‘Social impact’ is everywhere right now. Everyone’s talking about it, and many are claiming they’re ‘doing it’. But beyond the buzzword, how many people (or organisations) actually understand what it means, or what they’re truly ‘impacting’ upon?
Before we explore what social impact is, we first need to step back and look at the system it lives within: society itself.
The system beneath the buzzword
All natural systems, from the cells in our body to the forces of the universe, are constantly shifting and working towards existing in a state of balance – what we call equilibrium.
Let’s borrow from physics for a moment (without getting too deep into science!), because the principles that govern the natural world can also help us understand how change happens in complex systems. Just as energy is never lost but continually transformed (the law of conservation of energy), and every action creates an equal and opposite reaction (Newton’s third law of motion), when something happens within a system to disrupt it, that disruption has a ripple effect throughout the rest of the system. Therefore, the system responds by adjusting and adapting other parts of it to balance out the disruption and return to a state of equilibrium.
Society as a living system
Society is one such system. At its heart, the societal system is made up of people and relationships — the choices we make, the way we connect, and the patterns we reinforce. A system that encompasses people, our environment, our behaviours, how we relate to one another, services, the economy, politics… all these elements exist in a complex, interrelated network that is constantly responding and reacting to shifts and changes in other aspects of it, including things that humans choose to do.
So, what is social impact?
Which brings us to the question of – what actually is social impact?
Most simply – social impact is the impact that we, as humans, have on the societal system we exist in.
While the term ‘social impact’ is often used to describe intentional efforts to improve society, in truth, all human activity creates social impact — positive, negative, or neutral. It encompasses any impact that disrupts the system of society.
When we use resources from the environment to create a product that we sell to our customers. When we provide expertise to a client that influences them to make changes to their life. Even when we smile at someone in the street – all these actions can impact on the wider social system, often in ways we couldn’t even imagine.
The complexity of measuring social impact
The system of society is a really hard thing to try and comprehend – because it’s not tangible. We can’t see the networks and the relationships; we can’t see how things interrelate and respond to one another. Often, the reactions to things that happen occur at a spot in the system far removed from where we are, so we can’t see the impact of them on a wider scale.
This is why social impact is such a challenging thing to truly understand and measure… Yet it’s also why insights, evaluation, and systems thinking are so essential. They help us see what’s shifting, learn from it, and adapt our strategies to create more intentional impact.
Shaping the systems we are part of
Understanding social impact begins with recognising that we are all part of something bigger – an interconnected system that’s constantly evolving in response to what we do. When we see social impact through this lens, it becomes less about ticking a box or proving our worth, and more about awareness, learning, and social responsibility.
In my next piece, I’ll explore why this even matters, particularly for businesses and organisations, and how applying insights, evaluation, and systems thinking can help us make decisions that not only serve our own goals, but also strengthen the wider systems that we are part of.
Social impact isn’t just what happens as a by-product of our actions — it’s what we can intentionally shape when we understand the system we’re part of.