ABSTRACT
Social ventures intend to make a difference in the lives of others by addressing social needs. But how do we know that what they do actually helps the beneficiaries? Measuring the impact of social ventures and other nonprofit organizations has proven difficult for both social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship scholars. Recently, however, there have been notable efforts to address this issue. This chapter focuses on explaining how to measure the impact of social ventures and why such measurement is important. It is divided into three sections. The first section defines and explains social impact. The second describes the tools that are used to measure social impact. The third discusses the management of social impact.
