Understanding Social Impact with Andrea Kanaris
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Summary
In this episode of the No Nonsense Sustainability Podcast, host Ildiko Almasi Simsic welcomes Andrea Kanaris, founder of All Things Social Impact. They delve into the true meaning of social impact, exploring how it is taught versus how it operates in practice. Andrea shares insights from her entrepreneurial journey and the challenges faced by early career professionals in the field.
The conversation covers a range of topics, including the misconceptions about social impact, the importance of understanding community needs, and the role of qualitative and quantitative data in assessments. Andrea also discusses her experiences with social impact assessments and the significance of having a multidisciplinary approach.
Key takeaways from the episode include the importance of empathy and objectivity in social impact work, the need for comprehensive planning and data collection, and the value of mentorship and continuous learning. Andrea's platform and book aim to support professionals in navigating the complexities of social impact, offering practical tools and guidance.
Highlights
Andrea Kanaris discusses the challenges of being a solopreneur in social impact.
The importance of avoiding buzzwords and jargon in social impact discussions.
Social impact affects individuals, communities, and societies at various levels.
Misconceptions in the industry include the belief that social impact is about the practitioner.
Andrea emphasizes the need for comprehensive data in social impact assessments.
The role of empathy and objectivity in conducting effective social impact work.
Andrea's platform offers tools and guidance for early career professionals.
Key takeaways
1. Social impact is about the effect on people, not the values or politics of practitioners.
2. Effective social impact assessments require both qualitative and quantitative data.
3. Empathy is crucial for building relationships, but objectivity is needed for analysis.
4. Andrea's platform provides resources and mentorship for navigating social impact careers.
Timestamped breakdown
[0:09] — Introduction to the Episode: Host Ildiko Almasi Simsic introduces the topic of social impact with guest Andrea Kanaris.
[0:50] — Challenges of Being a Solopreneur: Andrea Kanaris shares her experiences and challenges as a solopreneur in the social impact field.
[1:32] — Defining Social Impact: Andrea explains social impact without using buzzwords, focusing on its effects on people.
[3:21] — Misconceptions in Social Impact: Discussion on common misconceptions and blind spots in the social impact industry.
[5:50] — Stories from the Field: Andrea shares impactful stories from her work in social impact assessments.
[8:18] — Data in Social Impact Assessments: The importance of using both qualitative and quantitative data in assessments.
[10:27] — Community Impact and Health: Exploration of how community health data informs social impact decisions.
[15:44] — Early Career Challenges: Andrea discusses the challenges faced by early career professionals in social impact.
[26:08] — All Things Social Impact Platform: Overview of Andrea's platform offering tools and mentorship for social impact professionals.
[37:10] — Andrea's Book and Practical Guidance: Discussion on Andrea's book providing practical guidance for social impact assessments.
[46:21] — Conclusion and Key Takeaways: Final thoughts on the importance of planning and understanding in social impact work.
Edited transcript
Welcome back to the non nonsense sustainability podcast. I'm IL Kamei Sims and today we're covering what a social impact is. I have with me Andrea Canaris, who's a social impact professional, founder of All Things Social Impact, best-selling author, and also a podcast host of the All Things Social Impact podcast. Welcome to the show, Andrea.
Absolute pleasure to be here. Thank you.
To kick things off, what is the one lesson you've learned on your entrepreneurial journey in social impact? Wow. Just one.
Being a soloreneur is is hard. It is so underestimated. You know, we see successful people and we think they make it look so easy. It's it's hard work and it and it doesn't stop. There's, you know, there's, you know,
Yeah. I Yeah, I can identify with that 100%.
So, say that's the biggest lesson like there's no turning off.
Yeah. So in this show I have a permanent guest Bob the buzzer who will keep us on track if we enter the world of buzzwords and uh jargon that's very easy especially in social impact. So we're aiming to have these nuance conversations where we unpack things and break down the complexity and especially today talking about something that's such a huge uh passion project for both of us.
I called my book what is a social impact. You started your platform all things social impact. It's it's all about that. So, after having all these conversations with all these people on your podcast on social impact, I'm going to give you 60 seconds to explain it to me without a buzz word. If that's if that's even possible.
Without a buzz word.
