This project's final report and evaluation was completed on September 2021

Project summary

This project finalised the development of a Valuing Social Outcomes (VSO) tool and supporting documentation to support councils in measuring the social value of community development/community services programs they deliver in their communities.

Project outputs and outcomes

• VSO Research Report by Flinders University
  Australian Industrial Transformation Institute (AITI) covering a broad range of best practice social value measurement considerations
• VSO Common Outcomes Framework
  A framework expressing the shared aims of Community Development/Community Services work as the basis for enabling achievable and affordable social value measurements
• VSO Tool
  A custom-built Microsoft Excel workbook for use by council staff, based on the VSO Common Outcomes Framework
• VSO User Guide
  Step-by-step instructions supporting the use of the VSO Tool by council staff
• VSO Participant Pamphlet
  An easy to read handout for participants of programs in which the VSO Tool is being used.

The VSO tool is suited for councils delivering a Community Development/Community Services program to an individual or group of individuals over time and the program aims to align with outcomes available for selection in the tool. It relies on a solid program logic being developed in the program planning stage and is designed to form part of a comprehensive program evaluation approach, where the social value calculation results from the Tool complement more human aspects of expressing impacts such as case studies, testimonials and other narrative elements.

Read the research report

Project distribution

The project outputs are publicly accessible section on this page under documentation and links.

Project evaluation

The VSO tool along with this report as the key project outputs represent a high-quality submission, given reasonable project constraints regarding time, money and the academic field of social value measurement.

As more was learnt about social value measurement throughout the VSO project, it became evident that it would not be possible to realise some of the original project intentions.

This included:

• the desire to enable forecasting of social value (see discussion under Project Outcomes)
• the desire for VSO Tool applicability to a wide range of council program and service delivery types (see discussion under Project Outcomes).

The level of human resources required to develop the VSO project has far superseded what was envisaged at the time of the project application however the Network is pleased to have been able to deliver this worthwhile project for the South Australian local government sector.

The evaluation was conducted internally by the project Steering Group, comprising members of the Community Managers Network.