Capturing the Invisible Wealth in Nonprofits to Overcome Myopic Perceptions

Abstract

Since nonprofits use third-party funds for their activities, they are often perceived as resource managers or spending units, instead of being considered as social wealth generating entities. The aim of this study is to help to overcome this myopic perception by showing how the invisible wealth generated by these organizations can be made visible. We use the SROI methodology to do so, by identifying stakeholders, outcomes (tangible, intangible) and social impacts in a drug addiction treatment centre. The results show that social impact in monetary terms exceeds that of the inputs used, confirming the idea that addiction-based nonprofits are social wealth generating units. The conclusion drawn is that social impact measurement should be widely used as a management tool and a mechanism for reinforcing the social image of nonprofits.

Accounting for Emotional Value: A Review in Disability Organizations

“…The use of these measurements makes it possible to make a diagnosis of the conditions in which the subject finds himself or herself based on his or her own self-perception. However, they do not necessarily reflect the emotional value generated by the organization (Fuertes-Fuertes et al, 2020;. For this reason, in most of the cases analyzed, the value is measured in terms of improvements or advances in people's well-being, through the use of indicators such as the self-perceived level of change.…”

“…Measuring the social value of non-profit entities makes it possible to legitimize the allocation of public resources and the grants-in-aid (Matthews, 2015), and is useful when analyzing the impacts of public policies in areas such as disability . Social value measurement reveals which organizations are the ones that contribute more effectively and efficiently to create public value (Fuertes-Fuertes et al, 2020). Ormiston (2019) concludes that there are multiple rationalities in the social value literature.…”

“…However, although quality of life indicators are quite frequent in health economics studies (Edwards et al, 2013), and more specifically in areas such as disability (Jones et al, 2016;Moral Torres et al, 2020), so far there is no accepted model of emotional value accounting for disability organizations. This entails the risk of relegating the organizations' contribution to improving the emotional well-being of its stakeholders to the background or even render it "invisible" (Fuertes-Fuertes et al, 2020;Retolaza and San-Jose, 2021).…”