CRECER, Bolivia: SPM in Practice
The 'SPM in Practice' series emerges from the experience of the Imp-Act Consortium Global Learning Programme on social performance management (SPM), a two-year project which seeks to gather evidence of effective SPM and understand its organisational value.
This case study describes how CRECER, a Bolivian NGO, manages its social performance. The paper observes that CRECER:
- Focuses on the poorest and most vulnerable communities,
- Supports a savings culture, and offers three different kinds of loans to clients according to their needs and capabilities;
- Offers integrated services and facilitates access to different services through linkages with local providers;
- Offers mobile services in local language.
However, CRECER needs to define specific social objectives and integrate them into planning and operating processes to ensure outreach to its target population. The author highlights that CRECER’s strategy for SPM system includes:
- Responsible, sustainable social entrepreneurship;
- Meeting client needs through integrated services.
Further, the paper describes progress in CRECER’s social responsibility practices, monitoring processes, information usage to improve performance and alignment of services to client needs.
Finally, it observes that CRECER believes that good social performance facilitates improved financial performance, but this belief is anecdotal and needs to be documented.
