Social Value UK

Tag: Principles

  • Behind Closed Doors become organisational members!

    Behind Closed Doors become organisational members!

    Behind Closed Doors (BCD) have joined Social Value UK as organisational members.  BCD supports people affected by domestic violence and abuse to enable them to live safely, free from fear and harm, make informed choices and manage their own lives. BCD staff and volunteers support people to identify their experiences and problems, develop and implement their own plans, develop life skills, and build stronger familial and support networks.

    BCD systematically monitor all of their work to learn how to improve the support they offer, using data and stakeholder feedback to identify gaps in services and develop new projects. Monitoring, recording and evaluating the impact of their services was embedded from the outset. Collating evidence of change, both statistical and narrative, has demonstrated the positive effect of their interventions but it is only recently that they have considered what ‘value’ these changes reflect. Tudor Trust funded them to research and produce their first Social Return on Investment Report for 2015-16 in January 2017. This report highlighted a £7.32 return on every £1.00 invested and perhaps more importantly, provided an exciting opportunity to really explore exactly what they do, how they do it and what it is about their services that clients and colleagues need and value. We have recently produced an in-depth case study on the social value work by BCD, you can download it and learn more here.

    By joining Social Value UK, BCD hope to share and gain knowledge and learning. They also hope to collaborate with other like-minded organisations and gain the confidence to reflect on their own internal value and belief system.

     

    “Elvis Presley once said ‘Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave them all over everything you do.’ Joining Social Value UK is an exciting opportunity to be part of a network which recognises value, not just pounds; people, not just numbers; change, not just snapshots in time and legacy, not just impact.”

    Louise, Director, Behind Closed Doors

     

    Behind Closed Doors

    Louise Tyne, Director, Behind Closed Doors

    E: louise@behind-closed-doors.org.uk                      T: 0113 391 1918

    Social Value UK

    Christina Berry-Moorcroft, Membership and Communications Coordinator, Social Value UK

    E: christina.moorcroft@sv-test.wp-support.team                       T: 0151 703 9229

    About Behind Closed Doors

    Behind Closed Doors works with both women and men throughout the Leeds district whose lives have been, or are affected by domestic abuse and violence. Behind Closed Doors has a dedicated and professional team who will aim to assist anyone who is, or has, suffered from domestic abuse.

    About Social Value UK

    Social Value UK is the national network for anyone interested in social value and social impact. We work with our members to increase the accounting, measuring and maximising of social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s activities, through our Social Value Principles. We believe in a world where a broader definition of value will change decision making and ultimately decrease inequality and environmental degradation. To achieve our mission, Social Value UK provides training and assurance services, as well as hosting regular meetings and events, creating new tools and resources, and running campaigns. Through supporting and working with our members, and as a National Member Network of Social Value International, we are creating an international movement for change.

  • SAMETRICA Renews Software Assurance

    SAMETRICA Renews Software Assurance

    SAMETRICA (Incorporated as Social Asset Measurements Inc.) and Social Value International announce the renewal of SAMETRICA’s software compliance certification from Social Value International. SAMETRICA is a Software-as-a-Service platform founded in 2011 that enables enterprises to demonstrate the value of their social spend. Based out of Toronto, Canada, SAMETRICA meets the needs of large-scale clients, working with public sector clients including at all levels.  

    SAMETRICA was the first to complete compliance testing of its product with Social Value International (formerly The SROI Network) in 2013. This third party compliance testing ensures that SAMETRICA enables a user to capture the information required to complete a Social Value analysis in line with the framework for accounting for value (Value Map) which is used to facilitate the application of the Principles of Social Value.

    The accreditation process seeks to assess whether or not software demonstrates a satisfactory understanding of, and is consistent with, the Principles of Social Value. Software is reviewed by Social Value UK on behalf of Social Value International and must demonstrate compliance with the Social Value Software assessment criteria in order to be certified. The Social Value Software assessment criteria document can be downloaded from the website here and a full list of software can be found here.

     

    Press Contacts

    Social Value UK

    Christina Berry-Moorcroft, Membership and Communications Coordinator, Social Value UK

    E: christina.moorcroft@sv-test.wp-support.team                       T: 0151 703 9229

     

    Social Value UK is the national network for anyone interested in social value and social impact. We work with our members to increase the accounting, measuring and maximising of social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s activities, through our Social Value Principles. We believe in a world where a broader definition of value will change decision making and ultimately decrease inequality and environmental degradation. To achieve our mission, Social Value UK provides training and assurance services, as well as hosting regular meetings and events, creating new tools and resources, and running campaigns. Through supporting and working with our members, and as a National Member Network of Social Value International, we are creating an international movement for change.