Yes. I would explain a social impact as something that affects people as it relates to either a project, an intervention or you know uh a policy or a strategy that a government may put out and it's how it affects the people and people both at all levels. So people at individual levels and then also at the group level, community and then societal level. And it's how it affects them and it's how it it's the degree to which it affects them and it's also what you can do about it in terms of minimizing that or reducing it or even better stopping those impacts from happening at all. And then the other thing is to look for opportunities. How can you make their lives better? Is this project intervention thing able to provide opportunities that can make their lives better?
Yeah. So basically social impact is everything or nothing depending on the context
pretty much. Yes. In a lot of ways. Yes.
Okay. But clearly you've had access to some brilliant people on your podcast to explain their context and and like their perspectives. What have you observed to be the biggest blind spots or or misconceptions that these people help you realize or or clear up?
I think the biggest thing in in the industry and and I see it both my personal work and even when I'm talking to uh like you say the guests on my host who are extremely brilliant is that it's not about you. You know, we're social impact professionals, practitioners, experts. Um it's got nothing to do with us. It's got nothing to do with us at all. when we go out there, we we are we are nothing. It's not to do with us in any social impact has nothing to do with us. Um it's not about us. It's not about our values. It's not about our political positions. It's not about how we think about things uh at all. It's got nothing to do with us. Um in in that regard we are observers, data collectors, analyzers, but the impact of that project has nothing to do with us.
Yeah. No, no, that's very true. And uh I think we often forget that we're literally just like this middleman between the affected people and the people who are like managing or creating these projects. And uh most of us come from some sort of social background whether that's anthropology, social research, gender studies but we have this um I think I had this observation that most of us social specialists are kind of introverted. So, we like to observe and collect information, but compared to some other other colleagues in other disciplines, we're still a bit more reserved and like in more more introverted. I would say that's right for for sure. I mean, it's it's it's one of those things that makes us good at our job. We have the empathy. We have a natural ability to sit back and observe and and those sorts of things. Um but those things like all things have double-edged civil applied to them.
Yeah.
Some that can harm us, some that can harm the community if you're not on top of them.
Yeah. I mean clearly you've heard a lot of stories from people about their their projects and like some stories from the field. What stories stick with you? Is there any story that made you reconsider your opinions, your rules, your your previous ideas about certain things?
Changed my mind. I look the ones that stick with me, I mean the most recent one is I guess I was involved in a judgment where the independent planning commission in New South Wales uh decision to not approve a project was upheld. Um, and I guess being a part of that as the social impact expert in the court, it did remove that idea that sometimes you get when you've been slugging along for years and years and feeling like the social impacts aren't being considered properly. And to finally be in a time where you're involved in something where you were able to make sure that the decision was based somewhat in the social impacts and that they were seriously considered and that they were a part of the decision-m process in a meaningful way, not in a lip service way, but in an actual meaningful way. And I think I think that's uh something that that is is come late in my career. Um I think you know when you and I probably started off in social impact it wasn't as mainstream as it is now it wasn't as well understood. So for me I guess that shifted. I I I've always hoped that it would make a difference in terms of decision makers but I was a little bit skeptical and uh yeah late in the day I finally found that well actually you know it has been it it has been worth the hard work we've put in over the years. So that's nice
and I guess that ties back to to some of the earlier conversation of how you're how you're proving something because for a lot of disciplines you have uh data you have numbers you have you have evidence and for a lot of this like social works as you say it's the perception of the people
that's not necessarily supported by evidence. I know you can't say a lot about this uh this particular
public so I can probably say more.
Yeah. Was it the qualitative data? Was it quantitative? What was the the turning point?
I actually really love this because I'm a believer that there is more data and I think a lot of us social professionals have been. I'm a social scientist so I I'm used to working in both quantitative and qualitative data. And um I'm a believer that perceptions are important but only in so far as they are how should we say as as they are not managed if you like. Um but that doesn't necessarily mean because someone perceived something it's an impact. In this project, um, I was able to look at the data that had been presented, the things that informed the social impact assessment, review it, uh, look at the data, go to the community, understand the concerns, but not from a P. Yes, you want to understand their perceptions, but for me it was like is there an actual impact on this community that is social that affects the community that affects the society, how they how they live their lives, where they live their lives, their health, um all these kinds of things and there was data that yes there was qualitative data um but there was quantitative data as well particularly around health and health. Um, so it was a combination of both, which I think
fits true with my understanding of social impact. It's it's never just the quantitative, it's the qualitative and you know, you get the quantitative and it makes you ask question more questions. So you kind of need both and I think that bore out in this decision. Um, there was certainly stuff around transport, around accidents, um, around health data that it definitely informed the decision.
