Getting Inspired by Contribution Analysis. Impact Evaluation of the European Commission’s Social Business Initiative

This article addresses the question of how complex interventions can be adequately assessed with limited resources. In 2011, the European Commission presented the Social Business Initiative (SBI), a framework initiative to develop a favourable environment for social enterprises and the social economy. The complexity of the programme stems from its numerous components and the long timeframe for its implementation. The evaluation of the impact of the SBI was commissioned in 2019 and the final report was presented in November 2020. The article presents the study and the evaluation methodology used to analyse the impact contribution influenced by the SBI. A theory-based evaluation approach was chosen, inspired by contribution analysis. The article describes the implementation of the evaluation and discusses the suitability of the chosen method, identifying both its strengths and shortcomings in this specific context.