Measuring the Worth of Social Good: Valuation in an Emergent Non-profit Social Enterprise

Abstract

Non-profit social enterprises address social problems with business models. This paper examines the founding years of an early non-profit social enterprise in the United States to highlight the role venture capital and venture philanthropy played in shaping performance measures. While venture philanthropies funded the creation of blended value models of performance measures, other practices from venture capital, such as taking board seats and engaging in managerial oversight, were quietly playing a profound role in the financialization of performance measurement in non-profit social enterprise. The early influence of venture capital valorised quantitative performance measures, the objectivity, calculability, and commensurability of which made them attractive to key stakeholders. More recent work in performance measurement have sought to incorporate a wider range of stakeholders. However, this paper explains the legacy of venture capital in financializing performance measures with which social enterprises continue to grapple.

Keywords:

• Social enterprise
• valuation
• quantification
• performance measurement
• social goods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Still others occupy semi-institutionalized hybrid forms, such as limited profit companies or B-Corps, both of which are attempts to provide legal status for firms with prosocial goals (Stubbs 2017)

2 Microsoft and Accenture entered into a partnership to form a technology consulting firm, Avanade, in 2000. While this was happening at the time of my fieldwork, I heard no reference to the partnership between these firms during my time in the field.