Impact management needs and challenges of youth associations in the Baltics and best practice examples
Social Entrepreneurship Association of Latvia together with four partner organisations from the Baltic States – Latvian Youth Council (LV), Eesti Noorteühenduste Liit (EST), Stories For Impact (EST), Geri norai (LT) are implementing Erasmus+ project BALTIC : YOUTH : IMPACT to improve impact management of youth social enterprises and non-governmental organisations. The main objectives of the project are to improve the skills and knowledge of youth organisations in social impact management (measurement, evaluation and communication) and to promote the importance of social impact management by developing practical, user-friendly social impact management tools.
The first phase of the BALTIC: YOUTH: IMPACT project observed whether youth organisations and social enterprises in the three Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – measure their social impact. The project partners surveyed youth organisations and social enterprises in their countries, identifying good examples and recommendations for youth organisations in social impact management.
In order to compile a summary of social impact management by youth organisations and social enterprises in the three Baltic States, the partners looked at the youth policy planning documents in their countries to observe the presence of the impact topic, as well as the context of this concept in youth policy.
The project surveyed more than 50 youth organisations and social enterprises in the Baltic States working with young people, such as youth organisations and councils, student associations and university clubs, as well as social enterprises working in the youth field. Five in-depth interviews were conducted in each country, three with organisations that measure their impact and two with those that do not. These activities resulted in a Social Impact Report that provides an overview of previous research on social impact, looks at good examples of youth organisations from the three Baltic States and offers practical recommendations on how to start to measure organisation’s impact.
