SALLY FORT
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • About Me
    • Right now...
    • Clients
    • Client Feedback
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Fees
    • BLOG
  • IMPACT
    • What is Impact?
    • Impact Development
    • Evaluation
    • Example Reports
    • Measuring & Managing Impact Quick Guide
    • Theory of Change Planning Template
  • ENGAGEMENT
    • Heritage
    • Visual Arts
    • Education
    • Creative Industries
    • Culture, Education & Community Guidance
    • Teacher Resource Packs
  • CHANGE
    • Research
    • Professional Development
    • Organisational Development

12/7/2010

Social Returns on Investment

0 Comments

Read Now
 
I'm now part of the network exploring the SROI model of social returns on investment. It's way of putting monetary values on the sorts of evaluation and participation outcomes that occur in the projects I work with, and demonstrating what difference the investment has really made - what happened that coulnd't or wouldn't have happened without.

It's also a way for me to offer organisations the sort of robustness they might expect from an academic research team. 

A lot of it will be new to me but I'm hoping it will ad a layer of technical formality to the likes of MLA's Generic Social Outcomes. Indeed MLA have already commissioned large scale pilot evaluation projects testing SROI's capacity for analysing the values of specific library and museums schemes.

Exploring qualitative outcomes, impacts and benefits is something I really enjoy. There are times though, when stakeholders need more quantifiable results and this should enable me to provide that too.

SROI has been developed, and continues to be developed by it's members, to support arts and culture, public services, science and education - all of which are fields I work with. It also supports employment and business, environment and climate, and health and care. So I hope this means it will become a tool that is recognised across all organisations.

I should add though, that for me this will be an additional way of identifying what works and where things can be improved. It won't be the only one. I don't think any single tool can really capture everything that's important about a project. It's important to create a variety of tools bespoke to each separate project to cross-reference information and help pick out trends, similarities, patterns but also individual stories - the illustrations of people who have really felt something change as a result of taking part. But this does offer a way to  create evidence of quantifiable outcomes alongside the qualitative benefits I'm always keen to advocate based on evidence.  

Interestingly DEMOS have just released a report suggesting that the approaches underpinning SROI are sound though a range of shared outcome measurements across the public sector, which can be gathered more simply than SROI is able to, is desperately needed in order to help smaller organisations demonstrate their worth. I can't argue with that kind of logic, but until it arrives, SROI seems to be the closest there is to different sectors speaking to the same language.

It's the start of a new learning journey for me, and a welcome addition to what I will be able to offer the organisations I work with.

Share

0 Comments

5/7/2010

Illustrating evaluation

0 Comments

Read Now
 
World image of early years foundation stage six areas of learning
In evaluation, looking at outcomes is vital. When you've invested in a project of course you'll need to know what was achieved and where there are still gaps. But it can be cumbersome reading mounds and mounds of text in a report. Charts, graphs and percentages can help clarify, but can still make for dull reading (and for some feel too much like maths homework).

To help busy partners to any project, finding a variety of ways to report on activity can make all the difference between people remembering what went well and being able to advocate the value of their work... or not.

I've recently been creating a toolkit for early years practitioners looking at how creative engagement can help achieve new and unexpected results. Its aim is to be quickly digestible and highly practical. The toolkit is based on the activity of ten creative early years projects in schools and Children's  Centres in the North of England.

The projects were mapped against the Early Years Foundation Stage six areas of learning. To illustrate which of the EYFS outcomes the projects really brought to life, I used wordle to create this at a glance illustration. The larger the word, the more presence it had in the projects. You can see here Personal, Social and Emotional development was the strongest feature across the programme overall.

It doesn't replace the need for writing other information in the report of course. However the teachers, children's centre staff and creative practitioners involved, and readers of the toolkit, can now instantly see where the projects thrived and what kinds of outcomes similar work might expect to achieve, so much more quickly and easily than deciphering a big chunk of writing or trying to analyse a graph.

Share

0 Comments
Details

    ...Blog

    I'm most interested in how the public, your public, whoever that may be, engages with culture and creativity.  

    And if it nurtures creativity and develops personal, social or professional skills  I'm absolutely all ears.
    View my profile on LinkedIn

    To subscribe by email, enter your email address:

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    Access
    Art
    Arts
    Artsmark
    Autism
    Children
    Citizenship
    Communities
    Conferences
    Consultation
    Craft
    Creative Industries
    Creativity
    Culture
    Dance
    Digital
    Early Years
    Education
    Evaluation
    Events
    Families
    Festivals
    Freelancing
    Funding
    Galleries
    Heritage
    Impact
    Interpretation
    Lancashire
    Learning
    Leeds
    Manchester
    Monitoring
    MOSI
    Museums
    Opportunities
    Outdoors
    Partnership
    Play
    Presentations
    Public Art
    Public Engagement
    Recommendations
    Reports
    Research
    Resources
    Rural
    Schools
    Science
    Social Value
    Training
    Universities
    Videos
    Writing
    Young People

    Archives

    October 2021
    July 2020
    August 2019
    February 2016
    January 2016
    October 2015
    April 2015
    December 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2012
    September 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    April 2009

CONTACT
  • Home
  • ABOUT
    • About Me
    • Right now...
    • Clients
    • Client Feedback
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Fees
    • BLOG
  • IMPACT
    • What is Impact?
    • Impact Development
    • Evaluation
    • Example Reports
    • Measuring & Managing Impact Quick Guide
    • Theory of Change Planning Template
  • ENGAGEMENT
    • Heritage
    • Visual Arts
    • Education
    • Creative Industries
    • Culture, Education & Community Guidance
    • Teacher Resource Packs
  • CHANGE
    • Research
    • Professional Development
    • Organisational Development