SRoI measures ‘change’ in ways that are relevant to the people or organisations that experience or contribute to it. It tells the story of how change is being created or ushered in, by measuring social, environmental and economic outcomes, and uses monetary values to represent these.
The real ‘value’ that an effective social programme creates goes beyond numbers. Hence, CB Impact analyses SRoI on the basis of ‘stories of change’, and these include case studies backed up with qualitative information
and quantifiable data including financial information, and then assigns a financial proxy to the socioeconomic and/or environmental change brought about by the intervention
The 6 stages of an SRoI analysis
Establishing scope and identifying key stakeholders
It is important to have clear boundaries about what your SRoI analysis will cover and identify all stakeholders who will be involved in the process.
Mapping outcomes
Through engaging with stakeholders, researchers develop an impact map that shows the relationship between inputs, outputs and outcomes.
Evidencing outcomes and giving them a value
This stage involves finding data to show whether outcomes have happened and what all outcomes can be attributed a monetary value – specifically, a) the monetary value saved, a) the monetary value gained, and c) the monetary value ‘to be’ gained or saved in the future.
Establishing impact
Having collected evidence on outcomes and monetised them, those aspects of change that ‘would have anyway happened’ or are a result of other factors are eliminated from consideration.