Summarise the article on social impact reporting on public interest

It is important to the processual public interest that charities can participate in standardisation processes. This criterion also requires standard issuers to engage charities to build the"groundswell for some standardisation"[government advisor, #35] or"start the kind of movement of it happening"[evaluation specialist, #29]. A CEO of a non-profit stated"it has to come from the sector, from our sector, it's got to be driven by us"[development worker, #24]. Without this participation, any form of a standard approach risks"becoming a tick-a-box exercise that doesn't actually have the depth or respect of everyone involved"[social investment intermediary, #5] which will"get no buy-in"[evaluation specialist, #19]. It is also critical that a process includes seeking involvement from across the complexity and diversity of the social purpose sector. A CEO of a small charity stated that"my worry is always that there's the same people sitting up the top making the decisions and there isn't an equitable representation across the sector"and that without an equitable representation"it's going to have a negative impact", particularly on smaller organisations [#34]. A democratic, participatory process wouldfind a fair and equitable way for these diverse organisations to contribute and be heard; this participation is critical particularly given the reporting fatigue already borne by charities.

Another dimension of the standardisation process is that to be participatory and democratic, careful attention is needed to who is responsible for this process. Charities were particularly concerned about government or its agencies leading the standard-setting process. When asked who should set a social impact reporting standard, one CEO simply stated"definitely not government"[#34]. For many informants, the primary concern is government's lack of experience and engagement with the sector and understanding of the challenges they face. A government officer (who has over a decade of experience working in government), offers this frank assessment:

The individual people working in those areas [of government], they don't generally have not-for- profit experience [. . .] they are used to being in big bureaucracies and well-funded bureaucracies. They don't understand the reality of running a small or medium sized not-for-profit organisation [. . .] There's a potential that if it was led by government they could use it to beat the not-for-profit sector over the head [#35].

Other informants were concerned accountants may lead this form of standard-setting:"I understand accountants-I've been one, but they're really not the right people"[charityfinance manager, #23]. This is because they are ill-equipped to understand fully the implications of any proposed standard:"they are applying the public service model to stuff that's very broad"[CFO of small charity, #11]. Another intermediary described their"nervousness"with accountants because of"where they're coming from and what their end game is"[#19]. However, accountants can play a useful role in drafting or writing any potential standard the process generates. One informant linked this to accountants having

that standard setting experience to understand how to write things in a certain way [. . .] I would want the AASB to be involved in the drafting of it from an expertise point of view [CFO of small charity, #11].

That is, accountants can play a valuable role as participants in the process, but not leading or dominating it.

Transparency and trust.While transparency can be justified on multiple grounds, a common good perspective views transparency and visibility asshared values, rather than-as in aggregative approaches-only instrumental to efficient markets or quasi-markets. Informants expressed this underlying concept through elaborating transparency as thefirst principle from which other goals emerge. Examples include a socialfinance intermediary stating:"I think publicly disclosing everything is important because often the transparency is what leads to the social outcomes in thefirst place, just the act of transparency"[#14], and an evaluation specialist who claims:"I think as a general principle that transparency is really important"[#15]. The following quote, from a social investor asked about public reporting by charities, elaborates this perspective:

Transparency and accountability are good. If you've got a set of stakeholders, then the more transparent and open you can be the better. I think it's just a generally sound principle. [. . .] But as a general principle, I think the more transparent organisations can be the better offthey'll be. And if that's the starting principle, then everyone else is going to benefit [. . .] I think in terms of building a different and more positive profile for the industry, a level of public reporting and transparency around the outcomes generated would be a great thing. But that it wouldn't be compulsory and imposed from Government or anywhere else, I don't think that's helpful [#22].

These quotes suggest transparency is a"general"or"starting principle", and therefore represents an important or valuable goal by itself. This differs from the instrumental interpretation of transparency in the aggregative view, where transparency was important only insofar as it enabled the market to allocate resources efficiently. To be sure, all quotes above also see other benefits to transparency. However, the public interest stems from the pursuit of transparency itself, from which"everyone else is going to benefit".

The above quote also portrays transparency as part of"building a different and more positive profile for the industry", which also illustrates how transparency is linked with another important principle or ideal: trust.