In close cooperation with TIAS School for Business and Society in Tilburg and consultancy firm WHISE (The office for social profit creation) in ‘s-Hertogenbosch we developed an approach to develop a full picture of public value creation. The approach is inspired by the work of Harvard professor Mark Moore and has been made operational in the Social Profit Canvas. It elaborates on the work Marc Vermeulen does at TIAS in the field innovations and impact in the public domain.
The Social Profit Canvas is a model that gives insight in behaviour, effect and consequences which leads to useful guidelines for professionals and organisations to improve their social impact. In 2019 we published the book ‘Social Profit Canvas, vertrekpunt voor sociale winst en waarde’
The Social Profit Canvas is a simple model for complex issues. It is flexible, transparent and intuitively easy to understand. As such the model can be used at all levels in the public domain. In the Netherlands the canvas has already been used in many ways to clear issues for non-profit organisations, whether it is to get an overall insight on the social impact of the organisation or to find a solution for a specific problem on the work floor.
Working together with organisations and universities in South Africa over the years we did see the struggle of the country to come to a new reality. According to Professor Schwella “the South African realities are challenging in terms of the fundamental and sustained issues of poverty, inequality and unemployment, pervasive in South Africa, and exacerbated by the amplifying issues of bad governance and endemic corruption”. We are convinced the Social Profit Canvas can help to improve social impact of activities in the public domain. Therefore we made a South African version of the Social Profit Canvas book. The book is in English and although written for the South African situation it can be used elsewhere.
In September 2022 we offered a version of this book to Mark Moore during a visit to Harvard University.
Early 2023 we did some masterclasses at the School for Public Leadership (STellenbosch University) and at the Hugenote College in Wellington
In a small video presentation at TIAS Marc explains the background on public value theory and he also interviewed Stellenbosch em.professor Erwin Schwella on the relevance of this theory for South Africa.
SOCIAL PROFIT CANVAS: STARTING POINT FOR SOCIAL PROFIT AND VALUE is available from
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