Social return on investment

Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a technique that has been developed to measure the value of an organisation's work. Activities create and destroy value as they change the world in which an organisation works and SROI is a framework for measuring and accounting for this much broader concept of value. It assesses the economic, environmental and social outcomes of an organisation's work and uses monetary values (financial proxies) to represent these so that a ratio of total benefits to costs of the investment can be calculated. For example, an organisation might have a ratio of £5 of social value created for every £1 spent on its activities.

An SROI analysis can be used to evaluate, retrospectively, an existing service which is provided or it can forecast and predict how much social value will be created if activities meet their intended outcomes.

The SROI Project, which is supported by the Scottish Government, is promoting the use of SROI across the third sector in Scotland.

SROI demonstrates the social value of activities in a tangible way that everyone can understand, which is important for third sector organisations, their funders, investors and commissioners and is becoming increasingly important for the public and private sectors.

Contact Isobel Gray to discuss the benefits of SROI for your organisation.