Social Impact Investing

SOCIAL IMPACT INVESTMENT: BUILDING THE EVIDENCE BASE
6. SOCIAL IMPACT INVESTMENT MARKET DATA: INITIAL FINDINGS
This chapter summarizes the initial work on data collection, focusing on the G7
countries and Australia. It reviews the available data and current data collection
processes and highlights some of the data challenges, including in terms of pulling
together reliable and internationally comparable data. It also provides
recommendations for moving forward.
6.1. Introduction
6.1 As seen in the development of other parts of capital markets (venture capital, angel investment,
etc.) data on activity and performance can play an important role in helping to grow the market. Even at
this early stage of development of the social impact investment market, a stronger evidence base would
help in encouraging a global market to develop (HM Government, 2013c). Different players involved in
the market, including policymakers, have been calling for more data on SII as well as a better and more
accurate understanding of the size, scope, evolution and potential of the market.
6.2 The OECD has sought to gather information on SII data sources and data collection processes.
The research process included reviewing the academic literature that focuses on SII-related data, industry
reports that bring together information on the size and scope of SII in the different countries and
information from other data sources. The OECD conducted further research to provide an overview of
existing SII data sources and data collection approaches, pinpointing main data-related challenges.
6.3 As an integral part of this process, the OECD worked together with SII data experts and
academics to identify major data gaps and challenges, as well as to discuss ideas for better data collection
in the future. The OECD organised two SII Expert Meetings in the first half of 2014. The first meeting
took place on the 21 st March, 2014 at the OECD headquarters in Paris. The second meeting was held on the
18 th June, 2014 at the U.K. Cabinet Office, London. The OECD thanks the UK Cabinet Office for hosting
the meeting as well as all participants in both workshops for their input into the process. The list of
participants in both workshops can be found in Annex A.
6.4 A number of data challenges are common to all the parts of the SII framework. First, data needs
to be collected in a more comparable way across countries. Harmonised definitions of social enterprises,
social impact investors and social impact investment transactions are needed to facilitate cross country data
collection efforts. Second, with unclear definitional boundaries, deciding what exactly is being measured
(target population) is a major challenge and limits the scope for any sampling exercise. Third, and also as a
result of definitional challenges, measurement errors are common, either overstating or understating the
target population. Finally, it is unclear how detailed the data breakdown should be. Higher levels of
granularity are more informative, but require data collection efforts that are more resource intensive and
involve further related challenges in terms of deciding what should or should not be included as SII.
Overcoming such barriers can help unlocking data that is not yet accessible.
6.5 This section discusses different data types, reviews which data are currently available, what types
of data collection processes are currently in place and what other data is needed.
80 © OECD 2015