Circle Analytics (CA) performs economic impact analysis for a wide-variety of clients using proprietary software and IMPLAN-based datasets. There are many analysts conducting lots of studies, the future however belongs to a handful of analysts that are investing in time and technologies to better measure social impacts as well as economic benefits.
IMPLAN datasets are available in every US market and can dramatically reduce the costs of custom studies. IMPLAN datasets represent years of accumulated information and are both market-specific and also industry sector-specific. Each community has its own very unique business matrix and much like fingerprints each has its own unique dataset. A million dollars of expenditures in one market will often produce dramatically different impacts than the same million dollars invested in another market and in the same sector. CA uses this information to prepare its studies.
A well prepared analysis will measure a project’s direct and indirect benefits. There are many different types of ‘projects’ that can benefit from a study. A project may study an individual business or just one of a company’s locations. A study may measure the impacts of a large extensive non-profit organization or only a special activity. It might also be a city or county’s public facilities construction project. A project may actually measure multiple activities or it may compare the benefits of one activity against another to see which offers the best return on investment. An assessment might forecast the benefits of a future construction project or it might study a long-established enterprise that continues to benefit the local community. A study might value the exchange of dollars in a local economy but it may also show the benefits of hundreds of volunteer hours; or value placed on the thousands of visitors that attended an event.
Investors, donors, public agencies and corporations are looking to impact studies to help articulate both economic and social benefits. Companies are using studies to reduce taxes, nonprofits are using studies to gain new advantages in competitive grant applications and public agencies are using studies to show constituents how their tax dollars were multiplied. What ever your need, chances are a study will help you better articulate the economic and social benefits of your project.
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