| “…the government now accounts for one-third of the sector’s total income, and around 27,000 charities (a quarter of the third sector) rely on it for over three-quarters of their funding.” “A snapshot of a range of third sector organisations suggests, however, that very few organisations are implementing SROI as yet and, indeed, the majority are not ‘SROI ready’. SROI-readiness mainly involves being able to identify and measure organisational outcomes adequately in a quantitative way.” “Nevertheless, although SROI may be neither practicable nor desirable for all organisations, the basic concepts of outcomes evaluation that it encourages are important for all organisations to achieve.” “Given that the principles behind SROI are sound, but for many SROI is an extremely ambitious goal, there ought to be a more achievable social value measurement target set for the third sector as a whole.” “Setting this benchmark must be underpinned by three fundamental principles: - Proportionality: so that the burden of evaluation is in line with the scale and nature of the organisation undertaking it
- Comparability: so that even with a range of flexible frameworks, organisations can still produce outputs based on comparable principles and terms of reference
- Standardisation: so that there are tools and data available to remove the need to evaluate outcomes from scratch and reduce the burden on organisations.”
“Stakeholders from all sides…need to consider how to make concrete this concept of an achievable benchmark of social value measurements, including what combination of investment, incentivisation and tools need to be in place.” “The resources required to carry out the evaluation of a service could well outstrip some organisations’ budgets for delivering the service itself.” “…it is a good discipline for all organisations to embed the principles of SROI in the way they set their goals and review their activities, within the context of outcomes.” | 