Show Funders the Value You Actually Create.

The Six Stages of a SROI Report

SROI follows an established methodology maintained by Social Value International. Every credible report, whatever its size, moves through the same six stages.

1. 01

   Establish scope and identify stakeholders

   Decide which programme or activity the report covers, over which period, and who is affected by it. List every stakeholder group that experiences change: beneficiaries, families, volunteers, staff, the public sector.

2. 02

   Map the outcomes

   For each stakeholder group, describe the chain of change: what you put in, what you did, what came out, and what actually changed in people's lives. The change, not the activity, is the outcome.

3. 03

   Evidence the outcomes and give them a value

   Collect data that shows each outcome really happened: surveys, records, interviews. Then attach a financial proxy to each outcome, a defensible money value drawn from research or established valuation databases.

4. 04

   Establish impact

   Be honest about what you can claim. Subtract what would have happened anyway (deadweight), what others contributed (attribution), change that simply moved elsewhere (displacement), and how the effect fades over time (drop-off).

5. 05

   Calculate the SROI ratio

   Divide the total present value of the impact by the total investment. The result reads like this: every 1 euro invested creates X euros of social value. Run a sensitivity check so one generous assumption cannot carry the whole result.

6. 06

   Report, use, and embed

   Write the report so a funder can follow every number back to its source. Then use it: in funding applications, board reporting, and programme decisions. A SROI report that changes decisions is worth far more than one that decorates a shelf.

Try It: The 60-Second Ratio

Play with the three numbers below and watch the ratio react. A real SROI model also adjusts for attribution, displacement, and drop-off, but this is the heart of the calculation.

The Worksheets

Five Mistakes That Cost Credibility with Funders

• Counting activities as outcomes. Delivering 40 workshops is an output; participants gaining confidence to seek work is an outcome.
• Claiming 100% of the change. Funders immediately distrust a model with no deadweight or attribution adjustments.
• Choosing the proxy that gives the biggest number instead of the most defensible one.
• Surveying only the happiest participants. State your sampling honestly.
• Presenting the ratio without the story. The ratio opens the conversation; the outcome chains earn the trust.