     

  • Social Value Videos

    Social Value Videos

    Social value is the quantification of the relative importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives. Some, but not all of this value is captured in market prices. It is important to consider and measure this social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s work. Examples of social value might be the value we experience from increasing our confidence, or from living next to a community park. These things are important to us, but are not commonly expressed or measured in the same way that financial value is. At Social Value UK, we believe that social value has a huge potential to help us change the way we understand the world around us, and make decisions about where to invest resources. By changing the way we account for value, we believe that we will end up with a world with more equality and a more sustainable environment.

    Recently we have began sharing interesting and inspiring talks and presentations that relate to the Principles of Social Value, and our mission to improve equality and reduce environmental degradation. These videos span interests, sectors and topics but they’re all under 20 minutes and should be added to your “to watch” list. We have been sharing these videos on Twitter using the hashtag #socvalvid and will continue to do so in the weeks to come, so keep an eye out each Monday and Friday! Please search the hashtag for an enjoyable and informative afternoon distraction and share your own finds using #socvalvid.

    We have included a talk to get you started below, let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    You might not expect the chief operating officer of a major global corporation to look too far beyond either the balance sheet or the bottom line. But Harish Manwani, COO of Unilever, makes a passionate argument that doing so to include value, purpose and sustainability in top-level decision-making is not just savvy, it’s the only way to run a 21st century business responsibly.

  • Impact Reports – Must Haves!

    Impact Reports – Must Haves!

    Ten things you should be looking for when reading an impact report.  A blog by Christina Berry-Moorcroft, Social Value UK Communications and Membership Coordinator.

    Here at Social Value UK we are incredibly proud of our Reports Database, at last count it had nearly 700 reports relating to social value in there for you to peruse and learn from. The reports database is made up of SROI reports, assured and non-assured, social impact reports and cost benefit analysis reports. So whatever sector you work in, whatever level of riguer you’re working at and whatever you need examples of, you can find it in one place. But, what if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, or at? We know that many people like to read impact reports before setting off on their own, so to make the process easier we’ve compiled a handy list of ten things you should be looking for. We hope it helps!

     

    What is it for?
    What is the report you are reading for? Who’s the intended audience? What are they hoping to communicate and/or achieve with this report? If this is immediately clear, then great, keep this in mind throughout the rest of the report. If it isn’t, then this may not be the end of the transparency issues…

    What has and has not been included?
    Have the authors been completely transparent about what has and hasn’t been included? Have they also explained how they came to their decisions about what was and was not material? At this point, it’s also wise to check that the report uses enough data, that it’s representative and that the authors have considered all possible biases. If a report isn’t inclusive of all of these things then there’s a fear the authors of the report are over-claiming, meaning they may be claiming the value of activities they were not a part of creating.

    Is this an output or outcome?

    What’s an outcome? What’s an output? What’s the difference? This can all too often be confused when people start measuring their impact but it’s vital that we aren’t claiming outputs as outcomes if we are to avoid over claiming. An output is a way of describing the activity in relation to each stakeholder’s inputs in quantitative terms, for example the staff who work on the project or the hours a volunteer put into the project. Outcomes are the changes resulting from an activity. The main types of change from the perspective of stakeholders are unintended (unexpected) and intended (expected), but more on that later. For now, ask yourself, has the report you’re reading made clear the difference between outputs and outcomes? We have produced some supplementary guidance on well-defined outcomes that will help.

    Who decides what?
    The Principles of Social Value provide the basic building blocks for anyone who wants to make decisions that take this wider definition of value into account, in order to increase equality, improve wellbeing and increase environmental sustainability. The first principle is the underpinning for all of the following six, and one that you must not forget when reading or writing an impact report! Principle One is Involve Stakeholders and we define stakeholders as people, organisations or entities that experience change, whether positive or negative, as a result of the activity that is being analysed. Were stakeholders involved? And importantly, were they involved in identifying and valuing outcomes? No two outcomes are equal to stakeholders, have the authors shown how they decided which outcomes were more valuable?

