Social Impact Investing

SOCIAL IMPACT INVESTMENT: BUILDING THE EVIDENCE BASE
Services, social
Social (and collective) services provide final consumption for households and are distinctive for their
non-market character in most OECD countries. Collective consumption decisions and public financing are
common, as is production by governments, non-profit organisations and subsidised private organisations.
Social services comprise the following International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) Rev. 3 subgroups:
- government proper (civil or military);
- health services;
- educational services;
- miscellaneous social services.
Social benefits
(OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms)
Social benefits are current transfers received by households intended to provide for the needs that
arise from certain events or circumstances, for example, sickness, unemployment, retirement, housing,
education or family circumstances. (OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms)
Social Business
A non-loss, non-dividend company designed to address a societal problem through a market-based
business model. It is distinct from a non-profit because the business should seek to generate a modest profit
which will be used to expand the company’s reach, improve the product or service or in other ways
subsidise the social mission. (Source: INSEAD adapted from Yunus, 2009).
Social context
Social context refers to variables that, while not usually the direct target of policy, are crucial for
understanding the context within which social policy is developed. (OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms)
Social Enterprise
Any private activity conducted in the public interest, organised with an entrepreneurial strategy but
whose main purpose is not the maximisation of profit but the attainment of certain economic and social
goals, and which has a capacity of bringing innovative solutions to the problems of social exclusion and
unemployment. (Source: OECD, 2000)
Social expenditure
Social expenditure is the provision by public (and private) institutions of benefits to, and financial
contributions targeted at, households and individuals in order to provide support during circumstances
which adversely affect their welfare, provided that the provision of the benefits and financial contributions
constitutes neither a direct payment for a particular good or service nor an individual contract or transfer.
Such benefits can be cash transfers, or can be the direct (“in-kind”) provision of goods and services.
(OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms)
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