Irish Life cares to go with Gauge to measure impact of Age Action in Ireland
Gauge, a social enterprise business which measures social, economic and environmental impact has been commissioned by Irish Life to measure the impact and value of its investment in Age Action’s Care & Repair programme across Ireland.
As part of Irish Life’s Corporate Responsibility strategy, the company has invested in Age Action Ireland for the past five years. The Care & Repair Programme was established by Age Action to carry out minor repairs for older and vulnerable people and to provide a befriending service. The programme is currently delivered directly by Age Action volunteers and staff in Cork, Dublin and Galway. In addition, some twenty local community entities (or Franchise Partners) work to deliver the service with the support of Age Action throughout the country. This outreach is continuing to be developed.
The need to measure the value created for every euro invested in organisations is increasingly becoming the norm when evaluating the impacts and sustainability of programmes and initiatives across the public, private, third and philanthropic sectors. Irish Life recognise this and have commissioned Gauge to carry out an Impact Evaluation of the social and economic value and impact their investment has had on the programme. As Irish Life’s funding comes to an end in 2011, the evaluation is also timely for Age Action as a lever for attracting a third party corporate donor or benefactor. By demonstrating the value the programme has achieved and forecasting its future return is of strategic importance to the direction of the programme moving forward and sustaining delivery in today’s fragile climate and continuing public spending cuts. The vision of the Age Action’s Care & Repair Programme is to enable older and vulnerable people to remain in their own homes, in their own communities, living as independently as possible, through the improvement of their housing conditions and their level of comfort and security.
Gauge have been working with organisations within Third, Philanthropy and Corporate sectors across Ireland including community, voluntary and social enterprise organisations. The space in and between these sectors is equally recognised by Irish Life as a leading corporate responsible organisation in Ireland. Its Head of Corporate Responsibility, Gerry Loughrey says “We have supported Age Action Ireland as a community partner in developing the Care & Repair programme from scratch over the past five years. We can see the evidence of the positive impact that the programme is having in local communities around Ireland. Now we are working with Gauge to measure that value in terms of euro and cents”.
Equally, third sector organisations are increasingly turning to measuring the value and impacts of their own work with increasing attention to the social and economic value and impacts created for communities and beneficiaries across Ireland. Fran Flood, National Development Manager, at Age Action Ireland recognises the need to develop a sustainable model for its Care & Repair Programme.
Fran acknowledges, “We very much appreciate the support of Irish Life since the programme’s inception. We also look forward to working with Gauge on this project to ensure the sustainable future of the programme”.
