Who Measured the Ounce of Prevention v. Pound of Cure?

Before starting this post, I would like to note that this is my 30th Zak blog. :)

In Geoff Mulgan's article, “Measuring Social Value,” he makes the point that most metrics assume that value is objective, but value instead reflects what people/organizations are willing to pay.  He also states that one reason that measuring social value is hard is that people do not agree what the desired outcome should be.  With our venture, I think that Mark and I get off slightly easier than many other social ventures in this arena (though goodness knows we have our challenges in other areas).  While I agree with Professor Zak’s point that sometimes people may not be interested in our idea because, for example, they believe that the student debt problem can only be addressed via a major government intervention, I think that our measured social value will be compelling to anyone interested in a private solution.  We are fortunate that, while our means may be up for debate, our successes should be clear once we can show that we are markedly reducing aggregate student debt. Because our venture is for-profit, our value does indeed reflect what organizations are willing to pay.

For our venture, I also agree with this statement by Mulgan: “The greatest contribution that funders can make is often not to measure value, but to forge the links between supply and demand that will later generate value.”  We need capital in order to broker the connections between students and organization needs, whether by a more advanced website or through additional manpower.  We strongly believe that these connections will generate value and are working on a pilot now to prove it. 

Whether it’s social impact bonds or our pre-incidence, pre-debt reduction proposal, I firmly believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  How are you measuring your ounce of prevention?