Gameplan
Social Impact Monitoring Tools
Big events affect communities in many ways, both positively and negatively. Monitoring and evaluation of social impacts is essential for understanding the value of big events to communities. Positive social impacts can include improvements in mental and physical wellbeing, alongside greater community cohesion, identity, pride, and empowerment. These can also lead to other benefits, such as reduced crime and anti-social behaviour. Big events can also have negative social impacts. These include intrusion into community life, overcrowding, and conflict between local people and visitors. Negative impacts reduce community engagement and occur when communities lose connection to and identity with a big event. Long term support for event programmes relies on continuous monitoring in order to maximise the benefits and minimise negative impacts. Social Impact Monitoring Tools that combine indicator measures and event stories provide a structured and rigorous approach to understanding and communicating the implications of social impacts at the community and individual levels. The Gameplan Social Impact Monitoring Tool Template provides a helpful introduction to the use of indicator measures .
Develop tools to monitor the social impacts of big events and associated activities.
Social impacts can be measured
A common misconception is that, unlike economic impacts, social impacts cannot be measured in a consistent and objective way. Although it is often difficult to apply monetary values, alternative indicator measures based on resident attitudes offer a way of measuring impacts in a systematic and quantifiable way. This ability to measure outcomes is essential when considering the evidence-based needs
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