Make Impact a Living Part of your Organisation
“From day one, I was in debt. Two years on — I’m still behind on my payments, and really struggling to find my feet with my finances.”
This is what I heard when talking to a tenant of a housing association. Taking up a new tenancy had thrown him into unmanageable levels of debt — a direct and unintended consequence of one social enterprise’s failure to see the big picture.
Risks if impact is not intentional
No one can dispute that the housing association delivers social value in its core product — low-cost homes for vulnerable people. But a housing association is also a business; in these days of austerity there’s financial pressure to keep properties filled, in order to avoid lost income.
The man I spoke to had been in private (furnished) rented accommodation; he was on the housing association waiting list; he was newly-married; he had just paid a month’s rent in advance. One day he received a call with the good news that a flat was available, and instructions to come to the housing association office the following day with a deposit to pick up the keys.
If he failed to do so, he was warned, the flat would be offered to the next person on the list. So with only one day’s notice, he paid the deposit for the new (unfurnished) flat and moved in.
With his limited funds, he first bought gas and electricity cards; he then borrowed money (at high interest) to purchase a bed, a fridge, and a cooker. So straight away, this vulnerable individual found himself in debt, all because of an organisation that was trying to help him improve his situation.
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Avoiding unintended consequences
So why did this happen? These types of stories about unintended consequences are worryingly common.
In my work over the past 20 years, I see a surprising problem emerging. Organisations too often experience a gap between theory and practice — which either, at best, limits their effectiveness at delivering social value, or, at worst, actually puts their clients at risk.
We all begin with good intentions — but good intentions simply aren’t enough. Fortunately, we have seen in practice that small changes to how these organisations work can lead to dramatic positive changes in their impact.
Imagine if, for example, the housing association recognised that it’s not simply delivering a product (in this case, a low-cost flat) that matters, and considered how to support the person through that transition — to provide in this case a pool of white goods or furniture that could be rented or borrowed; to allow more time for a new tenant to move in?
My proposition is this: delivering on good intentions requires organisations to move beyond a focus on delivering good products, and instead build good organisations. Products that meet clients’ needs are important, but we also need to focus on the operations of how we deliver these, all the while learning from what works — and what doesn’t.