Beyond Metrics: Rethinking purpose, innovation, and social impact evaluation in SMEs as an evolving and relational design process

In the business landscape, there is an increasing recognition of the role that innovation plays in fostering long-term social impact. Demonstrating social value and positive impact is no longer just an internal priority, becoming a key differentiator for companies aiming to obtain funding and legitimacy. Yet, for many small and medium enterprises, proving their social value remains challenging, facing difficulties in assessing their impact on society and with placing value on intangible outcomes and softer values of their initiatives. Many widely accepted impact assessment tools are technical-oriented, resource-intensive, and reliant on specialized expertise, making them often inaccessible to organizations without significant financial investment. This paper highlights the case of purpose-driven SMEs, examining how they attempt to integrate impact evaluation into their practices and navigate this complexity. While impact tools provide legitimacy, they are not always feasible for SMEs due to cost and technical demands. In response, we propose design discipline and its participatory and creative approaches to evaluation as an alternative. These methods actively engage multiple stakeholders, allowing SMEs to define what social impact means in their specific context and how it should be measured, while developing adaptable frameworks that align with their mission and operational realities.