Yeah. And you know like often you would think that some of these health and safety or community health and safety they're under a different department or if it's like an indirect impact you know the company's cars far away not in the identified communities causing accidents then it requires a more uh multi-dimensional thinking around what a social impact is right and how it relates to that operation. 100%. And it was it was a really interesting little place cuz it was a little tiny country town in you know in New South Wales and um it was an operation that had been operating for a while but they were ramping up and the number of trucks going through a town um and I think trucks is a big one for country towns and I think for most projects that we work on anyone who's done um not just from the social perspective but even the environmental side of things it you know sometimes the amount of trucks going through from noise from dust um this there's these technical reports and this is the thing that's interesting right and it's the thing that I think um if we go back to the blind spots this could be one of the blind spots too is that just because a transport study's been done or a noise studyy's being done or you know air quality study has been your job is to pick it up and go what does that mean for the community from their health from the way they live and I think there's a lot of uh people who delineate too much and go well that's been that study's been done and it's like well it's been done from a technical perspective but what does it actually mean as a flow on effect for people and uh this this project actually the the the work we did in terms of being able to support the decision made from the IPC was able to pull the data that sort of picked up from these technical studies and say that's all good and well so for an example and this is in Like I said, these are public. So I can say noise was one that was considered to be oh you know it didn't it they they were re they were within the the noise uh realm and this is a common one for social impact right
and how
yeah that's why I'm wait I'm waiting for the
we were able to say actually that might be all good and well but you didn't consider shift workers vulnerable people you didn't you didn't consider um whether somebody had a health condition that made them more sensitive to noise and they're bucked right up against the community and they've got trucks coming in and out day and night like into these hours. Um so noise where normally people would say oh you know they're within the the acceptable range we were able to argue that actually for who and in fact there were vulnerable groups and you didn't do the work you didn't identify them. So you can't actually say that you've that you are not impacting just because the noise study said that you've hit some kind of threshold.
But is that a flaw of the legislation that required this developer to do this? Is that a flaw of their processes of picking this information up? Was it not integrated with the social? Was there no feedback mechanism? I would say on a broader for this particular case, I would say that the social impact assessment and this is by no means a reflection on the social uh the company that did the social impact assessment because we all know that there are limitations in terms of funding, in terms of time frames, in terms of what the client will allow them to do. However, what wasn't done in that study was an unpacking and an a proper identification of the vulnerable groups within those uh studies. And if you haven't got the vulnerable groups, then you can't really assess who you can't with confidence say that people aren't negatively impacted or affected in in some kind of profound way. The other thing that they didn't do was the baseline data around health. Um so you can't which is part of I guess identifying the vulnerable groups but it's beyond just the vulnerable groups. Also, if you're going to say that people aren't health isn't affected, then you've got to have the health data to actually be able to say that because you've got to actually you've got to be able actually determine the existing health conditions within the community.
Yeah. But that's the thing very often health impact assessment is treated separately. So it's not in the scope of the social or you know they just let's do ESIA and um if it's not in the scope
it's interesting because this is probably where um this helped me I have a background also in public health so I worked in health department public health department um and I've so I have a little bit of knowledge and background in health and health data and and and the likes and health service planning so that actually helped me and in social impact in all the guidelines both from the IIAa all the way down to you know the the Queensland and New South Wales guidelines here in Australia and I'd say probably in other jurisdictions as well part of it is health and social imp health and wellbeing. So you cannot assess health and wellbeing without having the health data and without understanding public health because you're talking about you know the the public health of the community. So, um, my understanding of that probably did position me in in a way to be able to assist in that particular issue where I was able to see a gap in the data and in the identification of vulnerable groups which probably did assist in that regard.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think I think you're in a in a unique position there because most of us don't have that background or or have that understanding and maybe we pick it up as we go. Maybe we flag the need to bring in other experts,
but like that's not part of the job requirements, right? And that's something that I I really enjoyed about your early episodes on all things social impact when you got these early career people to talk about their experiences like what is the skill set you need? How do you find a job? It's now it's such a vast job market. you could literally work for any company doing almost anything.
