The Social Return on Investment Pilot Project

How do we demonstrate the value of what we do?

It's a question that CSC has been hearing from our friends all over the province (and all over Canada) for years. Working in the community sector is about creating value - economic, social, and environmental value. We all know that we're doing it - but how do we capture it, measure it, and improve it? 

CSC's search for solutions led us, in 2010, to start investigating Social Return on Investment (SROI), a methodology that is gaining ground around the world as a recognized way of capturing all the value a program creates - economic, social, and environmental - and expressing it in the language of dollars that we all speak.

We made contact with the new economics foundation (nef) , a UK-based group that has pioneered SROI analysis. After a visit from one of their consultants in 2010, we heard - over and over - that organizations would love to take on an SROI project of their own. 

With the support of ACOA and the Provincial Government, that became a reality in September 2011, as a group of community organizations (and one government program) came together with staff from nef and CSC for their first training sessions in SROI. Since then, these organizations have become Canadian pioneers, undertaking a rigourous look at just how they create value. The project is in its very last stages now, as our participants finalize their results and refine their reports.

Want to learn more?

Download the project briefing here (PDF)

Participants

 Avalon Employment
Community Employnment Corporation - Port aux Basques
Canadian Hard of Hearing Association NL
CNIB
Community Education Network
WestRock (formerly Dunfield Park) Community Centre
Food Security Network
Gros Morne Cooperating Association
Labrador Friendship Centre
Office of Immigration & Multiculturalism
St. Anthony Basin Resources Inc.
School Sport NL
CSC (Student Work and Service Program Community Component)

Learn more about SROI:

Why SROI?
Effective stakeholder engagement
The importance of a theory of change
Moving from outputs to outcomes
How do we track this stuff?
"You can't buy me love" - valuing non-financial outcomes
Accounting for complexity
The ratio and what it means

Our funders: