
Social Impact
Measure Your Organisation's Social Impact in Dollars.
Your organisation creates powerful social IMPACT.
We help you amplify it.
Why Measure Social Impact?
Your work creates positive change far beyond what traditional metrics can capture. Whether you're improving health, education, cultural connections, or community strength, these profound social impacts often go unmeasured and unrecognised. By measuring your social impact, you can tell the whole story of your work through clear, credible evidence.
With robust social impact measurement, you can:
Attract more funding by showing funders exactly how their investment will create change
Show your full value by capturing all the ways your work strengthens communities
Improve your programs using insights about what works best
Demonstrate how your work contributes to New Zealand's wellbeing goals
Engage and motivate your staff by showing them the difference their work makes
Build stronger partnerships by clearly communicating your impact to stakeholders
Identify opportunities to scale successful programs
Stand out from similar organisations when competing for resources
Meet growing expectations from funders for impact evidence
Who We Help: Your Needs and Benefits
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Government & Public Sector
YOUR NEEDS
You must show that public money is being spent wisely and making a real difference. You want clear evidence about which programs work and how they improve people's lives. This helps you explain your decisions to the public and other government agencies.
YOUR BENEFITS
You'll receive solid evidence about which programs work best and why, helping you make better choices about where to invest public money. This information helps you report to the public about how tax dollars improve communities and plan future programs more effectively.
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Philanthropic Funders & Foundations
YOUR NEEDS
You want to know your donations create lasting positive change in communities. You need to understand which approaches work best and be able to show your trustees and supporters the real impact of your giving.
YOUR BENEFITS
You'll get clear proof of how your funding improves communities over time. This helps you choose the best projects to support and shows everyone involved - from donors to community partners - exactly how your money makes a difference.
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Charities & Social Enterprises
YOUR NEEDS
You must show supporters and funders exactly how you change lives. You want straightforward ways to measure your work and explain why your approach makes a real difference to those you help.
YOUR BENEFITS
You'll receive strong evidence that helps you win grants and donations. You can clearly show how your programs change lives, spot ways to improve your work, and prove to supporters that their money is well spent. This information also helps you grow your most successful programs.
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Corporate Social Investment
YOUR NEEDS
You want to understand and show how your community projects make a real difference. You need to prove to your staff, customers, and shareholders that your social programs are worthwhile and align with your company's values.
YOUR BENEFITS
You'll get clear ways to measure and share how you're helping communities while supporting your business goals. This helps you run better social programs, engage your employees, and show customers and investors how you make a positive difference in society.
Our Unique Approach
Rigour
Our Ph.D.-qualified economists and scientists bring advanced analytical capabilities to every social impact project, ensuring that our assessments are rigorous, evidence-based, and aligned with best practices.
Using Treasury-approved methodologies and comprehensive data analysis, we deliver trustworthy findings. Our approach incorporates quantitative and qualitative metrics to capture the full scope of social and economic outcomes, ensuring decision-makers have a clear, data-driven foundation for action.
By applying structured evaluation frameworks, we help organisations assess trade-offs, optimise resource allocation, and enhance long-term social value.
Actionable Insights
We transform complex social impact data into clear, compelling stories. Our reports give you the evidence you need to communicate your value and secure support. By translating technical analysis into actionable insights, we ensure that impact assessments drive meaningful decision-making rather than remaining static documents. Whether for funding applications, policy advocacy, or strategic planning, our work equips organizations with the clarity and confidence to demonstrate their social and economic contributions effectively.
Māori Perspective
Tauutuutu is the ethical foundation that underpins our work in social impact assessment and guides our engagement with communities, organisations, and the environment.
Rooted in a profoundly reciprocal framework, tauutuutu extends beyond simple transactions to create enduring relationships based on mutual obligation, escalation, and shared benefit. In Māori society, this principle shaped economic, social, political, and environmental interactions, ensuring that every exchange balanced obligations and strengthened and deepened connections over time.
In our work, this ethic informs how we assess social impact—not as a static measure but as an evolving cycle of stakeholder reciprocity. We recognise that social value is not merely quantified; it is grown through relationships, shared responsibility, and the continuous exchange of knowledge, resources, and support. By embedding tauutuutu into our approach, we ensure that impact assessment moves beyond transactional evaluation and becomes a tool for reinforcing long-term, sustainable partnerships that reflect the interconnected nature of economic, social, and environmental wellbeing. More.
NON-MARKET VALUATION
We use economic methods to determine the value of impacts that do not have a price. For example, what is the value of cultural belonging?
Your impacts are unique, and so is the value created. Borrowing social impact values from external sources is usually not good enough. We have developed software to conduct this analysis quickly and simply for users. No matter what impact you create, we can investigate its monetary value.
STREAMLINED PROCESS
Discovery & Scoping – Define project objectives, key impact areas, and data requirements to ensure a focused and effective assessment.
Data Collection & Analysis – Gather and evaluate quantitative and qualitative data using robust methodologies to generate reliable insights.
Impact Quantification – Apply economic frameworks to precisely measure social, economic, and environmental outcomes.
Report Development – Translate findings into clear, evidence-based reports that communicate impact effectively to stakeholders.
Internal System Optimisation – Provide recommendations to enhance internal processes for continuous impact measurement and improvement.
Strategic Guidance – Deliver actionable strategies to maximize positive outcomes and strengthen long-term impact.
EMPOWERING
We don’t just give you an answer; we provide the tools and systems to gather your own data. We have developed extensive tools to help you gather data from your people to enhance your social impact reporting. This means you will have better data each year to produce even better social impact reports, reducing your reliance on external providers and empowering you to produce your own impact reports.
Make Your
Impact
Visible
Kemp Reweti, Manahautū, CE – Pūhoro Charitable Trust.
“Over several years, we have had the privilege of engaging Matatihi to deliver external cost-benefit analysis reports that clearly demonstrate the economic and social impact of our Academy’s work.
These reports have enabled us to track our impact over a number of years. These have been invaluable tools and taonga for Pūhoro in helping us quantify and fully understand the positive effects that our programme has on rangatahi Māori in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics & Mātauranga).
Their thorough approach and deep understanding of our needs, have enabled us to better understand and articulate the value and benefits of participation in our national Pūhoro STEMM Academy programme, and clearly identify some of the present and longitudinal benefits that our impact creates for rangatahi, their whānau, broader society and the economy. As a kaupapa Māori driven organisation, we recommend the services of Matatihi and Dr Jay Whitehead and his impressive team.”
EXAMPLE
Measuring the Economic Impact of the Pūhoro STEMM Academy
The Pūhoro Charitable Trust (PCT) improves Māori science, technology, engineering, mathematics and mātauranga (STEMM) capability.
Pūhoro is pleased to release its most recent cost-benefit analysis (CBA) by Matatihi through support from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research - ESR in August 2021.
The CBA report found that the potential economic benefits of Pūhoro outweigh the economic costs by a factor above 14 to 1 for secondary students, and 16 to 1 for tertiary students. The net benefit for the high school program is above $60 million and $32 million for the tertiary program.
The report also found that Pūhoro is having a significant economic and social impact on regional economies, stimulating over $1.9m value added to New Zealand’s economy per annum and 6.3 FTE positions outside of Pūhoro’s direct operations.
Overall the report found that the Pūhoro STEMM Academy has a significant measurable impact on individual students, regional economies and Aotearoa.
SUMMARY
FULL REPORT
Note: a more recent report has been produced for 2024.
However, it is not publicly available yet.