    What about stakeholder segmentation?
    Unless the only people impacted by your activities are the exact same in every way: age, gender, socio-economic status, health, relationship status, family set-up, and so on, and that’s highly unlikely, then not including stakeholder segmentation is a massive flaw. Segmentation is the process of looking at different groups of stakeholders, based on anything that makes them different from another group of stakeholders. Each type of stakeholder will have different outcomes, and indeed different valuations for those outcomes, and if the report you are reading hasn’t taken that into account then they could be over-claiming!

    Is it all positive impacts?
    The report you’re reading may be full of positive impacts, in fact we hope it is, we fully believe that measuring and maximising social value will lead to a more equal, more just and more sustainable planet for us all. However, every project, despite how great it’s theory of change is, will have negative impacts, it’s unavoidable. So has the report you’re looking at made allowances for that? Have they asked stakeholders what those were? Have they put measures in place to reduce these? Are they improving their work next time based on this? These are all questions you should be looking for the answers to when reading an impact report.

    And what about the change we didn’t mean to cause?
    Much like with point four, another key thing to look out for is whether the report lists the unintended outcomes of the project. If a report just states the intended outcomes, then they have only looked at, and asked stakeholders about the project objectives. This doesn’t give a full overview of the project, could be neglecting significant impact and is stunting future project improvement based on impact data. Examples of intended outcomes could be increased confidence, a secure job or reduced isolation, whereas as an unintended outcome could be that attendees on a course suffer a reduction in self worth for not doing as well as their classmates. That’s not to say that unintended outcomes are always negative, organisations often create lots of social value that they aren’t accounting for, listing unintended outcomes makes sure this isn’t happening and allows for project design based on all of the information.

    How much of this change can they claim?
    So the authors of the report have considered all of the outcomes, based on the opinions of their segmented stakeholders, they’ve looked at intended and unintended outcomes and considered both positive and negative change, that’s all right? Well, not quite. In order to not overclaim (Principle 5) and be transparent  (Principle 6) then the authors should have also calculated the likelihood of what would have happened to the stakeholders anyway, without their action and what other actors (organisations, people, interventions) may have played a part in the change experienced by a stakeholder. We call this considering the counterfactual and attribution. If 100% of a change is claimed it’s not only not true, it’s a little foolish and means the author is over-claiming, which means their project isn’t as successful as they claim it is, which means they are missing valuable opportunities to make it better!

    Is this important?
    Have the authors of this report demonstrated that they undertook a process of determining what information and evidence must be included in the accounts to give a true and fair picture? Some information is important is material and some is not, has this been considered? Enough information should be included so that stakeholders can draw reasonable conclusions about impact. On top of this, has the information been ranked with relative importance, and importantly, were stakeholders consulted on this?

    Can I trust this logic?
    One thing to consistently consider with impact reports is transparency (Principle 6), authors of impact reports should demonstrate the basis on which the analysis may be considered accurate and honest, and show that it will be reported to and discussed with stakeholders. Have they? And finally, but crucially, have they sought independent assurance of their impact data, assumptions and reports? Verifying the result (Principle 7) is crucial, and shows a mark of quality. You can search our Reports Database for only assured reports, to ensure you are reading reports that have met the standards we require, and find information on the assurance and accreditation services we offer on our website.


    For further information on conducting social value measurement please see     ‘The Guide to SROI’ and supplementary guidance. We offer a range of support services, including mentoring, that can support you further.

    What are your top tips for reading, or writing impact reports? Do you have advice for other community members? We would love to hear your thoughts!

  • Social Value Matters 2017

    Social Value Matters 2017

     

    Today Ben Carpenter, Operations Manager, Social Value UK shares updates from Social Value Matters 2017.

    On the 10th-11th April Social Value International (SVI) teamed up with Turkish member Koç University Social Impact Forum (KUSIF) to deliver their annual conference; “Social Value Matters” in Istanbul. This year the conference title Social Value Matters (SVM17) carried the tag line “More Than Ever”. The backdrop being a world with rising inequality and a collective feeling that we must all act now and quickly to reverse this trend. The conference had a distinct emphasis on Maximising Social Value and Amplifying Stakeholder Voices; empowering the views of the vulnerable – the very people that many of us are providing service or products for. How can we make sure that we are maximising the value we create for these people? I was delighted to see that these themes ran deeply through all the sessions I attended.

    This was the third SVI conference I have attended and each one leaves me feeling motivated and inspired. They bring together talented professionals from diverse spheres – united in their desire to see social impact information being used to inform decision making and make the world a better place. SVM17 was no exception; over 250 delegates came from over 25 countries representing the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society. Cross cutting these sectors there were investors, delivery organisations and advisors. Throw in the stunning setting of Koç University overlooking the banks of the Bosphorus and it’s a heady mix.

