It depends. If you start measuring all kind of outputs (only partially related to your organizations’ mission), you may end up with a lot of useless information. Many performance measurement- and management information systems tend to collect a lot of information that only tells you about processes and outputs. SROI aims to measure and manage your impacts. It is therefore crucial to know your stakeholders, their intended impacts and the indicators that tell you about the progress on the impact.

We consider monetized values as a way to make the value of social change visible, as input for discussion. Money values are not considered as a trade market where we seek to choose the best financial option.

If you decide to work with SROI you can start with the basic version by using the social e-valuator™. This is no rocket science. The more sophisticated your SROI research needs to be, the more costly it can become. But starting and using the tool does not require an outside consultant.

SROI fits in existing tools and methods like Balanced Scorecard, AA1000, EFQM, Social Auditing, Social Accounting and more. In fact, we consider SROI to be an extra extension of these methods. SROI uses a lot of the same material as these methodologies, but adds components such as indicators, monetization, attribution, deadweight, sensitivity-analysis, etc. Furthermore, SROI can be used as a practical management tool and/or investment decision making tool. SROI aims to show concrete social results.

Cost-benefit-analysis uses partly the same business-accounting principles, like discounted cash flows, discount rates and monetization. However, CBA doesn’t use other methods, like stakeholder analysis, which SROI does include. In fact, SROI is a combination of existing methods. SROI is both an investment tool (as CBA) and a management-tool, which can be implemented in your regular reporting systems.

That depends. If you implement SROI in your management system, we hope it will be there for a long time! But doing your first analysis will definitely take you about 5 days of study, research and analysis.

You are right: social ventures and your actions need more than just calculations. But however much your actions are built on idealism and motivation, you will need to prove your value added in a comparable and quantative way. SROI is not meant to reduce your motivation, it is there to support it!

Check our cases, or read the book on Social Return on Investment, published in October 2006. You can also ask your country contact person. SROI is not patented but open source and the members of ESROIN are willing to share their information with you.