Although my venture is designed to start small, calculating the social value must go beyond just the number of cars that are delivered to customers. The goal of providing customers with transportation will be to foster employment and career growth opportunities to disadvantaged citizens in the Lowell area. Therefore most of the social impact the Driving Toward A Better Future will offer clients is actually realized over a long period of time, after our transactions have been completed.
In order to better quantify the impact of my venture, I have been thinking a lot about what metrics would be most telling of success or failure. The simple comparison between a cab ride everyday vs. the cost of operating one of my vehicles is a baseline, but that only provides value information about the transaction itself.
Instead, I will be using a generic lifecycle model that estimates the cost of operating and maintaining one of my cars plus the initial purchase price over a span of 5 years. My ‘success metric’ will depend on the client’s eventual success in finding a job with their new transportation resource. The data collection process will include interviewing clients about their increase wage and how much their dependence on public resources such as welfare and subsidies has changed since they started working.
Income and decreases in dependence on public resources will count as positive credits, with an estimated 5 year projection on their value. The projected costs of owning and operating one of my vehicles, spread over five years will count as debits. Similar debits will be calculated for competing means of transportation, such as the costs of taking a cab to work. The net benefit or loss of my service will then be calculated as a ratio relative to the alternative.
An example equation:
5 years*[(Income) + (Reduction in welfare)] – 5 year cost of owning vehicle/
5 years*[(Income) + (Reduction in welfare)] – 5 years of taking cab to work = % relative benefit of service
No comments:
Post a Comment