed include: Community Assets for People, LLC, us to share stories of our impact and critical First American Capital Corporation, Forward resources that constituents regularly seek from Community Investments and The Wisconsin their state legislators. Find a summary of our CDFI Women’s Business Initiative Corporation. Day at the Wisconsin State Capitol at www.investinwisconsin.org. Committed to creating economic opportunities for low-income and people of color in rural Wisconsin, Invest in Wisconsin works to: (a) address challenges facing Wisconsin for- profit businesses, nonprofits and residents lacking adequate access to capital; (b) grow the capacity of the individual member CDFIs, and; (c) expand and network resources of Invest in Wisconsin to work together more effectively toward greater community impact. To further raise awareness around the community impact of CDFIs, Invest in Wisconsin embarked After receiving a JPMorgan Chase Foundation upon a series of borrower case studies. The PRO Neighborhoods award in late 2015, Invest in purpose was to elevate borrower stories and distill Wisconsin partners quickly got to work listening the social impacts of our financial and technical and learning from our Wisconsin communities. services, which is the focus of this report.We In 2016, we conducted a series of community discuss the meaning of social impact and how we listening sessions held in five hub regions across involve multiple stakeholders in understanding the state: Madison, Racine, Appleton, Green how our work affects change in Wisconsin. We Bay and Eau Claire. Lessons learned suggested describe our approach, using a multiple-case that while a variety of community and economic study design featuring five Invest in Wisconsin development resources exist throughout the state, borrowers. Next, we include summaries of each of the availability and awareness of services and our cases, including insights from our borrowers programming is inconsistent. coupled with lessons from previous research. From the cases, we outline preliminary results and identify next steps to further our work to measure and evaluate the social impact of CDFIs. Invest in Wisconsin | 1 Social Impact Although there is not a universal definition, in general, social impact is considered to be the net effect of the activities, programs, services, projects and policies experienced by individuals, families and/or communities.1,2,3 The lack of a consistent definition poses challenges to measurement and evaluation efforts and, as such, can lead to multiple approaches to assessing and valuing change. Despite the challenges that surround inconsistent definitions, there are guiding values and standards common to the study of social impact. The organization, Social Impact Scotland4, outlines three principles common to the study of social impact that include: 1. Involving Stakeholders Involving stakeholders refers to the inclusion of all parties interested in the outcomes of a particular entity either affected by or affecting the activity to be assessed, i.e. understanding how individuals involved in delivering and receiving an activity perceive a change (outcome). 2. Understanding and Articulating Change Understanding and articulating change suggests that in order to make informed decisions and to provide activities/services that produce positive impacts, we need to consider how change happens for multiple stakeholders. For Invest in Wisconsin, we began our social impact journey by developing a logic model that outlines the inputs, activities, outputs, outcomes and assumptions around how we believe our collaborative helps to facilitate positive changes in the lives of our borrowers. The principle of involving stakeholders is critical to test our assumptions around those factors that CDFIs believe affect change versus the realities of other stakeholders, in particular, our borrowers. 3. Being Transparent Finally, being transparent reminds us that regardless of our approach, no social impact assessment can be entirely objective. Thus it is imperative to outline our assumptions – and the decisions made on account of those assumptions – as well as known limitations of our approach. 2 | Invest in Wisconsin To be clear on our interpretation as it pertains to this report, social impact will be discussed as self-reported borrower benefits experienced on account of Invest in Wisconsin services – both financial and technical. Understanding how clients experience services provides a variety of critical information. Specifically, borrower feedback can illuminate particular services or activities that are particularly useful – or not – and help to allocate resources accordingly. In addition, once themes are generated – i.e. factors that are most significant in terms of creating social impact – CDFIs can be more precise in collecting and analyzing data that can help to monetize the effects of the social impacts. For example, if borrowers consistently discuss the importance of a particular type of technical assistance that has been integral to their success or wellbeing, CDFIs can determine the monetary value of the time, resources and supplies necessary to provide this service. With increased specificity around the components that contribute to positive social impacts, the industry can more accurately report our value to the communities we serve, funders and the wider public. Invest in Wisconsin | 3 Methodology In order to assess how Invest in Wisconsin borrowers understand and experience the social impact of the loans and services provided by the partnering organizations, a series of five case studies was conducted in 2017. Case study design is commonly used in evaluation studies to gain a deeper understanding of stakeholder experiences5. We designed a multiple-case study approach that covers the breadth of lending activities and geographies covered by Invest in Wisconsin partners. Multiple-case study designs allow for the analysis Still, there are limitations of our approach. While of themes within and across cases6. As such, we Invest in Wisconsin partners were deliberate in were intentional to select cases across our hub choosing a variety of borrowers, cases selected regions (Madison, Racine, Green Bay, Appleton represent a fraction of the total clients served by and Eau Claire) and that captured small business, Invest in Wisconsin partners. Future work could housing, nonprofit and consumer lending. We include additional borrower case studies to further collected various forms of data for each of the