How corporate sponsors can measure their social value

Max Wind-Cowie is Head of the Progressive Conservatism Project at Demos. His specialist areas include wealth and assets, the 'Big Society' and inequality.

Last week, Demos launched a new report – Measuring Up – on how corporate sponsors of events and activities can measure their social value.

This report, which incorporates a new and unique measurement tool specifically tailored to corporate sponsors, aims to reduce the polarisation in the fierce debate about the role of sponsorship. Not all sponsors are cynical and corrupt but nor are all angelic philanthropists.

The answer is not to dismiss them all or to dismiss all complaints but to judge sponsors on a case-by-case basis and push for robust and transparent reporting of what they actually do.

Good businesses can no longer afford quiet confidence about social impact – they must be able to analyse and report on it. But – as polling for Demos has shown – many corporate sponsors simply cannot do this.

Almost two-thirds of corporate sponsors (59 per cent) do not measure their sponsorship activity through social value created, and a third (34 per cent) of these businesses acknowledge that they are unable to do so because no appropriate model exists for them to use. This gap has prompted Demos to develop a unique and original model of sponsorship evaluation.

The new tool for measuring the social value of corporate sponsorship activity has been built specifically for ease of use and robust reporting of corporate sponsorship. Unlike traditional models for measuring social value, it allows corporations to test the impact of their activities, funding and interventions in a time-specific and cross-cutting way.

It is specifically designed to complement and enhance more traditional methods of understanding the impact of sponsorship and commercial engagement such as ‘reach’ and ‘opportunities to see’. It is clear, robust, straightforward and tailored to the needs of major brands and businesses.

We want sponsors to be able to pilot themselves through this measurement process, to bring insight and evaluation of social value into the mainstream within their businesses. For that reason we have made our model for measurement freely and publicly available. Anyone can pick this up and run with it: we hope that businesses will do just that.

But Demos also wants to show how we can apply this measurement model in the real world – to lend weight to our case that social value measurement can and should be at the heart of sponsors’ strategies for understanding and communicating the benefits of their investment.

To that end, Demos will be independently piloting the new tool for the first time to measure the social value of Coca-Cola GB’s sponsorship of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.