Program-specific listing

An NPO listing on a Social Stock Exchange does not have to raise money for everything it does at once. It can instead list for one particular programme or project — what the workbook calls a program-specific or project-specific listing.

This choice changes what the NPO has to disclose. The workbook's rule: for a program-specific or project-specific listing, the NPO must give "a greater level of detail" in its listing document, specifically about its track record and impact created in the program target segment.

So a program-specific listing is narrower in scope than an entity-wide listing, but deeper in the detail it demands about that one programme.

A program-specific listing sits alongside the wider disclosure regime the workbook sets out for any SSE listing. Before an NPO can even prepare a program-specific listing document, it must already provide, as part of pre-listing:

• audited financial statements for the previous 3 years
• social impact statements
• the ten "differentiators" (Table 3.2): vision, target segment, strategy, governance, management, operations, finance, compliance, credibility, social impact, and risks

For a program-specific listing, the workbook layers an extra requirement on top of this general disclosure: greater detail specifically on the track record and impact in the programme's own target segment, not just the organisation's overall history. The NPO must also publicly display, on its own website, everything it submits as part of both pre-listing and post-listing requirements — a rule that applies whether the listing is entity-wide or program-specific.

Illustrative NPO; figures are made up.

Jal Setu Trust runs several programmes: a drinking-water project in Bundelkhand, a school-meals programme in Odisha, and a disaster-relief fund. It wants to raise Rs 2 crore for the Bundelkhand water project specifically, not for its other work.

It chooses a program-specific listing. Its listing document still needs the standard differentiators, audited statements and social impact statements — but for the water project alone, it must additionally show, in greater detail, how many Bundelkhand villages it has reached before, how many borewells it has completed, and what impact those borewells had on water access.

An investor reading the listing document can then judge the Bundelkhand water project on its own record, rather than on Jal Setu Trust's combined reputation across all three programmes.

Chapter 3 (Registration and Listing on Social Stock Exchanges), section 3.3.1, introduces program-specific and project-specific listings as requiring greater disclosure detail on programme-level track record and impact, immediately after setting out the general "differentiators" table for all social enterprises. Expect a question asking what extra a program-specific listing must disclose compared with an entity-wide listing.

• A program-specific listing needs more detail, not less — the workbook's rule is "a greater level of detail," specifically on that programme's own track record and impact.
• The extra detail required is about the programme's target segment, not the NPO's finances generally.
• Program-specific listing is a choice of scope (one programme versus the whole entity), not a separate legal registration category.
• Whichever listing type is chosen, the NPO must publicly display all pre-listing and post-listing information on its own website.