So, how did you how did you come up with this idea to interview these these early career people? I mean in a lot of ways my business, my book, my business, the podcast was somewhat inspired by early career people in the sense that when I was working for EMM Consulting and I set established their um social impact and performance uh team there was they didn't have one and they were you know they they read the tea leaves of what was coming and they knew that they needed a social impact team and so um I came on board I built that and because there wasn't anybody in the organization who was social impact practitioner other than me, I needed help. So I went to the University of Queensland which was where I had studied uh social science because I knew that they taught social impact. So I knew that if I got students from UKQ that they would have a degree of understanding of at least what social impact kind of was or what it might be. um that didn't bear out to be as true as I thought it was. A lot of them had a lot of questions about what it actually was, but at least they've been exposed to some degree in their course. Uh but because I had a whole team of like graduates to build it, um all their questions of me and what they needed and observing them struggle, but also what they were teaching me. um that symbiotic relationship between the experienced person learning, you know, they think they're learning from me and I'm like, I'm learning from them. I'm learning my blind spots. I'm learning um more contemporary thoughts around things. Um keeping my finger on the pulse, so to speak, through the through the the younger ones. Um but you know, the things they asked me about how to apply the theory into practice. So what struck me was that here we had these extremely intelligent, high-erforming young professionals coming into an area, understanding the theory perfectly well, but then we're like, but what does it mean on the ground? How do I actually do this? How do I actually apply it on the ground? So that was an eye openener, too, because after a while, we get so used to doing it, we kind of forget that we we had those questions when we first started as well, you know. Um, so that inspired me when one of the things they asked me sort of before I left EMN, they were pushing me for and I did run for them some training course and we were pulling together a kind of practice manual for them, right? So that they could go to that and and use it as a resource and so that's that sort of underpins a lot of what I'm doing now. Certainly inspired it.
Okay. And in terms of their education, was it uh the social impact assessment specifically or was that just related to something social? Because now I found out that you can study social impact assessment specifically. And I'm not sure if that's like an advantage or a constraint because for us we you know I I had my my bachelor's is in social policy but I had studied social psychology research methods quantitative research methods qualitative methods like socioeconomics political sociology like I had exposure to a lot of different things including fieldwork and I feel like a lot of that
positively contribut buted to my career development as I applied this concept of social impact assessment but I had an overview that was broader than that
likewise I was the same my my bachelor's was in social science and it was bas it was basically all of the social sciences like sociology anthropology social anthropology you know all all of those you know psychology and the whole lot the whole gamut and you went through you did them and you did the social research, quantitative, qualitative, data analysis, demography. Um, and and some planning courses as well. Um, so that was my undergraduate. Then I did the masters of social planning and development at UKQ, which is where the social impact assessment was taught, at least in the course that I did. And UKQ back then were the only ones that I was aware of in Australia that actually taught social impact assessment. Now that's changed. Now there are other who teach just social impact assessment and like you I find that a bit perplexing because we taken outside of the context of the social sciences broadly I don't know how you navigate it because it's just a process social impact assessment uh I mean social impact is one thing but social impact assessment is a very specific niche thing it is a process of applied research to the planning process or at least that's how I've always uh been taught it and that's how I approach it. So I often wonder like if you're sitting in business or you're sitting in communications and you're learning social impact assessment process and I'm wondering well how do you understand the human behavioral and societal factors that drive people or that influence people or that uh that will inform your decision-m or how do you even do this research actually or understand how to do the research and yeah Exactly. When when you're let out into the real world. So when you when you started working with these people, what were sort of their biggest questions or their biggest like the gaps in their knowledge that made them less effective in the real world? I was lucky. the these were extremely bright and they had had social science background um mostly I think all of them actually and they had some exposure to having done the social impact course or at least they were in the process of doing it. What I would say was their limitations was that things like how do you scope an SIA? You know what the some of these terms?
