Posted 13th August 2014
What SROI reports are going on, right now, around the world? Over to our members…
Australia
SROI on Financial Capability Program
Dr Anton Mischewski says:
We are conducting an SROI for a regional Australian crisis and supported accommodation service, Shelter Housing Action Cairns that provides financial capability and literacy services as part of its support package.
The main client group is indigenous (Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Island) women and their children escaping domestic violence. The biggest challenge for us is the seeming lack of similar studies that deal with the combination of women, indigenous, homelessness and financial capability. If anyone has experience of SROI in this nexus of indigenous, homelessness and financial capability, please let us know – contact Dr Anton Mischewski at [email protected]
SROI on National Australia Bank trainee programs
The National Australia Bank’s indigenous traineeship programs deliver $2.71 in value for every dollar invested, says a report into corporate support for Aboriginal employment programs.
Full-time traineeship programs were even more valuable, delivering $3.14 for every dollar spent.
The report is the first time a commercial institution has attempted to put a value on corporate expenditure on indigenous employment.
Glen Brennan, head of the bank’s indigenous finance and development, said the training program had a far broader impact than “simply providing an income”. NAB has been running the program since 2009 and has trained 310 indigenous employees. Last year, 73 per cent of school-based trainees and 71 per cent of full-time trainees retained jobs at NAB.
The report, by Ernst and Young, assessed the broader social impact and financial impacts of NAB’s indigenous school-based and full-time traineeships delivered in the three years to financial year 2014 to stakeholders.
Mr Brennan said the road to closing the gap seemed daunting but there was no doubt the corporate sector had a crucial role to play in providing real and sustainable opportunities. “Everyone benefits from jobs and indigenous Australia is no different,” he said.
South Africa
Using SROI to work with new Entrepreneurs
As an Angel Incubator, we have been working with two very exciting entrepreneurs. One of them, Shakti Energy, is currently our first client going through a detailed measurement using the tools we have learned in a recent SROI workshop here in Cape Town. We are very excited to have acquired this new tool and plan to implement it across all our client applications.
Another project we are involved in, is a company called Shonaquip. They manufacture and distribute customized wheelchairs and related support services, to children in need all across South Africa and Africa. Our incubator is supporting them with finding investor funding.
Liverpool, United Kingdom
SROI shines the light on impact
Lindsay Eckley is from the Centre of Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University. She’s been working with SolarAid, an international charity working in Africa:
I will admit to taking my access to electricity for granted. When there is a power cut in my house, I scrabble to search for torches or candles – anything that will allow me to see. Imagine how inconvenient that would be every day. Well, for nearly 600 million people across Africa this is a reality. Limited access to electricity means many are forced to use a kerosene lamp as a source of light. Kerosene is a highly flammable paraffin liquid which, when burned, produces a black toxic smoke. There’s no surprise that using kerosene lamps come with a multitude of problems. Not only is it extremely damaging to health (respiratory illnesses, headaches, burns etc), but the environment suffers through the production of greenhouse gases and it takes its toll on finances too (it is estimated that an average 13% household income is spent on kerosene). SolarAid is an international charity that has made it their mission to eradicate the kerosene lamp from Africa by 2020 through selling clean, safe alternatives that provide free energy – the humble solar powered light. SolarAid owns a social enterprise, SunnyMoney, the vehicle for creating a sustainable market distributing and selling solar lights in Africa. Since 2010, one million solar lights have been purchased in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia; the benefits of this have been tracked by SolarAid and been shown to positively impact on health, finances, education, wellbeing and the environment. Researchers at the Centre for Public Health, Liverpool John Moores University, have been requested by SolarAid to help assess their wider social impact. The first stage of this was to bring together the current evidence and to scope out the feasibility of undertaking an SROI on the charity’s activities. The next step will be to conduct the SROI – exciting times! For more information on SolarAid and their vital work to light up Africa please go to their website solar-aid.org.
The Heart of Impact Measurement
Gayle Whelan, also at John Moores University, is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Cultural Capital. Hear what she has got to say about her job and what it means to her:
I attended a course recently on considering the impacts of research work in which participants were asked to consider what their field of expertise was. And then we had two minutes to tell the room, succinctly, and without using jargon exactly what it was we did, what we were passionate about and what impact our work was likely to have. So this is me: As a researcher I work with communities, and I find out what happens in those communities. I find out about the people, their health and wellbeing, and what they do with their time outside of work and the home. I map the projects and initiatives that communities have set up, built up and volunteer within. I uncover personal stories, what has happened in their life, what has changed recently and why. And that’s the heart of my work: people, the where, why and how. And why I do this work, and what impassions me about it, is that I help to provide a voice for a community and its projects and initiatives. Communities support people and often promote resilience, giving people a platform to be an involved part of where they live, to socialise, to learn new things and skills, which ultimately has a positive impact upon their health and wellbeing.
And the impact of this work? I hope, giving grassroots organisations, and communities the opportunity to know more about the impacts of their own work and to highlight the great strong support networks that exist in communities.
We’ve just published the first of my asset mapping reports on the Merseyside peninsula of Wirral and I’m now embarking on mapping cultural projects and initiatives in inner city Liverpool, to add another layer to the structure of communities: how does getting involved in art and cultural activities impact upon people’s lives.