SROIproject

The Scottish Government is encouraging 3^rd sector organisations to look at ways of measuring and communicating their social value. SROI is one methodology that allows an organisation to do this. It is not a requirement from the Scottish Government to do an SROI but they support and encourage the use of this methodology.  

Perhaps inevitably with a name like SROI this is a common perception. However, in the same way that a business plan contains much more information than the financial projections and the forecast return, SROI is not a number but a story about change which includes narrative, qualitative, quantitative and financial aspects. SROI considers stakeholders as investors and seeks to provide a mix of information to communicate the social return.

Organisations work with different stakeholders and will have made different decisions about materiality or about levels of attribution.  Consequently, it would not be appropriate to compare the social returns but it would be possible to compare the way in which organisations had calculated that return.  An organisation could, however, compare changes in its own social return over time and examine the reasons for changes.

That depends. If you have experience of social accounting, programme evaluation or accountancy you should be able to forecast your social return with the help of one of the many guides that are available. However it may be helpful to access one of the one or two day training sessions that are available or to arrange phone support as you work through. The risk of using external support is that the process may not be embedded and the potential future benefits may be lost.

If you use it to forecast, this can be done relatively quickly and be inexpensive. A comparison of actual Social Return versus forecast Social Return need not be time consuming if the organisation now produces the necessary information. SROI is also based on analysis of activity rather than organisations and so it is possible to start by examining only one part of your organisation.
If you are carrying out an SROI evaluation and the information is not available it can be time consuming to have to go back and generate the information. The first time you forecast your social return you may, for example, identify the need to change your management information systems, and this will take time. How much time will depend on the scale of the changes.
One of SROI's principles is materiality and one of the aspects of this is your own capacity and financial resources, it is possible to be focused.