Oh no.
What is what is the scoping? What is the determine how far your social impact should go? Who's going to be affected? How they're affected? What what how am I going to what methods am I going to use? what approaches am I going to adopt to do my piece of research on finding out how am I going to find out how how far away from the site do I have to go from the project site for example if we're doing a big project let's say we're doing a wind farm um and I'm going well how far away from those turbines do I have to go before I'm comfortable to say I understand the impacts on people um do I have to consider the construction construction phase. Do I have to consider the transport routes and how far again along that transport route do I have to go? Making all those decisions around those sorts of things I don't think is very well taught. Um, and I don't know sometimes some of that teaching is an on the ground thing anyway. So I don't know how you teach it in university because it would still remain a very theor theoretical thing. So that that's what I identified even areas where they were taught theories. So and for example it's let's say okay here's a perfect one and we're going to get into the jargon so I'm going to make it distributive justice um or or intergen intergenerational equity. Let's just go for for it. you know the the
I'm not I'm not going to finish every time.
But to make the point of what you're saying of why you don't want the jargon is because they're taught what they mean which is really great that we have these theories and that we have people who dedicate their time to understanding these concepts and teaching these concepts. When I when I go to the field, nobody ever says um distributive justice to me.
Uh and if I said it to them, they would look at me like I was crazy like what are you talking about? they get confused, they get disengaged. I would no longer I would lose them in in terms of being able to have a relationship with them because I would create this kind of distance. Um because language is important and if I start talking in a way that they don't understand, then they may interpret that as, oh, she thinks she's better than us. She thinks we're stupid or uh less important than her. like these are all the kinds of misunderstandings that can happen if you you're going in with this kind of highly academic language. Um so it's one thing to understand those but then it's how what do they mean when you're on the ground like you say in the field and you need to have the kind of data and information that will allow you to to use those concepts in your analysis or whatever. But you've got to know what they mean to people on the ground and what's the data and the questions you need to ask and how you ask them and how do you structure that conversation
with your communities to get that information from them.
That that's the biggest difference. Exactly. Yeah. I would say
and then based on these observations and your interactions with these with these early career fresh fresh graduates you came up with the idea of the all things social impact platform
that is my understanding is it's a collection of tools access to forums conversations mentoring and like everything that these people might need but then could you explain what kind of tools are there. How are these conversations different from the LinkedIn groups that were mentioned in some of your podcast episodes that serve as a source of information for early career people?
Yeah, I I would think there it's a couple of things. It's a bit of it's a bit of a one place for a start that they that everything's housed in. It's not a case of you have to go remembering where you found something or where you had a conversation with somebody. So, that's one one one thing that that gets alleviated. There are learner videos. So what I've done is I've broken down the social impact assessment process and at each at each point including
how to um write a proposal
because uh clients come to you and said I want a social impact assessment. Can you can you done it right? How how do you write that and how do you position yourself? How do you cost it? How do you
how do you scope it? No, that's a really that's a really good point because business is not something they teach in the social.
We're not taught that. That's not for us apparently. So, we're not taught that. We're taught uh so so so there's definitely that breaking down of how to understand it, how to think about it, what what needs to go there, and how to write it in a way that's that's uh you know a winning fee proposal. You because you don't want to just write one. You want to write a good one that's going to position yourself. So, how do you do that? No one teaches you that. you figure it out, you fumble your way through. Um because a lot of social impact professionals end up writing fee proposals. Now whether we're doing it for the private sector because we're consultants or whether we're working for a not for profofit and we need funding because we need to get our funding. That's the other place that happens, right? But you need to know how to articulate that and how to and and how to prepare it in a way that is compelling to the person who's reading it.
You know, that's very true. I remember the first time when a client asked me to cost an ESAP and I had like no idea some of the items I just like I had no idea.
