Social Impact Measurement Professional Certificate

To register for the full certificate, or individual modules, click below.

Questions? Contact ce.stmikes@utoronto.ca

Alumni of USMC and the SR&S Diploma, as well as Non-Profit Staff, enjoy discounts of 15%

  • Social Impact Measurement FULL Professional Certificate
  • Module 1: Foundations of Social Impact Measurement

    Foundations of Social Impact Measurement

    This comprehensive module introduces key concepts and frameworks in social impact measurement, providing participants with essential knowledge to create, implement, and evaluate impact strategies.

    Past Participants Said:

    “I felt this set a very strong foundation for how I now understand social impact measurement that I can directly apply to my work. Coming into the course, I thought I knew more than I did and it was a humbling experience to realize how much I don’t know and how much more I need to learn. This set me on the right path and gave me a lot of information that I can refer back to over time.”

    “I had several ‘light bulb’ moments during this course that have made a difference in the way I think about social impact measurement. It was also a great opportunity to build connections with peers in the sector.”

    Learning Outcomes:

    • Understand core concepts including “standards,” “frameworks,” “logic model,” “theory of change,” “social impact,” and how these concepts evolve across different sectors
    • Examine the value of Theory of Change and explore current impact reporting practices
    • Compare approaches across various vectors:
      • Qualitative vs. Quantitative methodologies
      • Applications in nonprofits, social enterprises, and corporations
      • Frameworks such as Common Approach, SROI, UN SDG Impact Standards, and more
    • Contrast impact thesis, logic models, theory of change, and ecosystem mapping
    • Develop standardized language for impact measurement within organizations
    • Understand ESG and impact spectrum, including materiality vs. impact-focused approaches
    • Explore social impact data use cases across sectors with examples of depth of impact, counterfactual analysis, and contribution analysis

    Next Offerings:

    Fall 2026: November 17 & 18, 2026, In-person, 9:00am to 5:00pm at University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto (final assignment due December 8)

    Winter 2027: February 10 & 11, 2027, In-person, 9:00am to 5:00pm at University of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto (final assignment due March 3)

    Registration:

    • Regular Rate: $1450.00
    • USMC Alumni/Nonprofit Rate: $1232.50

    Alumni Rate applies to all University of St. Michael’s College and SR&S Diploma alumni.

    Past Attendees:

    Individuals from: Canadian Tire Jumpstart Charities, City of Kingston, Sleeman Breweries, Distill Consulting, Lactalis Canada, Kindred Works, Eli Lilly Canada, Kindred Credit Union, Alcool NB Liquor, The King’s Trust Canada, Allstate Insurance Company of Canada, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, University of Toronto Mississauga.

    Titles of Individuals: Senior Advisor, Data Insight & Social Impact; Partnership & Grant Manager, Community Investment Professional, Principal Consultant, Senior Analyst, ESG; Head of Corporate and External Affairs, Management Consultant, Manager – Communications, Manager, Social Impact, Corporate Social Responsibility – Team Lead, Director, Outreach and Strategy, Director, Programming Manager, Social Impact & The Allstate Foundation of Canada. Program Manager, Community Outreach & Education | Education & Training.

    Instructional Team:

    Anshula Chowdhury (Lead Instructor) and Former CEO, SAMETRICA

  • Module 2: Designing a Theory of Change

    Designing a Theory of Change

    This module provides a practical foundation in Theory of Change methodologies and their application in measuring social impact across various organizational contexts.

    Past Participants Said:

    “This module is a great resource for any organization committed to ensuring its programs and projects create meaningful, lasting change in the community. Too often, organizations focus on activities and outputs without fully understanding whether their work is leading to transformational, long term impact. This course provides the structure, tools, and insight needed to bridge that gap.”

