Social Impact
JoyDew has measurably increased the quality of life for both the adult members and their parents in important ways. Members say they have purpose, faith in themselves, and feel respected as a valued employee and contributor to society. Their newly acquired ability to self-express improves their mental and physical health, and many are enjoying true peer friendships for the first time in their lives.
Family Perspectives
"I know that now, Jonathan has a bright future, and he knows it too. Yes, he has a severe condition, but inside is a very caring, highly intelligent, capable person that I didn't know existed before his attendance at JoyDew."
- Lawrence Lam, parent
The families are thrilled to see their loved ones so happy, engaged, and productive. They report significant stress reduction in the home and improved health and home economics as their time has been freed for their own employment and other endeavors. Many of them have also been able to go back to work since they no longer need to provide caregiving during work hours, leading to a significant improvement in their financial situation. Perhaps most importantly, they say they have renewed hope and that they worry less about their loved one's future since they have a place to work for life in a community of friends.
Finally, clients have benefitted from access to an untapped work force with exceptional skills. They are also able to support their diversity goals, and receive the "social aura" and as leaders in their social commitments by supporting a social enterprise organization.
As an innovative, disruptive, hybrid social enterprise, JoyDew has developed a robust, measurable set of impact metrics that steers the organization and ensures that its pivots are always aligned with the mission. Impact metrics are different than Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) because they are as much inward looking as they are outward looking, to track changes in the lives of key stakeholders, and they are based on more than an organization or company's performance, which is traditionally primarily focused only on the financial health of the firm.
Impact Management and Measurement (IMM) is a growing field of methods, tools, and best practices that monitor and evaluate an organization or program's outcomes to determine what impacts, negative or positive, can be attributed or correlated to the activities and outputs of the organization. The work of impact "management" is a monitoring practice that moves away from measurement as a static, technical, or linear process, to one that is strategic, adaptive, and iterative.
Measuring real impact is, by definition, a long-term practice of understanding change. JoyDew's commitment to rigorous evidence-based impact management and measurement (IMM), and reporting, is contingent on four best practices in the field:
- Collect data the organization already needs to collect to operate.
- Impact measurement should serve downward accountability, to those intended to experience impact, as opposed to upward accountability, to those providing the money.
- Constantly aware of any technical, cultural, or political barriers that may cause misalignment with our impact management and measurement process and metrics, so they do not impede our ability to scale.
- Serve as a lighthouse to influence co-investors and other organizations, companies, or funds trying to achieve similar impacts in the lives of adults with autism and their families by sharing our methods, data, and lessons learned.