SROI in practice: the Wooden Canal Boat Society

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this case study is to highlight the complexities involved in conducting a social return on investment (SROI) forecast in a small social enterprise, The Wooden Canal Boat Society. Design/methodology/approach – This SROI forecast was a collaborative exercise between Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council and the Wooden Canal Boat Society. A case study methodology has been adopted in order to allow the voice of the first author, from the Local Authority, to come through. Findings – The findings highlight that the process of scoping; gathering and analysing information; engaging with stakeholders and assigning evidence against proxies (London centric) is challenging and exhausting, yet it provides a rich learning experience for all those involved. The accuracy of the ratio is compromised and implicated by the time and resources that are available to invest the subjectivity of the data behind the ratio the judgements and decisions over who and how to include/exclude individuals from the SROI forecast. In short, the Wooden Canal Boat Society SROI forecast proved to be the tipping point in a successful grant application. However, SROI is not something the Local Authority are set to embrace more widely or would particularly recommend for the vast majority of their local social economy organisations. Research limitations/implications – As a case study paper, the authors do not seek to generalise. The case provides the reader with a stakeholder informed account of the experiences of being involved in a forecast SROI from the perspective of the first author from the Local Authority. In times of political change and economic austerity the climate in the UK social economy has significantly altered, particularly in the marketisation of services and funding provisions for health and social care. One implication of this shift that is reflected in the paper is Local Authority thinking in light of the Social Value Act, which passed through the UK Parliament in 2012. Originality/value – The value of this case study provides academics and practitioners with an alternative perspective and rich commentary of the first author's narrative and reflections on the process of SROI and the dynamics involved in arriving at the ratio.

Turning Social Return on Investment on Its Head

“…These types of benefits expressed by the research teams are exactly what an interpretivist approach would expect. It supports the argument to move the focus from “an increased SROI ratio could have been calculated had more time and energy been available” (Wilson and Bull , 324) to making visible the types of changes that occurred for stakeholders and then working on the best way to gather evidence to monitor change in the future. By reporting results by stakeholder group instead of as a single ratio, we honor their differing goals and interpretations of effectiveness (Herman and Renz ).…”

SROI Methodology for Public Administration Decisions about Financing with Social Criteria. A Case Study

“…First, the social impact is difficult to identify [11,16]. Second, some problems regarding the quantification arise from subjectivity in the scoring and the assumptions required for identifying the different variables needed to apply the methodology [16,33,35]. According to Maier et al [11], aspects such as the quality and availability of the data, the underlying measurement problems, the causality and the correlation, and the period of time analyzed are limiting factors that should lead SROI users to be cautious when making comparisons between organizations [3,11,16].…”

“…Following the principles of the SROI methodology, the stakeholder identification phase is an ideal time to favor the involvement and participation of stakeholders throughout the process [15,35]. For this reason, different focus groups were organized with the representatives of the foundation, the members of the school's administration team, and the president of the Association of Parents of Students (Asociación de Padres y Madres de Alumnos, AMPA).…”

“…Then, different meetings were held with different representatives of the interest groups to determine the core changes that the activity of the school generates. While these interviews encouraged the stakeholders to speak spontaneously about how they are involved in the center's activity and how they perceive the impacts they receive [36], their participation in the process also provided greater consistency and robustness to the results and counteracted subjectivity in some measurements that are necessary for SROI application [5,35].…”

“…The SROI rate is much more than a number, since it is accompanied by the changes induced by the organization that support numbers [3,35]. What is truly important is the process followed until the SROI rate is obtained [4,15], which has allowed evidence about the sources of added value and the impacts generated by the CEE-SA school in its environment to be obtained.…”