     “It’s great to have so many people from all over the world working together to improve the way in which managing impact can reduce inequality.”

    Jeremy Nicholls, CEO Social Value UK and Social Value International

    The format of Social Value Matters was extremely participatory – there were no lectures or ‘expert panels’, instead there was always several workshop options, interactive in their delivery and the majority of the conference consisted of small roundtable discussions. Plenary sessions were kept to a minimum with high quality keynote speeches to start both days and then delegates taking to the stage with an open mic session to reflect and summarise at the close of each day (with a live jazz sound-track too!). You can check out some conference highlights and the conversations attendees were having on social media on this STORIFY.

     

    What I personally learned from the conference?

    The one thing that struck me was that, we should all (regularly) take a step back and ask ourselves why we are collecting this information about social value in the first place? The answer is surely: “So that we can maximise the social value we create”. So, rather than focussing on the measurement of impact as an exercise in itself – and getting caught up in the complexities of ‘empirical evidence’ or ‘formative evaluation’ – we should focus on collecting the information we need to improve our products and services. Or, in the case of investors/governance; “Is that organisation collecting the information it needs to improve it’s products or services?”

    I have written before about an emerging shift from impact measurement to maximising impact. This conference reaffirmed that it is definitely time to stop nit-picking about methodologies or metrics. More important is creating an organisational culture of listening to stakeholders and responding which means designing services or products to meet their preferences. This involves all of the complex and geeky things we love to discuss and are necessary to practice (such as stakeholder involvement, valuation techniques, counterfactual, materiality) but doing it proportionately and with a clear raison d’etre: to maximise the social value of our activities.

    As our conversations shift more towards ‘managing impact’ and ‘maximising value’ there are more references to subjects such as ‘design thinking’, ‘social innovation’ and ‘customer profiling techniques’. These are exciting topics and practices – arguably more exciting than ‘measurement’ and ‘accounting’ (but ssshh don’t tell the accountants I said that!). The truth is, accountability and maximising value are two sides of the same coin; if you are being accountable to your stakeholders then you are relentlessly innovating to provide the best services for them. I can’t wait to bring in more experts from these fields to help develop our movement!

    What happens next, ACTIONS?

    • SVI will soon be publishing some write-ups of all workshops and roundtables, many of which have some clear actions for the community moving forward.
    • We will be analysing feedback from the conference that will give us a NPS and some qualitative data on what impact the conference has had on attendees!
    • SVI will be launching a campaign for maximising value, which was also a need highlighted by SVI’s annual survey
    • The turkish chapter of Social Value International was officially launched at the conference and we expect more national networks to emerge or continue to grow. If you would like to join a national network or form one please contact SVI.

    We hope all attendees and also people who couldn’t attend can stay in touch using Social Value International social media.

    Join the movement, by becoming a member today, and see you next year!

  • Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    This is a guest blog by member Clare Hammond on her social value work with The Yard Scotland. Clare works for Rocket Science UK Ltd. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    We have been working with The Yard Scotland and their community since June 2016. The Yard provides safe play spaces and respite for young people with disabilities and their families. During our time with The Yard, we conducted a Social Return on Investment and Cost Benefit Analysis to be able to evidence and quantify the impact their service has on families and how much they save other service providers such as the Local Authority.

    For Rocket Science, the voice of the service user should be present, loud and clear, and the central driving force for any impact analysis. Social researchers the world around can talk to you about sampling sizes, interview techniques, and running a great focus group to get that voice. However, social impact research gets slightly more complicated when service users are less able to engage with the more traditional research processes.

    Engaging extensively with The Yard’s young people and families as part of this research has been very important to both Rocket Science and The Yard Scotland. To do this we have had to use less conventional methods of social research – and we have learnt a few things along the way: We’ve learnt a few things along the way about how to approach impact analysis using less conventional methods:

