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Three supplementary Social Return on Investment guides published

16 September 2009 

As part of a package of support from Government to help maximise the social value the third sector creates, the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) has published three tailored guides to Social Return on Investment (SROI), which supplement 'A guide to Social Return on Investment', published in May 2009.

The guides are part of the OTS Measuring Social Value project, which aims to encourage wider use of SROI, through making it more accessible and more cost effective for organisations and more attractive to investors, funders and commissioners.

'Social Return on Investment – an introduction' gives an overview of SROI, what it can do for organisations, commissioners and investors and signposts where more information and support can be found.

'Social Return on Investment - and commissioning' explains how SROI can be used by commissioners and helps commissioners to use SROI to achieve more social value when commissioning services.

'Social Return on Investment – for social investing' explains how SROI can be used by investors if they want to integrate SROI approaches into investment decisions to help them decide which investment will achieve the most social impact.

For more information and to download copies of the guides, visit:

• SROI UK [external website]

The Scottish Government’s Third Sector Division is running a complementary project, which is responsibile for the development of a SROI portal and of new training materials for practitioners. For more information, visit:

• The Scottish Government’s SROI Project [external website]