Readily available, commonly accepted systems that enable nonprofits to compare their results to their costs do not currently exist. Despite advances in knowledge about what the social sector does and how it does it, we really do not know what it costs to accomplish social mission goals. Until we have systems that address this need, we won’t be able to credibly assess social return on investment (SROI).

REDF’s recommendations for developing sound SROI methodology are presented here as a call to action: to funders, nonprofit organizations, and the companies that provide information software to the social sector. We need to demand and develop systems that increase the quality of data used in assessing social sector value creation and ensure the ease of gathering and analyzing those data. When such systems are available, the social sector will be much better equipped to assess the value of its work.

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