    • Co-design with The Yard of all research activities was vital. As consultants, we brought expertise in evaluation disciplines, analytical processes and robustness. However, it’s The Yard that knows its client group inside and out. Bringing together this expertise was vitally important, particularly in designing and delivering the research activities with their young adventurers.
    • Abandoning the traditional – for the young adventurers we knew we couldn’t use traditional research techniques. Instead we embraced what made The Yard so great – play! We kept it simple– we had two questions we needed answering. Then we developed a range of play activities that young people could engage with…ever conducted an interview on a go-kart? It’s exhilarating.
    • Understanding the impact of the service on families was much harder than we expected. Parents and families of these young adventurers are so used to constantly being the advocate for their child. They are some of the most selfless people we have engaged with. For our research – getting parents to think about themselves was difficult. We overcame this in two ways:
    1. We needed to make it clear to parents that this was a space for them to talk about themselves as well as their children. Using colourful post-it notes we put all messages relating to their children on one wall, and messages relating to themselves as individuals on another wall. As expected, the wall of messages about their children filled up fast, while their own wall remained largely empty. We then set them the challenge of filling their wall to be as colourful as the wall about their children. Highlighting their selflessness visually, and colourfully proved to be very effective.
    2. Once again, we embraced The Yard’s motto – fun! We needed to convert outcomes such as friendship and relaxation into monetary values. We chose to use Choice Modelling – which, I promise, is as dull as it sounds if done with no humour. So with fun, laughter and a joke or two we had groups of parents and carers giving us their honest views of what was important to them as individuals as well as their family.

    Our time with The Yard has been rewarding, enlightening and a lot of fun. There aren’t many researchers that get to say they got to play with paints, bikes and swings for work! The Yard are now armed with robust evidence of their impact to use with the policy makers and funders. With this information, they intend to influence the design of services and expand their services further across Scotland.

    For more information on Social Value, and the Social Value Principles see here.

  • What does social value mean to you?

    What does social value mean to you?

    The Social Value International 2016 survey has launched!

    Each year Social Value International try to take a snapshot of how the Principles of Social Value are being used. We use this information to better support our members and the social value community at large through creating new guidance, training and campaigns.

    For more information on the Principles of Social Value, watch our short video below:

     

    The survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete and you will be entered in to a prize draw upon completion.

    Thank you from everyone at Social Value International and Social Value UK.

    Survey

  • SROI and Cost Benefit Analysis

    SROI and Cost Benefit Analysis: Spot the Difference, or Chalk and Cheese?

    This blog will aim to look at similarities and differences by comparing the two from the perspective of each SROI principle.

    Though SROI does draw from Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA), it developed drawing on two other traditions; sustainability accounting and financial accounting.

    1. Stakeholder involvement

    This principle is fundamental to the SROI approach, and is followed in all aspects of SROI. It is especially important to involve stakeholders when trying to determine outcomes, or the changes that result from an activity.

    CBA can focus on a particular policy issue that is being considered, and doesn’t implicitly require involvement in deciding what outcomes are, though they may be consulted.

    2. Understand change

    Both CBA and SROI focus specifically on change, predominantly change in situation, capacity or behaviour with related changes in wellbeing. The only slight difference is that SROI has an assurance process to ensure completeness of change.

    3. Only include what is material

    This principle identifies the most notable difference between the two approaches.

    CBA is an aspect of welfare economics, so begins from the perspective that all welfare effects will be included. In practice, however, it often focuses on a particular policy outcome with some recognition of unintended consequences. Whilst it is not possible to consider all welfare effects, focusing on a policy objective without stakeholder involvement risks omission of important effects.

    SROI on the other hand recognises these limitations and aims to include material outcomes, drawing on financial and sustainability reporting, which hold materiality as a central tenet.

    Materiality is not the same as proportionality. Materiality requires a decision to ensure that the outcomes included, both positive and negative, are those that, if omitted, would affect the decisions of the stakeholders. This process requires a judgement on the extent to which stakeholder groups are split into smaller groups which experience different material outcomes – a balance is required between considering every stakeholder as an individual case with a personal outcome profile, and aggregating stakeholders together and so risking a loss of understanding how different smaller groups experience different outcomes.

    Proportionality means that the extent or depth of the analysis should be tailored to the relative size, impacts, and risks of the activity under analysis.

    4. Do not overclaim

    This need to consider benchmarks, counterfactual, attribution and displacement is shared by both approaches.

    5. Value what matters

    Whilst both approaches use money to value benefits, the valuation technique and/or perspective from which the valuation is taken can differ.

    Many CBAs focus on value from the perspective of real, potential or imagined savings to the public sector. This value can either be expressed as an indirect financial value to the taxpayer, or sometimes as a proxy for achieving a stated social policy goal.

    Although some SROI analyses do use these types of values, they also aim to value outcomes from the perspective of the stakeholder. This could be by using revealed preference, stated preference, or (more recently) wellbeing valuation techniques, applied as appropriate to the outcome or stakeholder.

