NCIA Innovation Project: Emerging Findings from the Collaborative Value Initiative

Organisations looking for ways to measure their contribution to social value are not short of alternatives. The industry around measuring social return on investment has generated proxies, measures and tools for organisations to monetise their social, environmental, economic, health and cultural outcomes.  

But these tools are often expensive, time-consuming to administer, and generally inaccessible for smaller voluntary/community organisations and social enterprises (VCSEs). As a result, many organisations that contribute value, other than money, are unable to easily capture and demonstrate their added contribution to their stakeholders, funders, and government.  

Universities as anchor organisations are strategically placed to support VCSEs to measure social value. Universities should embed user-friendly proxies and simplified social value measurements. This helps smaller VCSEs overcome existing barriers and become empowered to compete for contracts and opportunities.

Our research with community organisations has mapped a variety of measurements or proxies. We found organisations measuring engagement by counting the numbers of people undertaking training and volunteering hours, as well as calculating impact measurement of housing use, food bags, and English for Speakers of Other Languages training. Respondents identified two commonly used measures of social value: 

• Rental costs for accommodating people.
• The social value of the arts and the value of volunteering. Analysis from Arts Council England shows a return of £5 for every £1 of public funding. 

But we also identified innovative accounts of value through the measurement of social media activity or through feedback and storytelling. Proxies to account for improved social cohesion and trust, reduction of anxiety and stress, or the generation of cultural pride, and enhanced well-being and confidence are a welcome development.  

Capturing so-called ‘intangible impacts’ is a primary challenge for VCSEs. This is amplified by the absence of standard measurements and the cost and inaccessibility of SROI (Social Return on Investment) tools. Smaller organisations are caught in a vicious cycle. Limited funding inhibits investment in impact measurement tools which then limits an advantage in bids for further funding.  Our respondents asked for simple and time-efficient impact assessment tools with quantitative and monetary measures. A limiting factor to using social impact measurement is the theoretical language which can overshadow its practical uses.  

Universities can support VCSEs by recognising these challenges and generating new social value proxies for smaller VCSEs. There are four ways in which universities and VCSEs can help demonstrate their social return on investment. These are: 

• Providing a social value weighting in the procurement processes of university goods and services, considering price and social value together. VCSEs can demonstrate the broader social value that they create.
• Better connecting research and community businesses. Universities partnering with community organisations in research projects can help direct funding to the VCSE sector. In addition, analysis from Universities UK and London Economics (p.8) shows £1 of research council funding leads to £4.95 of benefits in improved productivity.
• Monitor and evaluate the impacts of money spent and research partnered with VCSEs. This builds on the work of Anchor Networks to help understand the opportunities for future improvement.
• Developing a two-way relationship between universities and VCSEs to create mutual understanding. 

• Collecting robust and consistent data about what they are doing – how many people do they help? How many times have they supported each person?
• Understanding what changes for beneficiaries – it is important to ask them what change looks like.
• Collecting evidence for the changes that happen.
• Selecting a measurable outcome using an existing method – such as ‘improved quality of life’.
• Considering how their evidence of change can be translated into that measure – ‘Mary now uses public transport on her own and meets friends regularly’.
• Using existing proxy values, such as: ‘improved quality of life’ to place a monetary value on the change that each person has experienced as a result of their support. 

Once organisations have worked out the value of the change, they must subtract all the input costs – everything that goes into delivering the service – including the value of volunteer time. For a more detailed measurement, organisations can download the Social Return on Investment value map. This is a spreadsheet that calculates the basic value and tests for how long changes last and for how much of the change they can claim. 

Organisations need to have: 

• Records of how many people they have supported.
• Knowledge of how much it costs to provide their service.
• Evidence of what change looks like.
• Identify an appropriate proxy value that relates to the changes they have recorded.

If you are interested in finding out more to strengthen the collaboration between the VCSE sector and Higher Education partners, then join us in our online workshop on Wednesday 26^th March 2025, 13:00 – 15:00. The workshop will discuss the challenge facing smaller community organisations in accounting for their social value, the potential proxies they might use, and how universities can invest in sustainable partnerships with VCSEs. 

We look forward to sharing and hearing your views. 

Please note places are limited on a first-come, first-served basis. 

A Collaborative Value Initiative research project led by University of Staffordshire with Anglia Ruskin University, Teesside University and the University Birmingham.

The authors of the blog are Ayad Al-Ani, Stephen Goodall, Steven Griggs, Tom Hambley, Johannes Read and Nicky Stevenson.

Contact Steven Griggs for more information.

We would like to thank Rex Elston, Nic Gratton and Denise Hawkins for their support over the project.