None none none and I think most of us are sitting in that position and and we're reliant upon uh a supervisor or someone in there where we're working to help us out. The reality is and particularly even more so now for this younger generation and we're on the other side of co where all of a sudden now everyone's working from home. the privileges that I had and the things that you and I and people of our generation um had the privilege of was going into an office and being surrounded by experienced people that were that we didn't even have to necessarily ask a question because we'll be in a meeting with them. Um, or we'll be in the same room and be able to overhear them having a telephone call or a discussion with someone near the water cooler or in the lunchroom as they're getting their tea or coffee. We might run into them and we we run into them and we build a rapport with them and and you know, I've that's where I got some of my best mentors in the early days who would
who would sort of see your enthusiasm or whatever. I know your story is a great one, but mine would be like tap you on the shoulder and say, "Look, you know, this is a senior. This is a highle meeting, but come along so that you can learn and just sit there
and listen and take notes and have a lunch like okay, come join us for the lunch and we'll discuss like that was this very informal environment where I was not afraid to ask questions." Like now in the online world, you have to request a meeting, show up, and it's just it's it's a lot more formal than it used to be. That's for sure.
So, I guess the whole co and the shift in these sorts of things and listening to people because I do a lot of mentoring and mentoring programs um with the university and other areas. I find that there's a thirst for exactly that. um they're working to uh a supervisor who may or may not be in the office when they are. The deadline's coming, but the there are supervisors in a meeting or unavailable, but they need to get this deliverable kind of now.
So, how do you do that when you're not in an office? So, it's not like there's somebody else in your team or, you know, maybe they're on a call and it's a lot harder to connect with people. We're kind of more disconnected than we used to be. So the portal for me kind of made sense. It kind of evolved from this as I was thinking about the problem. It was like what if there was somewhere that people could go where you could be their supervisor. So there's a whole heap of learner videos where that are broken down and they're not it's not it's not structured like your traditional course where you go from point A to point B and you get a certificate at the end of it. It's more like I've got some strengths. I might have some things that I'm really comfortable with and I feel confident that I can get on with it, but I might have something that I haven't come across before and I could do with somebody who could really help me give me some tips. So, the learner videos kind of walk walk people through at this point they're 5 minutes to 10 minute videos or 15 minute videos that just talk people about the things you need to consider. But of course, not everyone's, you know, visual or audible. So there's also um guidance document that just for that particular task, here's a guidance document of the things that you need to do to step you through um that points you in the right direction of the things that you might want to do. And to accompany that is like, hey, there's also you may want some templates. If you don't have a template, if you're not sure how it should be structured, then you here's some template. Here's a checklist to make sure that you've done all the things that are needed
to to complete that section of the work. Right.
Exactly. that that's like so useful because I know like a lot of the times you're going on the internet and you're trying to or the SharePoint now and you try to find an old project that you could use as a template
but you don't even know if it's the most appropriate one or which are the sections that are a must or which are the sections that could be removed if they're not like appropriate for the project. especially if you're in that first 5 years of your career when you're often doing most of the heavy lifting without much support or or preparation.
And even if there's support, like I remember I've had amazing mentors the first 5 years of my career, but sometimes I still didn't understand what they're asking or their guidance just made no sense because I was like not there
to just get what they mean. like let's just do a scope of work for this or that and I was like
yeah exactly let's start what is this abbreviation start with the basics
oh
but it's very true and yeah it's it's very true like the templates and you know the whole the whole idea of um having like template stores like that's that's how my my company as solutions like started I came up with this idea that if only we add some templates and like checklists or bullet points like what is it I need to add and it's not I I've always felt like it's not that it's taking away from my value as an expert it just helps me organize my thoughts because if I'm working on a project I have like a thousand things to keep in mind
and if only I have a little guidance on some bullet points that help me populate this section so I don't forget at anything that's
if I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time I do a social impact assessment
or get involved in an ISA or or perhaps I'm I'm preparing a social impact management plan. But wouldn't it be nice if I didn't have to start from scratch every single time, you know, or or deal with deal with battling with, as you pointed out, SharePoint or some version of SharePoint, right? and and and someone else's filing system that I don't understand, right? And hoping that someone bothered to file file it because maybe it's sitting on their desktop
