Útil para quem? co-construindo uma metodologia de avaliação de utilidade social em organizações da sociedade civil

Abstract

In this field, the number of civil society initiatives that propose to create alternatives that, in addition to promoting economic insertion, are intended to provide other benefits for citizens, is significant. In a territory in the state of Bahia - Brazil, there is an example of society organization, to considered as the focus of this study and they are articulated through a local integrated development program – called PDCIS. The first organizations of this program were created from the farmers' initiative, support from institutions, such as the Kellogg Foundation, the Airton Senna Institute, the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) and, above all, the Odebrecht Foundation (BAIARDI, 2007), in order to improve the living conditions of residents of this territory. However, despite this role and the existence of numerous organizations, the impact that these effectively have on people's lives is often unknown (FRANÇA FILHO, 2004). These results of these organizations are dealt with in the literature through various terminologies, such as effectiveness (MAURER, 2016), or for example social impact (MITCHELL, 2014; MAZZA et al., 2016; e and FRANÇA, 2017; 2019). Another term uses is "social utility", primarily adopted in this study, and considers that these results are multidimensional and aim to reduce / eliminate social inequalities. the term is an expression of what is understood as the role of civil society organizations that were here studied: of guiding choices by the expected social utility and not under the traditional logic of the market. The use of this term is also a political act, because “the notion of social utility must, therefore, serve to mark territory, demanding specific regulations, legal and fiscal, in essence” (GADREY, 2005, p. 517).

The need to demonstrate this social utility led to the accomplishable of evaluation procedures and therefore studies on the topic are highlighted (SILVA JUNIOR, 2016), however, as yet verified by the literature, there is still no filling in the practical and theoretical gaps with regard to the assessment of the social utility of these civil society organizations. In this sense, the main objective is to build, together with the organizational subjects, a methodology for assessing the social utility of civil society organizations that considers the perspective of the beneficiaries. For this purpose, it is intended: (i) demystify the idea of evaluation in civil society organizations; (ii) to present the incentives and obstacles for carrying out the evaluation in these organizations; (iii) to analyze the evaluation practices found in the literature and those used by civil society organizations in a network of organizations located in a territory of Bahia- Brazil; (iv) together with the actors of that network, to build a methodology and submit it to the appreciation of these actors; and, finally, (iv) reassess the proposed methodology and based on the results of its submission to the field analysis, suggest a co-constructed methodology for assessing social utility. Co-construction comprises precisely this process of building together with the organizational subjects and the beneficiaries. To this end, the following investigation procedures were used: observation, individual in-depth interviews and interviews through focus groups, together with five managers, six employees and three beneficiaries of seven civil society organizations formally and informally linked to the PDCIS program. In addition, the following documents were analyzed: instruments and assessment reports that were already or were carried out in these organizations.

The result is a proposed methodology that assumes the following assumptions: (a) to be multidimensional, (b) consider that evaluated subjects are actors active construction of this methodology and completion of the evaluation, (c) being flexible to adjust itself to different types of organizations as they work in contexts and with different objectives, and (d) be based, above all , from the perspective of beneficiaries, aiming to reduce the biases of the process assessment. A contribution observed in this research is related to some incentives for the evaluation, mainly related to the search for the understanding and improvement of the processes and interventions, and to legitimation of organizations with investors and society in general. It was also possible to reveal that even organizations that are very structured in terms of resources do not have a culture of evaluation of social utility, although we have seen some practices and advances. Some of the challenges we encounter in the field help to explain this scenario, for example, the lack of qualification for the synthesis and analysis of the data collected in the evaluation; the difficulty in measuring the results of some of the objectives with a good cause-effect relationship; the difficulties with software for the evaluation; and the difficulty in better understanding how to direct the financial, human and material resources that are already used for evaluation. Another contribution of the field is in the proof that the first stage of the evaluation, necessarily, must be the diagnosis of the organizational practices developed to evaluate. In this work, we found that all organizations considered have already adopted some practice of evaluating social utility, considering at least some of the dimensions. Although we found this evidence, during the investigation process we became aware that an external consultancy was hired to carry out an evaluation. However, even including some important actors of the organizations in the process of defining the indicators, this consultancy did not consider the routines that organizations adopted for this evaluation. Thus, also in the field, we had the confirmation that sometimes the evaluations make this mistake of not considering and incorporating the knowledge that the field has about evaluation, in terms of theories and practice.