    Learning Outcomes:

    • Understand and apply the Theory of Change and Logic Model, inputs, outputs, outcomes and financial proxies to an organization
    • Introduce the concept of partners/”all people affected,” and identify strategies for how to engage these groups including:
      • Developing shared measures
      • Developing and aligning on shared goals
      • Examine how to create shared partners/all people affected plans with charities, nonprofits and social enterprise partners/all people affected for program implementation, data collection and reporting
      • Ensuring their perspectives are heard and incorporated into all aspects of the social impact measurement
    • Describe the ethical frameworks that social impact measurement practitioners can select from, as well as the “non-negotiable” elements of these frameworks
    • Describe the risks associated with greenwashing, and review case studies of these impacts
    • Summarize frameworks and standards, and illustrate how they can be used within a Theory of Change and Logic Model for different organizations
    • Explain how the changing social, political, and economic context is driving the evolution of organizational enterprise strategy and purpose, and how this is connected to its social impact activities
    • Determine an organization’s social purpose, vision, mission, and strategy and explain the drivers for change
    • Identify the high level options for developing plans to operationalize social impact measurement strategies
    • Identify possible tools, process, and technology infrastructure that can be considered for each stage of operationalizing a social impact measurement strategy. Provide:
      • A practical list of these tools, existing standardized software processes, and infrastructure
      • Guidance on how to develop criteria for evaluating and selecting impact measurement software/consultants
    • Apply a logic model and theory of change to describe the social impact an organization wants to achieve (impact intention), the positive results most central to the change, the activities to be undertaken, and the process of change
    • Analyze a best practice case study to identify the alignment of social purpose, strategic objectives, impact goals and related Theory of Change and Logic Model

    Deliverables and Culminating Assessment:

    • Create a statement of an organization’s overarching mission, core values, and social purpose reflecting its commitment to making a positive social impact
    • Create a Theory of Change for an organization including: Draft logic model, impact goals, identification of target partners/all people affected and impact partners/all people affected
    • Develop a Impact Thesis (concise statement of your organization’s intended social impact) and compare and contrast with others

    Next Offerings:

    January 12 to February 11, 2027, synchronous online sessions (Tuesday & Thursday, 12 noon – 1:30 pm ET), with asynchronous readings and assignments

    April 6 to May 6, 2027, synchronous online sessions (Tuesday & Thursday, 12 noon – 1:30 pm ET), with asynchronous readings and assignments

    Registration:

    • Regular Rate: $1400
    • USMC Alumni/Nonprofit Rate: $1190.00

    Alumni Rate applies to all University of St. Michael’s College and SR&S Diploma alumni.

  • Module 3: Building a Measurement & Data Strategy

    Building a Measurement & Data Strategy

    This module provides a comprehensive framework for developing meaningful metrics and indicators to measure social impact, with emphasis on stakeholder engagement and effective data practices.

     

    Learning Outcomes:

    • Identify a shared plan for engaging with partners/all people affected, with an emphasis on the methodological importance of including the perspective of those experiencing the impact
    • Identify a metrics or indicators plan, who is involved in its creation and its purpose
    • Identify the process and goals of connecting social metrics with business metrics
    • Identify the metrics data pipeline and tools
    • Identify and Map data phases: Data Collection, Data Compilation, Data Analysis, Learnings, Data Visualization and Communicating to partners/all people affected
    • Explain how you will know that progress and change have happened with your chosen indicator
    • Explain how the indicator will consider duration, depth and scale of change
    • Explain how to ensure indicators are time-specific and how they can be observed and measured
    • Describe how to secure benchmark or baseline data
    • Compare and contrast different frameworks used in choosing metrics and indicators; including UN SDGs, SASB, IRIS+, Canadian Index of Wellbeing, SROI, GRI, Impact – Weighted Accounts and discuss how to choose the frameworks best suited to your social impact initiative
    • Describe the needs of partners/all people affected and the positive societal impacts desired
    • Describe (Create) an evaluation framework for an organization that outlines the methods, indicators, data sources, and tools that will be used to assess the effectiveness of the initiative
    • Explore options for capacity building to ensure resourcing is available for the social impact measurement strategy
    • Discuss power imbalances between programs and charitable partners in the sector, and how to resolve or mitigate them where possible. This includes:
      • High level overview and data of funding allocations in the market, and what this means for funding scarcity

    Deliverables and Culminating Assessment:

    • Complete a metrics or indicators data collection strategy template to use in your impact measurement program and explain why you chose this approach

    Next Offerings:

    March 3 & 4, 2027, in person on campus at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. Final assignment due March 24.

    June 2 & 3, 2027, in person on campus at the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto. Final assignment due June 23.

    Registration:

    • Regular Rate: $1450.00
    • Alumni/Nonprofit Rate: $1232.50

    Alumni Rate applies to all University of St. Michael’s College and SR&S Diploma alumni.

