Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | Page 111

Practice Issues

Dear Social Service Practitioners,
Social Return on Investment
Put simply, social return on investment is an approach to understanding and
managing the value of the social, economic and environmental outcomes
created by a social programme. It should not be used in relation to a short
term activity or a cluster of activities that are not strung together by a logic
model.
Social return as a concept is based on a set of principles within a framework.
It seeks to include the values of people and attempts to factor them into
resource allocation decisions. It acts as “a voice of the people who are not
included in the typical business oriented framework”. In some social work
settings, it is the voice of the clients.

Social Return and Impact
Social return is often discussed in relation to impact, so let’s see what we
mean by impact.
Impact is often used in the following ways:
• Impact is sometimes used to describe all the results achieved by a social
programme, that is: its outputs (the products and services it delivers) and
any of the resulting changes or effects.
• For others, ‘impact’ is used to refer to any changes or effects resulting
from a social programme’s activities, and ‘outcomes’ are seen as part of
the impact. The terms may be used interchangeably.
• Others make a distinction between outcomes as the more direct benefits
or effects of a project or programme, and impact as the wider and often
more long-term consequences for the social, economic and physical
environment.

Measurement of social value
Social return in the context of social programmes is at best a story and
less a number. The story is an attempt to show and prove how we create a
value. As with any value, it is difficult to quantify and even more difficult to
measure.
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