NHC member Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF) revealed last month an update to its Social Impact Calculator tool, Social Impact Calculator 2.0. The tool is designed to allow community developers to measure the impact of affordable housing and other community investments by determining what works to improve the lives of people in those communities.
The first iteration of the calculator was launched last year. New features include the ability to calculate an internal rate of social return, select from different social discount rates, assess cumulative impact across several development projects and analyze multiple areas of impact for a single project. By estimating a development’s overall social impact, the calculator helps to show what, in addition to shelter, affordable housing developments provide to communities.
“LIIF created the Social Impact Calculator last year to share our approach to measuring social impact and provide an open-source resource for the field. The new features reflect our evolving thinking and our efforts to better measure our work,” LIIF President and CEO Nancy O. Andrews told Affordable Housing Finance in a statement. “We have appreciated the positive response to the calculator’s release and the conversations and feedback it has created. We look forward to continuing to engage with others who are seeking to measure, accelerate and communicate the social impact of community development projects.”
Ensuring communities have adequate affordable having available to meet the need is an essential part to revitalization and development. Our 2015 Annual Gala, co-chaired by Andrews, honored organizations working to sustain communities post-foreclosure and strengthen comprehensive community development through health, education, public safety and much more.
The Social Impact Calculator is available here.