Measuring Social Outreach: Albania

This article describes a social auditing tool that was used to test the social impact of a MFI in Albania. It discusses the development of a tool to assess the social performance of MFIs.

The article states that socially responsible investors  are motivated by the "double bottom line" that is, they are seeking both a financial as well as a social return on their investment. social audit tool includes:

• Both objective and subjective assessments;
• Objective component assesses the MFIs social performance using a "social performance scorecard";
• Subjective component assesses the MFI's social performance according to the auditor's judgement on the MFI's commitment and capacity to achieve social returns based on five internal processes;
• MFI's performance on the scorecard and in the five internal processes that form the basis for awarding the MFI a social rating score indicates the MFI's likelihood of creating significant social impact.

The article concludes that the field test of the social audit tool in Albania confirmed that doing a social audit is possible. Social audit provided important information on the MFIs' processes that could not be gleaned from self-reported financial performance information.