Social Return on Investment

Two social projects can look very different. One builds toilets. Another trains nurses. A donor still wants to know: which one did more good for the money spent?

Social Return on Investment (SROI) tries to answer that. It puts a rupee value on the social good a project created. That value can then be compared with the rupees spent, and even compared across projects that look nothing alike.

The workbook places SROI inside the monetisation approach to Social Impact Assessment, alongside cost-benefit analysis. It says SROI is "calculated based on the Impact Map." The Impact Map is the same tool an assessor already builds to trace a project's outcomes, so SROI does not need fresh data collection on top of it.

The workbook does not spell out the arithmetic behind SROI. It only names the method and its source, the Impact Map. It also warns, as part of the monetisation approach generally, that some social and human effects resist being priced at all.

Where it sits (Chapter 7, Table 7.1). Of the three SIA approaches — qualitative, quantitative and monetisation — SROI is one of two named monetisation methods, alongside cost-benefit analysis.

What the workbook actually states: SROI is "calculated based on the Impact Map." No formula, no worked ratio and no rupee threshold appears in the workbook text itself, so none should be assumed here beyond what a worked example illustrates.

The comparability it buys. Because SROI turns outcomes into a common unit (rupees), it lets a donor set a livelihoods project against a health project on the same scale — something the qualitative and quantitative approaches cannot do on their own.

Its stated weakness (Table 7.1). Some human and social capital effects — trust, dignity, confidence — are hard to monetise. Chasing a rupee figure can crowd out the fuller picture of whether the social mission itself succeeded.

Illustrative NPO; figures are made up.

Nirmala Vidya Sangh spends ₹40 lakh on an adult-literacy programme for 2,000 women in rural Bihar.

Its assessor builds an Impact Map tracing the programme's outcomes: more women reading pension and ration documents themselves, fewer being cheated on wages, some starting small home businesses. The assessor monetises these effects, using assumptions it discloses in the report, at a combined ₹1.6 crore in avoided losses and new income over three years.

SROI = ₹1.6 crore ÷ ₹40 lakh, a ratio of 4:1. Every rupee Nirmala Vidya Sangh spent is valued at ₹4 of social benefit.

A second, unrelated health NPO spending ₹40 lakh on eye camps might report an SROI of 2.5:1. A donor comparing the two on rupee terms alone would favour literacy, though the workbook's own warning still applies: a ratio says nothing about which mission mattered more to the women and patients themselves.

Chapter 7 (Social Impact Assessment Reporting), Table 7.1, names Social Return on Investment as a method under the monetisation approach, calculated from the Impact Map. Chapter 5's approaches table repeats it as a tool for expressing impact. Expect a question asking which approach uses SROI (monetisation, not quantitative), and what SROI is calculated from (the Impact Map).

• SROI belongs to monetisation, not the quantitative approach — a common wrong-option trap, since SROI does use numbers.
• The workbook gives no formula for SROI beyond saying it is calculated from the Impact Map. Do not assume a specific computation method belongs to this workbook.
• A high SROI ratio does not mean a better mission — it only means more of the project's effects could be priced in rupees.
• Do not confuse SROI with the broader Monetisation approach: SROI is one method under it, cost-benefit analysis is the other.