Valuing Social Values Decision Support Tool

North East Funders ForumWednesday 7th September 2011, 2.00 - 4.30pm

Chris Ford, NUBS

The VSV Partnership• Co–ops North East - www.cooperatives-

ne.coop • Pentagon Partnership -

www.pentagonpartnership.org.uk • NESEP - www.nesep.co.uk • VONNE –www.vonne.co.uk

• KITE, at Newcastle University Business SchoolProject Team: Rob Wilson, Jane Gibbon, Chris Ford.

“Monitoring and evaluation has been identified as having these purposes:• The communication role• Ensuring accountability and transparency• The performance management role• The wider learning role• The policy role” (‘Accountability and learning: developing monitoring and

evaluation in the third sector.’ Ellis with Gregory for CES, 2009)

A claim:

• All organisations need data/information/ knowledge to: –Evidence delivery –Inform organisational development–Enable regulatory/statutory

compliance

Structure:Where you are... Most Relevant starting point...

“I’m starting out, and not certain about all of this.”

Why do it? - Why do you want to do this? - Typical scenarios? - What are the priorities for your organisation? - What do you already do?

“I think know what I need but not I’m not clear how to get it.”

What tools?-What are the options?-Thinking about costs and benefits

“I know what I’m doing and just need to check my thinking.”

Which tools? - Making a decision- Testing your decision- Next Steps

Case studies

• Balanced scorecard Ouseburn Trust• Excellence model (EFQM) Groundwork NE• ISO 9000 NECA• Investors in People Chester-le-Street

Mind• PQASSO VODA• SROI Crisis• Social Accounting and Audit Community Campus

• Impact framework PCP

The Grantmaking Tango: Issues for Funders. Julia Unwin, Baring Foundation, 2004.

(extracts from chapter summaries)• Giving - “It is easy for the giving mode to be dismissed as the easy,

and maybe less effective, mode of activity. It is the way in which the bulk of support to the voluntary sector is provided by grant-making trusts, by the public and still by many public bodies....”

• Shopping – “Many of the organisations that fund the voluntary sector describe themselves as “purchasers”..... Purchasing involves being specific about the product bought, and having narrowly defined views about the use to which the funds will be put...”

• Investing – “The chapter concludes that there are interesting and important ways in which funders can genuinely invest in voluntary organisations, but ambiguity about the approach is risky for all concerned.”

• http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/grantmaking-tango-issues-funders

http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/sites/default/files/A4_Funding_Commission_Final_Report.pdfhttp://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/sites/default/files/A4_Funding_Commission_Final_Report.pdf

Recommendation 1 – Increasing Impact Fund• funders - Build on, develop and disseminate examples of different types of

good practice in developing, measuring and reporting on their social, economic and environmental impact- Help individual CSOs or groups of CSOs working in the same sub-sector to develop the systems and expertise to measure their impact- Build up expertise across the sector as a whole

• One of the priorities ... develop a series of common frameworks.. Using this outcomes framework, all funders should give priority to:- Developing a shared evidence base- Encouraging shared learning- Stimulating the potential of open data....

• CSOs should subsequently be expected to:- Publish impact assessments and evaluations in their Annual Reports and Summary Information Returns and on their websites- Share learning (failures as well as successes) with other CSOs in the same sub-sector.

http://www.jpmorgan.com/cm/BlobServer/impact_investments_nov2010.pdf?blobcol=urldata&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=id&blobwhere=1158611333228&blobheader=application%2Fpd

• While focused on the global markets for people at the ‘Base of Pyramid’ (earning less than $3,000 pa) the report includes a helpfully succinct description of social impact bonds as a structure that “ employ(s) government commitments to use a portion of savings that result from improved social outcomes to reward non-government investors that fund the intervention activities.”

• Amongst the conclusions it is stated that “because most impact investors use proprietary impact measurement systems, there is little consistent quantitative data about social impact actually achieved by impact investments made to date. .... Rigorously assessing progress toward social impact expectations will only be possible once standard social metrics are adopted.”

App 1 Measuring impact is complicated, expensive and subjective

1. Data collection can be resource intensive, expensive and difficult to execute

2. The tension between feasibility, credibility and cost3. Impact investments exist within a complex system of

impacts4. Diversified investors need to balance custom metrics

and universal frameworks5. Different people have different opinions about what

matters6. Even if we agree on what matters, different metrics will

give different conclusions

http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/sites/default/files/resources/404970_SocialInvestmentMarket_acc.pdf

• 1.12 The key to better capitalised social ventures, and therefore greater social value, is more and better social investment. ...

• 3.9... But there are many symptoms of dysfunction in what remains an embryonic and inefficient market, ...

• 4.17 ..... A menu of options for measurement methodology will need to operate according to what investors need, with greater rigour being applied to those that require it; ...

• 6.2 We would also like to see intermediaries work with government to embed standards for measuring social return; ...

• Thanks very much for your time.

• chris.ford@ncl.ac.uk• 0191 208 1693