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Performance Measurement Toolkit for Business Improvement Areas

The capacity to utilize limited resources effectively has never been more critical to the success of social enterprises and non-profit organizations working in urban economic districts. The retail landscape is under considerable pressure in all cities, even in long-established, walkable, and community-oriented main street retail districts. In non-retail districts, the competition to attract and sustain new businesses and talent is intense.

Harbord Street BIA

Recognizing that effective performance measurement is the key to efficiently deploying budgetary resources in these challenging urban spaces, The Eglinton Way & Riverside BIAs retained S+G Urban Partners to develop an online Performance Evaluation Toolkit to be used by all Toronto BIAs to evaluate how effectively their initiatives, programs, and capital projects support their members and contribute to the achievement of their organizational objectives.

Centered on a set of Strategic Objectives identified in consultation with senior staff at BIAs across the city, the Toolkit provides users with 57 Key Performance Indicators and associated Measurement Methods specifically developed to measure the success of an extensive list of BIA Activities. Toolkit users are also provided with information on data collection opportunities, limitations, and alternatives measurement methods applicable to whichever one of 11 Typologies their BIA belongs.

Developing the Toolkit required the project team to employ methodologies that had not previously been applied to the design of impact metrics and measurement systems for economic districts. The BIA Typologies relied upon the construction of spatial models of each Toronto BIA and their associated characteristics, while the Measurement Methods were developed using a combination of live-testing and agent-based modelling.

The Performance Toolkit and the full Project Report are available at: https://biatoolkit.ca/

Performance Toolkit

Project Report

Special thanks to the project team for their fantastic work: Gemma Johnson (Research & Site Observation/Method-Testing); Felicity Thompson, Kevin Kapenda, and Mehedi Khan (Site Observation/Method-Testing); & Vinit Jogani (Toolkit Programming).

S+G Urban Partners Invests in Social Enterprise

S+G Urban Partners is excited to announce our investment in Urban Fabric Media Inc., a social enterprise focused on highlighting critical urban issues through the production of engaging documentary media content.

Creating District Typologies for Urban Impact Measurement

While most impact measurement systems created for an urban environment focus on assessing projects carried out at a particular site or within a discreet area, some are intended to measure the success of citywide initiatives. But like cities themselves, individual districts possess their own unique characteristics and internal dynamics that can make it difficult to accurately measure outcomes across an entire city using a single set of performance metrics.

Supporting the Development of Affordable Rental Housing

The development of affordable rental housing presents non-profit organizations with tremendous challenges, securing the financing necessary to compete in these markets has become ever more dependent upon the ability to craft workable capital structures, accurately assess potential project outcomes, and effectively communicate these to both impact investors and public agencies.