Social Return on Investment
Social Return on Investment
Chris Rogers,
Quality & Monitoring Officer
• Background to SROI
• What, how, why, when?
• Who could undertake SROI?
• Size, expertise, infrastructure vs. delivery,
funding model
• What are the problems in undertaking
SROI?
• Measuring impact, metrics, structures
• Do I have to use the whole framework?
• Lessons learned by BVSC
What is SROI?
“A type of economic analysis that
provides a framework for measuring
social value. The SROI ratio
represents the social value created
for each £1 invested. Integral to this
is the process of listening to
stakeholders, understanding &
valuing outcomes”
New Philanthropy Capital
Background to SROI
• Understanding which stakeholders to
include
• Establishing a theory of change
– Based on completing an impact map
• Putting a value on those changes
– Financial proxies
• Can be evaluative (looking back) or
forecast
The principles
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Involve stakeholders
Understand what changes
Value things which matter
Only include what is material
Do not over claim
Be transparent
Verify the result
The six stages
1. Establishing scope & identifying key
stakeholders
2. Mapping outcomes
3. Evidencing outcomes & giving them a
value
4. Establishing impact
5. Calculating SROI figure
6. Reporting, using & embedding
Ensuring accuracy
• Displacement
– Outcomes moved from elsewhere?
• Deadweight
– What would have happened if we had
done nothing?
• Attribution
– Who else contributed to this change?
• Drop-off
– How long will these changes last?
Simple example
• Total Investment = £100
• Total value of interventions = £1,000
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Displacement -10% (£900)
Deadweight -20% (£720)
Attribution -20% (£576)
Drop-off 0% (£576)
SROI figure £5.76
: £1 invested
Who could undertake SROI?
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Front line, delivery organisations
Large size
Easily defined project(s)
Objective outcomes
Outcomes across traditional policy
boundaries
– e.g. Mental health & employment
Who should think hard?
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Infrastructure organisations
Small size
Subjective outcomes
High variance in stakeholder opinions
Diverse range of projects / directorates
Is SROI for me?
• The key questions to ask yourself:
– Will my stakeholders find SROI analysis
useful?
• Funders mostly
– Do we have necessary preconditions in
place?
• Can we successfully engage stakeholders?
• Quantitative data bank in place?
• Can outcomes be monetarised?
Do I have to use the whole framework?
No, not if you don’t want to
• Robust methodology for thinking about
theory of change / impact
– This can be an end in itself
• Consider your theory of change (stage 1&2)
– Makes you think more about evidencing impact
– Can help you think about how / what to measure
What are the problems?
• Cost / time / complexity
– Future commitment
• Selecting appropriate stakeholders
• Ensuring stakeholder buy-in
– Avoid alienating them!
• Benchmarking
– High scope for variance
– Do others have margin for error?
Further problems
• SROI does not tell you which outcomes
to measure
– The detailed analysis comes from your
organisation
What did BVSC change as a result?
• New impact assessment framework
– Wider impact of volunteering
– Impact assessment included in remit of
quality committee
• Benchmarking
• User feedback collection
– In-depth metrics collected
– Uniformity of data gathering methodology
Further resources
• “A guide to SROI”, Cabinet Office
• www.thesroinetwork.org
• www.sroiproject.org.uk
• Database of Financial Proxies
http://www.sroiproject.org.uk/sroi-database.aspx