    6. Be transparent

    This principle should be another area of overlap between SROI and CBA.

    7. Verify the result

    SROI follows accounting and some sustainability reporting by requiring appropriate verification of the result. This may well take the form of an external assurance process, but could include a range of other methods of verification (such as going back to the stakeholders and asking their opinion on the results of the report).

    The reasoning behind this principle is that an SROI analysis will inevitably include judgements about what is included or excluded, and these judgements need to be reviewed as reasonable or unjust.

    CBA does not have an audit process. However, since judgments on what is included and excluded are made and the audience need to know whether these judgements are reasonable, an external assurance of those decisions, acting on behalf of those affected, is required.

    Other similarities and differences: Audience and purpose/rigour

    CBA tends to be used by the public sector or quasi-public sector, so is often applied with a reasonably high level of rigour.

    In contrast, SROI principles can be used at any level of rigour, as long as it is ‘good enough’ for the type of decision it is being used to inform. In this respect it is similar to financial accounting, which aims to provide information that is good/accurate enough predominantly to inform investors, as opposed to social science levels of rigour.

    At one end of the spectrum SROI can use similar levels of rigour as CBA, with additional requirements for consideration of materiality and assurance/verification. At the other end of the spectrum a much lower level of rigour could still be good enough for board-level strategic decisions within organisations.

    An illustration of this would be the Maryland Scientific Methods Scale. This is a scale that ranges from 1-5, and indicates the level of scientific rigour of a particular study. At the top end of the scale lies Randomised Control Trials (RCTs), which can be used in an SROI context but depends on use and purpose for the SROI analysis.

    At the bottom end of the scale would be an assessment of the counterfactual simply by asking beneficiaries what would have happened otherwise when they enter a program, and does not have any other use of control groups etc. This type of rigour would be unlikely to influence policy, but is still useful for designing services.

    This different application of rigour in SROI applies to valuation as well; an estimate for a value may be good enough for a particular audience. Similarly, in accounting we see examples of judgement being used in figures such as the bad debt provision.

    In summary, whilst CBA and SROI do have areas of overlap, their differences originate from the fact that SROI is additionally informed by financial accounting and sustainability reporting, particularly with respect to materiality, verification of a result, and use of different levels of rigour according to use and audience.

  • One way or another….

    One way or another….

    One way or another…

    Jeremy Nicholls 13th January 2014

    The SROI Network is continuing to grow. There are now nearly 900 members in over 40 countries. There are 8 national SROI networks, from Japan to the UK as part of the international network. Guidance is available in five languages and being translated into a further three this year.

    Despite this growth and the growing recognition of the importance of social and environmental issues, there is still nervousness about having one way of measuring social impact. It is true that there are many social impacts which may need different ways of being measured but this is not the same as there being many ways of deciding which impacts should be measured.

    Over the last few years of working on social return on investment, I haven’t seen any approaches which bring more than SROI, although there are many approaches which do less. SROI is based on 7 principles which ensure that anyone accounting for and reporting on their impact can answer a number of questions:

    Who has changed?

    How have they changed?

    How much change was there?

    What would have happened anyway?

    Did anyone else contribute to the changes?

    Which changes are important enough to manage and account for?

    How valuable are the changes to those who changed?

    How much credibility does the analysis have?

    Who answered these questions?

    Answering these questions is fundamental to an account of social impact. Some approaches answer some of these questions but not all. If any are being missed then there is a higher risk that the information on impact is incorrect.

    But I do see a wide range in the level of rigour being applied in answering these questions

    How much rigour is needed depends on the people who are going to use the information on social impact. If the information is going to be used to make or influence decisions, and there seems to be little point in accounting for and analysing impact unless the information is going to be used then   the more rigour the less risk that the conclusion will be incorrect although sometimes the more time and resource that is required.

    The SROI Network provides an assurance framework which seeks to ensure that all these questions are being answered at comparable levels of rigour and at a level which shows that the principles are understood.

    image for blog 1

    Some methods answer some questions at a higher level of rigour but don’t answer other questions at all. Some audiences want a high level of rigour for one question but are less concerned about the others, for example where a high level of rigour in answering “what would have happened anyway” has led to the use of randomised control trials even though the change being examined has been decided on without any stakeholder involvement. This is not that uncommon and could mean that a great deal of time and energy is being spent on assessing an outcome which is either not the material outcome arising from the activity and or is not of any real value to stakeholders compared to other outcomes that are being experienced.

    image for blog 2

    Most organisations are doing something and sometimes a lot of work on a particular question but when they do a quick self-analysis discover that they are doing much less or none on some of the other questions. This is a good guide on where to improve practice since there is always a temptation to get even better in an area where an organisation is already good.

    image for blog 3

    It may not be appropriate or possible for an organisation to answer all of these questions but organisations should be aware of the risks of not answering them and should plan to address them over time.

