Organizations should be able to create economic value for their shareholders, but also environmental and social value for all their stakeholders. This is what professors Porter and Kramer stated in 2011 in their theory of the creation of shared value. Techniques to measure this value are needed if we are to account for it. Although it was an unknown field for the general public, there were already pioneering applications for measuring social impact some years ago. For example, in 1966, NASA was already using indicators to measure the social impact of its programmes. They continue to use this type of indicator nowadays.
A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and the measurement of social impact has evolved considerably.