and you know, and that's not it to criticize people. People get busy and when people are stressed and they're busy and they're under the pump, it's the things like filing
they they go astray. It's time. is things like um the debrief on a project that leads to a project, you know, case study that may be able to help you because they don't get done not because people doesn't have a desire to, but because people didn't get around to it. So, you know, having a portal that allows people to go in there and go, well, there's there's examples, there's project examples, there's learner studies, there's there's even a forum where I can go to like-minded people and go, well, what was your experience on that? My blogs on there, you know, so they have access to me as well by being a a member of it. They'll have access to me. So the aim is that we're going to be having every couple of months there's going to be a forum where online forum where they'll be able to ask me questions but in between they can talk with each other and build their relationships learn from each other. So they're not learning from just me in my experience. The whole idea is that they're learning from each other as well which is part of the whole YouTube channel as well. every week, but wouldn't it be nice if you could hear from a wide range of people
who exactly like bringing on a wide range of people with diverse experiences, diverse backgrounds who entered into social impact in different ways, but also have different conceptualizations of what social impact is. And that's the other thing I'm learning from the YouTube channel. people do think do think of impact as different but the reason I called it all things social impact and if anyone's watched my channel there's the Paul Cranch and there's a couple of my guests who are not social impact practitioners per se they're not like what you and I would be they've worked in local government they worked in um various locations where the work that they do definitely has social impact
and and they certain and they certainly understand
um what you and I would understand as social impact and how to go about it and how to deliver, you know, um deliver solutions to communities and um help them have better opportunities. So, for example, Paul Cranch, he was involved in the relocation of of gr of Grandantham, like a a town that was damaged through the floods, you know? I mean, if that's not social impact, I don't know what is.
Yeah. No, exactly. And so, how does your book fit in with that? I know that's like a practical guidance. So it's for anyone who wants to learn about social impact. So it's actually impact assessment social impact assessment. Right. So so a bit like
okay
I suppose it's very complimentary to to the portal and the way it's set up in the learner videos and the way it's structured. It goes through a social impact assessment from beginning to end, including from, hey, I've got a project that I want you to deliver. Can you give me a fee proposal? Right through to then, okay, you win it. Great. You've done a great fee proposal, but now you got to deliver on that. Right? How do you set up a how do you set up and this is another thing I don't think always gets taught to social uh scientists is how do you maybe some who have who have gone on to do research research uh maybe but how do you manage your study right and how do you manage your study not just a study but in the context of a multi-disiplinary team so you got to manage your study but there's a bigger project manager that you may have to interact with and you've got to have to sort of make sure that you're managing your study, but you're also in interaction with a project manager. Now, we're not taught that at university. Like, I know I wasn't taught that at university.
You you learned that as with practice.
Um,
yeah. And I guess the hard way.
Yeah. And I guess my idea is that I wouldn't want somebody to have to go through the the the do it the hard way when why can't I just share my my knowledge and experience with somebody, hence the book. So it does follow it through. And there were certain bits of it that that are more detailed because I know that they're going to be the areas that are more tricky. They take more time. Um so things like triangulation of data is in there. Things like
Yeah, that's Yeah. So, so basically making sure that you're not relying on just one data set, that you're relying on multiple data sets and you're checking them against each other to make sure that they're they're valid in some way, that they actually are saying what you think they're saying. Um, and also to actually do the risk assessment stuff. I mean, that's that's hard. Yeah. and making
it's challenging and it's not an easy process and it's something that
um
that doesn't get enough attention I think in terms of uh information out there to help people through it and I know like going back to one of your questions that was the other area that um a lot of the newbies struggle with at first you know what's what makes something a social not just a social impact but important enough to make it into the report how do you determine that
yeah and you know a lot of the times it's just it comes with the experience but I know I'm I'm developing these AI tools with my other company and when we're brainstorming they're often asking me how do I know that's the correct answer how do I know that there's a risk how do I know that that's compliant like what is the thought process the information evidence that I use and very often I'm just sitting there like I just I just know.