    If the information is going to be used to make different decisions on allocating resources then it needs to be credible to those that are going to use it and our experience is that people always come back to these questions and understanding how they have been answered before they are happy to use the information.

    All these questions need answering, but if there is a place to start then it’s on understanding who changes and how they change and ensuring that those affected are involved in reaching this understanding.

  • Social Return on Investment Principles gain momentum as government policy continues to emphasise the importance of Social Value

    Social Return on Investment Principles gain momentum as government policy continues to emphasise the importance of Social Value

    The need to incorporate social value, rather than just economic value is becoming increasingly important across all sectors.

    Conservative MP Chris White’s Public Services (Social Value Bill) seeks to make “good practice, standard practice” by making the concept of social value more relevant and important in the placement and provision of public services by considering economic, social and environmental well-being in procurement.

    Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said [the bill] ‘is not just about social enterprise;’ re-iterating the importance of accounting for social value in organisations across all sectors.

    Additionally, the Open Public Services White Paper aims to “give power to those who have been overlooked and underserved” via reforms, wresting “power out of the hands of highly paid officials, and giving it back to the people.” It states that “spending decisions need to take into account economic and financial considerations but cannot ignore the wider social impact” and “improving the accountability of policy and spending decisions in terms of the full social value they create will be increasingly important to improve the way in which public decisions are made.”

    With this, LGF, a forum of national charities, suggested that “commissioners need to work closely with civil society organisations to understand the wider social, environmental and economic benefits they bring to local services,” a view also taken by NAVCA and NCVO.

    The European Commission’s Green Paper on the modernisation of EU public procurement policy expresses a similar view, stating that “public authorities can make an important contribution to the Europe 2020 strategic goals by using their purchasing power to procure goods and services with higher societal value in terms of fostering innovation.”

    A recent declaration from the European Parliament concluded that “the criterion of lowest price should no longer be the determining one for the award of contracts, and that it should, in general, be replaced by the criterion of most economically advantageous tender, in terms of economic, social and environmental benefits – taking into account the entire life-cycle costs of the relevant goods, services or works.”

    Furthermore, Big Society Bank, which will be launched in 2012 aims to “develop a market for investment made on the basis of positive social impact as well as financial return.”

    A key objective of the BSB is to support financial innovation for organisations in the social sector, so they can be rewarded in delivering valued social outcomes.

    A recent report sponsored by The Social Investment Business, and The City UK – “Making Good in Social Impact Investment- Opportunities in an Emerging Asset Class” also suggests organisations “measure what is important” in their quest for investment.

    At the recent Labour party conference, leader Ed Miliband stated that businesses who deliver long term social value should be rewarded.

    On the back of all of this, people are now beginning to recognise a need to incorporate and understand a broader concept of value – social, economic and environmental value from a stakeholder perspective, to give a fuller picture of how value is created and destroyed. In addressing this need, we must begin with a set of principles.

    Created as part of a measuring social value consortium by The SROI Network, nef, Charities Evaluation Services, NCVO and New Philanthropy Capital, the seven principles of SROI form the basis of a key question in the impact measurement and investing market – “did we make a difference?” The development of these principles has been on-going for almost three years, developing Community of Practice in their application along the way.

    These principles allow organisations across all sectors to use a standardised methodology to account for the changes and value they have created in a credible and consistent way. They provide an analytical framework to examine and assess the social, economic and environmental value and impact of their organisation, projects, or activities.

    Additionally, New Philanthropy Capital with the collaboration of others including The SROI Network, have recently launched the consultation for the principles of Good Impact Reporting. These provide a framework for charities and social enterprises to use when measuring and talking about their impact.

    Together, the seven principles of SROI and the principles of Good Impact Reporting form an effective method of successfully accounting for and reporting on impact.

    To learn more about the 7 principles of SROI, please click here. Comments and ideas in relation to developing these principles are always welcome.

    To submit your feedback for consultation on the Principles of Good Impact Reporting, please visit the New Philanthropy Capital website here.