    Instructional Team:

    TBC

  • Module 4: Building the Business Case for Impact

    Building the Business Case for Social Impact

    This module focuses on building a compelling business case for social impact measurement, addressing cost considerations, organizational alignment, and implementation strategy.

    Learning Outcomes:

    • Identify the opportunities and risks associated with your social impact objectives
    • Describe key elements that determine good data for impact creation within your organization
    • Examine the enablers and barriers to effective impact measurement and discuss what this means for your organization
    • Determine the estimated cost of implementation of your social impact program based on cost allocation methods. This will result in cost per data point collected, total aggregate cost of each data collection method. Critically assess this data against the organizational context in which the impact measurement is taking place
    • Review different options for cost allocation between funders and partners/all people affected. Evaluate the full cost of ownership of a social impact measurement strategy from the lens of long-term sustainability of the proposed plan
    • Assess the shared plan for engaging with partners/all people affected and examine their needs for reporting, to enable reporting across multiple partner types for education and data empowerment
    • Analyze the systems change required and the intersectionality of systems such as climate change and equity
    • Identify opportunities that the social impact measurement strategy opens for the organization, and critically assess these opportunities against the cost of undertaking them
    • Select/develop a capacity building strategy and plan to ensure resourcing is available for the social impact measurement strategy

    Deliverable and Culminating Assessment:

    • Using your insights from the current module, and module 2 and 3, determine the business and impact case for senior leadership, that provides a cost of implementation, alignment with original drivers of the business strategy, and discusses the added business value the implementation will bring
    • Identify weak points in the business case that will need to be strengthened for organizational buy-in

    Next Offerings:

    May 4 to May 25, 2027 (7 lectures, Tuesday & Thursday, 12 noon -1:30 pm), final assignment due June 15.

    September 7 to September 28, 2027 (7 lectures, Tuesday & Thursday, 12 noon -1:30 pm), final assignment due October 18.

    Registration:

    • Regular Rate: $950.00
    • USMC Alumni/Nonprofit Rate: $807.50

    Alumni Rate applies to all University of St. Michael’s College and SR&S Diploma alumni.

    Instructional Team:

    Anshula Chowdhury, LEAD Instructor and Former CEO, SAMETRICA

  • Module 5: Communicating Social Impact

    Communicating Social Impact

    This module addresses the technological and methodological aspects of gathering, analyzing, and communicating impact data, with emphasis on ethical frameworks and stakeholder collaboration.

    Learning Outcomes:

    • Assess an organizations’ current data tools and identify the gap between what is available and what is needed, and what is possible given current constraints
    • Create a collaborative plan to assess partner information needs considering storytelling as well as information on outputs, outcomes, and impact
    • Examine the pros and cons of different methods of data gathering including surveys, interviews and focus groups and choose the methods most appropriate to your impact
      • Review against data security and regulations
    • Examine the metrics/indicators an organization currently has access to and how they might be modified or aligned with the strategy
    • Identify benchmarking and comparators for your proposed social impact measurement
    • Evaluate data capacity, data tools, and data strategy
    • Identify an ethical framework for data collection including data privacy
    • Identify internal and external partners/all people affected who will interact with the tools, their capacity to collect, analyze, interpret and take action on data, the levels of effort required, and develop a consultation plan
    • Examine the opportunities for working with partners/all people affected to measure
      • Review strategies change management and strategies for managing discussions about data collection and interpreting results
    • Describe the best practices for data collection, compilation, analysis and communication. Identify the financial requirements for data tools and align with the impact assessment goals

    Deliverable and Culminating Assessment:

    • Create a plan to leverage technology to collect, compile, analyze and communicate reliable and credible data on the outcome-oriented metrics selected

    Next Offering:

    July 6 to July 27, 2027 (7 lectures, Tuesdays & Thursdays, 12 noon -1:30 pm online via Zoom) Final due August 17

    November 2 to November 23, 2027 (7 lectures, Tuesdays & Thursdays, 12 noon -1:30 pm online via Zoom) Final due December 13

    Registration:

    • Regular Rate: $950.00
    • USMC Alumni/Nonprofit Rate: $807.50

    Alumni Rate applies to all University of St. Michael’s College and SR&S Diploma alumni.

    Instructional Team:

    TBC