“The hunger for Innovation. Social Purpose Entities are looking for tools that will help them think and communicate differently about their impact….”
Over the past few years, something has shifted in how social economy organisations think about impact. It is no longer a ticking the box exercise or a donor requirement to be dealt with at the end of the year. Increasingly, Social Purpose Entities (SPEs) understand that measuring impact is a strategic asset — one that shapes how they are perceived and how they position themselves in a landscape where accountability is becoming a must.
But knowing something matters and having the means to act on it – are two very different things. The gap between awareness and practice remains wide, and the core problem has not changed: the tools available are either too expensive, too complex, or simply not built with Social Purpose Entities in mind.
That is precisely why, within the framework of the ADALTIM project, Diesis Network contributed to a Market Needs Assessment, carried out by the Human Foundation, we surveyed social economy organisations across Europe, having at the disposal the widest network on the continent. As Diesis Network is working daily at the intersection of social economy practice and European policy, the findings were very clear and validating. They tell us what we already sense on the ground, but with the kind of evidence that allows us to push for real solutions.
Where organisations actually are?
The first thing the research makes clear is that most SPEs are in a phase of transition, not maturity, when it comes to impact measurement. The Theory of Change remains the most widely adopted framework — which tells us that organisations understand the logic of their work and want to articulate it, but have not yet moved into more systematic, data-driven practice. Most are still relying on spreadsheets, manual databases, and stakeholder surveys to collect impact data. Dedicated digital tools remain the exception rather than the habit.
This is not a failure. It is a starting point. And it is a starting point that any meaningful platform needs to take seriously, rather than assuming a level of internal capacity that simply does not exist in most of the Social Purpose Entities ( or Social Economy organisations).
What are they asking for?
When asked what they would want from an ideal platform, the answers were very straightforward. The top priority was automation of impact data collection — in other words, less manual work, less administrative burden, more time for the actual mission. Real-time dashboards for reporting and analytics came close behind. Organisations also expressed a genuine appetite for benchmarking tools and a unified metrics catalogue, features that would allow them not just to measure, but to compare and learn.
What struck us here is the hunger for innovation. The innovativeness scores given to several of these features were notably high, even when importance scores were more moderate. Organisations are not just looking for efficiency — they are looking for tools that will help them think and communicate differently about their impact.
The barriers that remain
None of this comes as a surprise: budget constraints were said by most respondents, and they cut across all organisation sizes. This is not a problem of small organisations being underfunded. It is a structural feature of the sector. Alongside cost, integration complexity and the lack of internal expertise came up repeatedly. Organisations are cautious about adopting new tools that would require significant technical adjustment, and rightly so when internal capacity is already stretched.
The asymmetry we need to talk about
For me, the most important finding in the entire report is one that does not get discussed enough: the information asymmetry between social economy organisations and investors.
Investors want standardised, comparable, decision-oriented data. SPEs are producing narrative reports, mission-aligned communications, and customised impact stories that are authentic but not easily comparable across their portfolios of work. The result is a disconnect — different metrics, inconsistent reporting, and almost no feedback loops between those who generate impact data and those who use it to make capital allocation decisions.
This is not just an investor problem or an SPE problem. It is an ecosystem problem. And the report frames it as such: closing this gap is a shared interest. Better-structured reporting from SPEs would improve their access to capital. Investors would gain the comparability they need to deploy resources with more confidence and accountability.
Why this matters for Social Economy?
At Diesis Network, we work with social economy organisations that are already doing extraordinary things — creating jobs, building inclusive communities, delivering services where markets have failed. The challenge is making that work legible to the wider world in a way that opens doors rather than closes them.
The ADALTIM project is trying to build part of that bridge, and this research gives us a clearer picture of what the bridge needs to look like: modular, affordable, guided, accessible to organisations at different stages of their measurement journey, and designed to reduce the reporting burden rather than add to it.
The market has plenty of tools for large corporations and institutional investors. What it still largely lacks are infrastructure built for organisations like ours — that is proportionate to our capacities, connected to our realities, and ambitious about what we can achieve when the right support is in place.
That is the conversation we hope we can keep having, together.
The information in the blog is taken from the “Market Needs Assessment Report”: produced by research team of Human Foundation, as a deliverable of project Adaltim, funded by the European Union.