What is SIA?

Social impact refers to the consequences of any public or private actions that alter the ways in which people live, work, play, relate to one another, organize to meet their needs and generally cope as members of society. In some interpretation, social impact may also include the change in norms, values, and beliefs that guide interpersonal relationship and people’s relationship with the society.

In this sense, social impact assessment (SIA) would be the measurement of social impact. It is the process of analyzing, monitoring and managing the intended and unintended social consequences of any planned intervention and actions.

The purpose of SIA is to bring about a more sustainable and equitable social environment. Through the process of SIA, practitioners and policymakers, and even the public, can be better informed for the planning of future social services. SIA is not only a good means to promote the effectiveness of social services and encourage public appreciation on services, its forward-looking characteristic make it beneficial for long term social service policy planning and sector development.

 

Introduction

  • The purpose of this site is to introduce a framework for social impact assessment in the social services sector which is jointly developed by the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Council of Social Service.
  • Apart from introducing the framework, on this site, you can get a protocol that guides you along step-by-step to conduct a social impact assessment for your service, project or even your organization.
  • To facilitate your own tailor-made impact assessment design, this site provide you with an indicator bank to pick the indicators from when measuring the potential social impact your service/project/organization can achieve.
  • Supporting resources like templates for proposal/report drafting, guidelines on data collection and sample reports can also be found on this site.