So I guess one of the things I I do and by going following the process of the methodology which is the way the book does it there's a road map at the beginning and it follows that road map through is that it allows people to go by the time you get the risk the to the the risk assessment you've been collecting that and that's that intuition you're talking about. you know, not just because, you know, but because you've been listening to the community, you've been, you know, you've been kneede or neck deep in the baseline data and then in the um consultation engagement data and then the field study that you did and you've been in that data and you've been talking to people and you've been talking to the client and and all these players and all the other technical experts in all these other areas. So you've got all this knowledge that you've been accumulating and it's rolling up till you get to the risk assessment. Um I guess what I try and do is to give them an approach that helps them to sift through that stuff. So that it's not just saying that it does exactly what you say that here is a template that allows you to collect that stuff as you go so that when you get in there you go, "Oh, that's right. The the evidence for that is here and and here." So, it's in it's encouraging them to be organized from the beginning to say, you know, don't wait until you get to the risk assessment. You know, have this have this have this um spreadsheet or this template or whatever you're doing that allows you to keep your self organized so that when you go when it's related to risk, you can go, okay, there's data for this in this part and over here and over here and how do they relate to each other? And not just that, but having a risk workshop and who needs to be in that risk workshop and more to the point which I love what you brought up because I always encourage this is like you need someone in there who wasn't need neck deep in the field study and talking to all the um potentially impacted stakeholders because or community members or whoever they may be or even maybe the client. You want someone who's a bit more objective to sit in that room who can test your assumptions. Are you sure?
Why are you saying that? You're saying it's very high. Why are you saying that? Because it seems to me maybe that it's not that high a risk.
Because whether we like it or not, we're human. And when you're hearing people telling you, it's easy to start to um empathize with them. And you can empathy is a great things for building relationships, but it's not very good for being, you know, when you're being empathetic, you're there the wrong side of your brain that's being engaged. That's your emotional side, which is fantastic for for connecting with your uh communities with the people who might be affected and to building rapport with them. It's not so great when it comes to being able to look for the logical solutions. You know, you you need that other side of your brain. So, you need to be able to switch from both. And having an having someone who was removed from it can help you bring you out of that and into another side of your brain to sort of look objectively and sit back and go, am I overstating that? Or you can d and sometimes you go, no, no, I've thought about it. You've made me think about it. And actually, no, I'm not overstating it. It really is. And and sometimes it makes you go, actually, yeah, you're right. Maybe I maybe I I am being a little bit
overstating in that. And sometimes it's understating, you know, you we can we can understate things as well. So having that objective person there and having a model and a framework or whatever you want to call it that allows you to to help them to say this is how I might conduct this in a way that gives a bit of rigor to my research. And I think that's particularly useful for people like you pointed out that maybe didn't learn the social sciences, right?
Yeah. No, no, exactly. And you know I don't think having tools whether it's a checklist a road map or a template. I don't think it's um taking anything away from from the expert or or you know makes them any less of an expert. If anything it just makes them organized. It just makes them prepared for the next stage of the project for the next stage of delivering the information and doing the assessments. And you know very often we have limited time on the field. So we have sometimes 3 days to collect all the information we will ever need or ever get. And you need to you need to plan
and that comes with understanding what's the deliverable what will need to go in there so I can go prepared and maximize my time and come home with all all the information I would need. So yeah, I think uh even uh I I will benefit from reading.
I actually love that because I mean that's that's at the root of why I I did it and I find that you're exactly right. um it doesn't take away from being an expert and what it really does is and I hope that this book does and that's the intent of this book is that um it we are put limitations on us as you alluded to right we maybe we don't have what is uh adequate time and this is again that theory versus practice in theory we should be able to do this really lovely uh social impact assessment that we're going to have heaps of time and we're going to talk to everybody and we're going to have a we're going to have a wonderful sample size and it's all going to be uh wonderful and what actually happens is that you can't get the sample size that you want. You might not be able to get all the data that you need. You might have time frames that a little bit pushed and unrealistic. So, how do you build rigor in and how do you better uh use the time that you do have to get the best possible data set you can? And it's exactly what he said. It's good planning.
Yeah, I think that's that's the perfect uh takeaway for this episode. Project management, learning about business and budgeting and finance. Even if you work with social impact,
things that you didn't sign up for.
Yes,
exactly. Thank
Thank you, Andrea, for being here with me today and for talking about your podcast, your platform, and your book.
I'm really excited to see how it's uh unfolding in the next couple months and um yeah I'm sure we will be back to discuss some more at a later stage.
Most definitely love thank you for having me. It's been lovely talking to you again. So thank you.
So this was it today about social impact and what it means to be a social impact practitioner in practice. Uh, thank you for being here with us today and we'll be back with some more next time.
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