The Evaluation Study of the Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Fund

近年，香港社會創新快速發展。香港政府亦有參與發展當中，其中一項政策就是成立社會創新及創業發展基金(社創基金)。

社創基金致力發揮香港社會創新催化劑的功用，聯繫社會不同界別，包括商界、非政府團體、學術界、慈善機構和公眾合作，締造社會效益，以創新方法解決貧窮問題和促進共融。社創基金主要經由協創機構提供資源、培育和支持社會創業家的計劃和實驗，以發展出可以創造社會效益以及建立社會資本的創新項目，推動香港扶貧工作。(www.sie.gov.hk)

在2016年3月開始，社創基金委託香港大學進行一項縱貫性研究以評估基金整體工作成效，從「基金整體」、「協創機構」和「基金支持項目」三個層面審視社創基金的財務和非財務效益。

本此研究目的包括：

• 評估社創基金的效益
• 檢討基金支持項目能否達致基金目的
• 指出基金未來發展的關鍵成功因素和完善方向
• 就基金如何進一步加強效益提出建議

In Hong Kong, social innovation in recent years has gained momentum rapidly. The HKSAR government played a part of this movement and one of its key initiatives was the launch of the Social Innovation and entrepreneurship Fund (SIE Fund).

Aiming to act as a catalyst for social innovation, the SIE Fund connects the community with different sectors, including businesses, non-government organizations, academics and philanthropies to create social impact through innovative solutions that address poverty and social exclusion. It seeks to establish or support schemes and experiments with a view to attracting, inspiring or nurturing social entrepreneurship to develop innovations that aim at creating social impact and build social capital for supporting poverty relief in Hong Kong” (www.sie.gov.hk).

Starting from March 2016, the SIE Fund commissioned The University of Hong Kong (HKU) to conduct a longitudinal evaluation study to assess the performance of the Fund in achieving its objectives in terms of financial and non-financial impacts of the Fund overall, of the intermediaries engaged by the Fund as well as the projects and initiatives funded or supported by the Fund.

The research objectives of this evaluation study are to:

• to assess the impacts of the SIE Fund
• to appraise the effectiveness of the initiatives of the SIE Fund in achieving its objectives;
• to identify critical success factors and learning points for the Fund’s future developments;
• to recommend areas of improvement for managing the SIE Fund.