Dr Adam Richards is an accredited Social Value and SROI practitioner and trainer, and has delivered training to individuals and organisations across the world. He joined SVUK in 2016 as Senior Researcher on the European Commission project SPRINT to apply the principles of social value to long-term care for frail older people across 11 European states. Before joining SVUK he lectured at universities for over 10 years and has a PhD from Liverpool John Moores University researching the legitimising effects of SROI in a social enterprise.

Adam has worked with a number of social enterprises to help them better understand, measure and manage their social impacts. He is also a member of SVUK’s UK Council and acts as a critical friend to the FRC Group, as part of their Social Value Sub-Committee.

In an exclusive interview Dr. Adam Richards shares with Marie Banu about Social Value, UK.

Can you tell us about Social Value, UK?

We are an organisation that changes the way the world looks at ‘Value’. We believe that for far too long, organisations have been focusing only on financial value and that has led to social and economic inequality and increase in environmental degradation. We want to change that!

We believe that accounting for value, in a much broader context, allows us to make decisions that takes into account ‘value’ in a holistic sense. We are a membership organisation and so Social Value, UK is owned by its members. We have a broad family of member led organisations.

Social Value, UK is part of Social Value, International which has members in 40 countries and networks in 20 countries. We are extremely excited and are looking forward to have India join our family.

It is working with capitalism; it is using the language that is familiar with decision makers; it is giving power and voice to the people that matters most. So, listening to people’s experiences, understanding what has changed in their lives, and understanding the importance and value of these changes improves decision making.

We deliver training in Social Value (Social Return on Investment) in a range of nations. I recently spent some time in Thailand and now in India at the moment.

We have got networks to be established in Greece, South Korea, and developments in South  America as well. It is great to do work in an international context.

About Social Return on Investment (SROI)?

People often talk about SROI as a tool or a technique, and I disagree with that.  It is a framework of seven principles—involve stakeholders; understand what changes; value the things that matter; only include what is material; do not over-claim; be transparent; and verify the result.

What is fundamental is that we involve stakeholders to understand what has changed and we value those changes. SROI is that framework that allows us, which we believe, to — Measure, manage and maximise social value.

When we talk about social value, we are talking fundamentally about how important the change is to people’s lives. The value is in the eye of the stakeholder. If you understand the value from the perspective of those people who are affected by change, or rather by the activities, or those who are likely to be affected – then you can make the decisions in a more meaningful way. Listen to the voices of people so that they have a representation in the decision making process.

I would say that SROI is a framework that provides consistency and flexibility at a global level.  SROI in one organisation need not have to be the same as in another. It has the flexibility to adapt to certain circumstances or a particular project. We may use focus group technique in one, and in another use a creative method while conversing with younger children or parents. You can adapt it in the way you need it.

Do you think SROI methodology would maximise the NGOs impact?

Absolutely! The idea of Social Value has a broad conception of values. We talk about the economic, social, and environmental values forming the social value. It is about talking to the people who matter most.

NGOs and Social Enterprises around the world work towards empowering people. I believe that SROI adds to that empowerment. Actually, by NGOs asking the people, giving them a voice, and giving them the power to influence decision making is in itself an empowering exercise.

NGOs or Social Enterprises should not just want to be accountable to their people. It is about being accountable and to be accountable, is to maximise. It is not just enough to say that we have measured the impact and are happy. 

I think all socially oriented organisations should look at maximising their impacts with people. Alternatively, what we are saying is that, within your resources – do the best you can; change people’s lives as effectively as possible. Why would you not want to maximise the positive changes you make in people’s lives?

At times, we create unintended negative changes in people’s lives. Our activities do not always work for everybody. They do not work as effectively for some people.  The biggest challenge is in acknowledging that.

I have seen this in my work. For instance, I have worked with Furniture Resource Centre at Liverpool. The organisation changes people’s lives. They take people from unemployment or careless employment towards sustainable employment. But, not everybody succeeds! We need to think about that. The reality is that some people felt even worse after they joined our organisation. Think about people for whom it does not work and think about their situation. Are they in the same situations they were before?

We have a moral duty to say how we can reduce or eliminate negative changes. It is not just increasing the positives, but also reducing or eliminating any negative impact that it might produce in people’s lives. It is only by understanding these two issues, can we really start moving beyond simply measuring. Measuring is easy, maximising is a challenge!

What are the similarities and differences in Social Audit Network and Social Value, UK?

I think there are more similarities than differences. Probably the only fundamental difference is the idea of using values, in terms of financial proxies by Social Value, UK.

So, Ten years ago, when Social Value, UK started as Social Return on Investment Network, we exclusively spoke about value in a financial sense. We were talking about value using the language of money. When Social Value, UK evolved, we don’t just talk about financial perspective, but about value in the eye of the stakeholder.

We want to quantify the value so that we can put things in order of importance.  As soon as you know a person experiences three changes and one is more important than the other two, our ability to gain insight has improved. We can start to focus where the stakeholder gains more value from. We can start to make decisions and focus on those areas where we can increase the positive changes in people’s lives; we can start to be able to compare one way of running a project to another.

I think that Social Audit Network, UK and Social Value, UK will both agree that these are the core ideals of our organisations.  I am extremely happy that these two organisations are going to work together in India. We both share a philosophy that our approaches will help organisations improve people’s lives. That is what drives both our organisations, and its members.

Have you experienced challenges in implementing your SROI framework globally?

Yes, there has been challenges but we are growing in acceptance. There has been really positive changes. We have been in existence for about ten years now, and have seen a real movement. Social Value and Social Return on Investment is used by organisations for sciences as well as in all sectors including public bodies, social enterprises, and private sector organisations as well.

One of the greatest challenge is organisations understanding that the ‘value’ is not just by measuring. It is not just a one-off annual exercise where you measure the social value. It is about making social innovation, making changes in your organisation, and continuing to work towards making changes that will bring about changes in people’s lives. When organisations see this, they will start to move from doing activities as an exercise, to imbedding it in their organisation, within their culture and system.

We do have social legislations in the UK. We have a Social Value Act which is in existence since 2013 and that requires public bodies and local legislations to literally consider having social value in certain commissioning activities in services. We hope that legislation evolves.

There is a growing movement now around the idea that we should be moving towards accounting for social value.