Social Impact Calculator
Cityfi created the Social Impact Calculator, a tool which allows Miami-Dade County to evaluate the trade-offs of capital planning decisions by incorporating economic, environmental and
equity-based metrics into project scoring. The calculator’s flexible, open-source framework allows staff and community members to make adjustments over time to take new information into account, as well as apply the framework to different policies and investments. It also incorporates a long-term time horizon (30 years for infrastructure, 10 years for
add-on investments) to help guide smart decisions. Lastly, the calculator allows the County to forecast alternate scenarios that could enhance or impede social return on investment.
Context
Local governments measure quality of life through key performance indicators such as safety, health, mobility, and economic opportunity. However, with limited resources and pressure to decrease costs while increasing benefits, it can be especially hard for governments to appropriately weigh the long term and hard-to-measure impacts of an investment.