    To become a member of The SROI Network and help to develop SROI methodology via a community of practice, please click here.

  • What Ratios Are Telling Us

    JEREMY NICHOLLS 29TH MAY 2013

    One of the common concerns raised about SROI is that reporting a ratio between value created and cost will lead people to inflate ratios.

    Although the SROI Network’s position is that the ratio is only one way of presenting the analysis of social value and is of most use for internal management and board discussions of efficiency, it remains a commonly used reference point. We have now been collecting SROI reports since 2005 and have around 140 in the member’s area of our website. This is by no means a list of all SROI reports and only represents our best attempts at collating a combination of SROI reports available on line and SROI reports that have gone through assurance and can be made public.

    Based on best fit of the ratios reporting, over the last 7 years there has been a small increase in the trend on the best fit line from a ratio of 5 to 1 to 5.9 to 1. This includes one reported ratio of 37 to 1. If this were excluded the increase is from 4.5 to 1 to 5.5 to 1. True, an increase but hardly a huge inflation.

    Of course all reports on performance risk overstating results, and as soon as there is anything to compare to, there is a risk of inflation as we attempt to out-do the past. Performing better than the past is of course a good thing so long as the improvement is real. It could just be that the reason for the increase is because organisations are becoming more effective at creating social value. Like it or not, comparisons do drive human behaviour and this can be both positive and negative.

    But let’s ignore the possibility of improved performance and focus on the risk of only ‘improving’ how social value is reported.  Let’s also assume that no other evaluation has ever had to compromise between the evaluator’s perception of the evidence and the organisation’s perception, that poor results are always reported, that organisations are not able to hide information from external evaluators, that there is no tension and no disputed space in any process of summarising activity and reporting on that summary. I know, yes, ridiculous. But we have to make that assumption in order to control for all risks of inflated ratios, so that the argument that the increase in SROI is because SROI is more at risk of inflating reported results than any other approach where comparison is possible.

    This is why SROI has a principle for this – ‘verify the result’.

    This principle exists because we recognise that socially constructed information needs an independent check. The SROI Network offers two approaches to this principle; one is our report assurance process for SROI analysis and the other is a report review process for any social impact reports. Demand is steady and as high as we can easily manage.

    On the best fit line the ratio for assured reports has fallen from 5.2 to 1 to 4.5 to 1.

    This is an important result

    It suggests that the assurance process, which is a bottom up, community driven approach to deciding whether judgements being made are reasonable, is slowly closing the range within which judgements are acceptable.

    This is not dependent on any organisation’s claims of their internal quality assurance processes and it is independent of the employer consultant relationship and inherent pressures.

    It belies the criticism of SROI that there will be inflation in reported ratios and shows why the principle of verification is so important.

    I wonder how many of those criticising SROI are really aware of this principle and how many apply it to their own favoured approach. How have you verified the judgements that you MUST have made in summarising peoples experiences? SROI has never argued that this experience can be reduced to a number without other information, qualitative and quantitative information all play a critical part as well. But all these types of information are still summaries of people’s experience and summarising needs judgements.

    Do you ever wonder that the reason not enough use is made of evaluations is because we don’t trust them? We don’t know whether, if we use the information to make a decision, we are more or less likely to make a better decision – and so we don’t use it.

    I know it’s my favourite comparison but financial accounting and reporting only works because the information is verified. This may be prepared by a qualified accountant for a board report or audited by external auditors for a public report but there are appropriate verification processes in place. Would you invest in businesses that haven’t been audited? It is bad enough getting businesses to pay enough tax within audited accounts; imagine what would happen to tax receipts without audit. And this audit process isn’t something being applied in a consultancy relationship; it is applied by an independent structure which also registers auditors.

    There are a few that do this in the world of social impact, there’s what we do and there is the Social Audit Network and there are also the listing platforms like NEXII and ASIAIIX. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales can maintain independence because audit is a legal requirement. Even if you are audited by PwC, the audit manager has to be registered with ICAEW and has to use established audit standards.

    The SROI has had very welcome support from the Hadley Trust for this not very sexy area.

    But if we don’t put these processes in then the boom in interest in social impact reporting will fade. Unless it is possible to say ‘hold on you haven’t had as much of an impact as you are saying’ it will become a rubber stamp. The information won’t be used to make decisions. Careers will be made, resources spent, but it won’t make much difference.

    Accept no alternatives.

    Get your reports assured.

    Using an independent process.