ANNOUNCEMENTS
When Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) were made mandatory under section 135 of Companies Act 2013, there began a trend of Corporates investing huge amount of their profit into social initiatives in partnership with third party organizations mostly NGOs. While baseline need assessment, impact assessment studies can help to target community needs and communicate the outcomes of the project, there was a need to understand the effectiveness of CSR interventions and social value created in monetary terms. SROI provides this framework to not just assign monetary value to social change but also understand the effectiveness of the interventions carried out or going to be carried out under organization’s CSR program.
My study was done with an objective of helping Grant Thornton’s client organization understand monetary outcomes of their agricultural and livestock interventions carried out under their CSR program and also to know how effective it has been in creating social value among the beneficiaries. The study involved Mixed analysis of tangible and intangible outcomes of CSR program and used SROI methodology and Perception assessment framework to understand the social value created and perception among beneficiaries.
The SROI of their agricultural interventions was 1.13 and livestock interventions was 0.63, which resulted in combined SROI of the both agricultural and livestock interventions carried under CSR program in 6 villages of Pune district to be 0.87, indicating net social return was less than the amount of investment in the CSR program. The overall perception of the program was around 70 percent, indicating a satisfactory value rating of benefits of interventions among the beneficiaries. These findings will not just help the client organization understand the effectiveness of their investment under CSR program but also help come up with future strategic interventions to scale their CSR program and generate better social returns for their beneficiaries.
