It’s so sad to see cuts like those at Pengegon (see previous post) in prospect when ‘the voluntary and community sector sits at the heart of the Government’s ambitions to create a Big Society’ – Building a Stronger Civil Society. And when good evidence is emerging that empowerment pays.
A new report from the New Economics Foundation for the Community Development Foundation demonstrates that for every £1 a local authority invests in community development, £15 of value is created.
The report, Catalysts for community action and investment: A Social Return on Investment analysis of community development work, based on a common outcomes framework, quantifies the hard-to-measure outcomes of community work. It shows, for example, that the time invested by members of the community in running groups and activities represents almost £6 of value for every £1 invested by a local authority in employing a community development worker.
We all know that it pays to invest in business to help the country prosper – but do local authorities understand that without investment in community development they may, as the report suggests, ‘pay the costs of lower levels of well-being and an inactive, disempowered population, which history tell us will be borne by our most deprived communities’. Prevention is much cheaper than cure.
Empowerment Works is a movement of people and organisations committed to building support for community empowerment in the South West and beyond. For more information please visit the Empowering Communities website.
Measuring Social Return on Investment
ReplyDeleteI've just spotted a course on 'The methodology and practical guidance needed to understand and embark on SROI and social outcomes valuation analysis for public sector organisations'. It's on 25 January 2011, in Bristol. There are only 20 places.
Book it at Interactive Business Events . You'll have to google it, though. When pasting the URL here I was told it 'contains illegal characters'!