The Politics of (E)valuation in Community Projects: Creating a Living Impact Methodology to Pluralize Accountability and Center Lived Experience
针对社区组织面临的不当评估方法，提出一种基于参与者自我叙述和生活经验的参与式社会投资回报方法，通过活态影响方法论展示转型项目的社会影响，推动评估问责的多元化和民主化。
ABSTRACT Increasingly, community‐based organizations (CBOs) that have a social impact are required to evidence their impact through accountability and evaluation methods that are complex and inappropriate for their specific context. In response to this challenge, we offer a participatory approach to social return on investment (SROI), which builds on a participant's own self‐narration of their past and their lived experience of engaging with the CBO. To do this, we draw upon participatory action research and oral history methodologies in combination with social value methodologies to refocus evaluation and accountability on the impact experienced by those in the community. By engaging in a tripartite approach—which we name the Living Impact Methodology—we are able to show the social impact of transformative projects, beyond what would usually be captured in accounting and accountability, shifting the way that CBOs engage with SROI evaluation. By engaging with community members in the process of transformative accountability, we demonstrate a methodological approach that academics can use to work with CBOs to pluralize and democratize forms of accounting and accountability in the evaluation and monitoring of community impact projects.