In the eleventh of a series of interviews with social enterprise professionals, On Purpose associate Peter Babudu talks to Camilla Nevill, deputy head of measurement and evaluation at New Philanthropy Capital, a consultancy and thinktank dedicated to helping funders and charities to achieve a greater social impact.
How did you get to where you are now?
Having studied psychology and developed a love for research at university, I made the decision to work in research, rather than train as a psychologist. I spent four years at the National Centre for Social Research designing, implementing and analysing social surveys and evaluations to inform criminal and welfare policy. I heard of NPC through a friend — at the time NPC were looking for someone to take forward the development of their charity Well-being Measure. For me it was an exciting opportunity to apply the skills I had developed to helping charities address some of the challenges they face.
Why is being a socially responsible business important to you and your organisation?
NPC, as a not-for-profit is not a social enterprise, but social responsibility is very much at the heart of what we do. We believe that organisations, including charities, funders and social enterprises, have a responsibility to try and be as effective as possible in tackling the issues they were set up to solve. From my perspective, this means measuring impact in order to learn and improve services and, ultimately, create the maximum benefit for the people they work with.
What does your job involve?
I work with charities helping them to quantify their impact and advising them on the best approaches to measuring the outcomes of the work they do. This includes working with individual charities to develop bespoke measurement frameworks and tools, and developing shared approaches such as NPC's well-being measure, which will be available to charities next year. I also promote the benefits of measurement. I have worked with a range of charities including Barnardo's, The Prince's Trust, Beatbullying, Macmillan and Mind. Recent projects I have been involved in include developing a measurement framework for a network of mental health charities, and writing a report on the measurement challenges and solutions for youth justice charities.
What is the most difficult or rewarding part of your job?
I am often juggling a number of projects, each with its own challenges—whether working out how to capture the intangible outcomes of light-touch arts interventions, or creating a shared framework that is flexible enough that it can be used by 180 diverse organisations, each project has its own problems and solutions. Most rewarding is seeing how much of a difference that successfully overcoming these barriers can make to the charities involved.
Where do you see the Social Enterprise movement in five years time?
In five years I hope to see the sector as a whole, social enterprises included, understanding the benefits of impact measurement and being in a position to use concrete evidence of their impact to more effectively motivate staff, improve services and win funds. I hope to have been instrumental in bringing about some of that change.
And where do you see yourself at that point?
I see myself continuing to work with charities to use measurement and evaluation to solve social problems, at NPC or elsewhere. I believe that the best way to do this is to focus on sectors, because the measurement challenges facing education or youth justice charities are very different from those present in health or homelessness, for example.
Camilla Nevill was interviewed by Peter Babudu, a 2011 On Purpose Associate. Peter joined On Purpose after leaving Clifford Chance and working with the charity membership organisations ACEVO and BOND. His On Purpose placements are at HCT and Startle.
On Purpose is a leadership programme that helps high-calibre professionals kick-start a career in social enterprise; it combines paid work experience with intensive training and support.
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