COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

ABOUT THE SROI NETWORK

The SROI Network promotes the use and development of the Social Return on Investment methodology internationally, encouraging a community of practice along the way. The SROI Network is a membership organisation and a company limited by guarantee. The objectives of the SROI Network are:

• To ensure the principles and standards of SROI are adhered to
• To develop the methodology
• To disseminate information on indicators and proxies for use in SROI analyses
• To train SROI practitioners and provide peer support.

Staff There is a small staff team to support these objectives

Chief Executive
Jeremy Nicholls became the chief executive of the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Network in 2008. Starting his working life as an accountant, his work has increasingly focused on understanding and managing the value of the impact of organisation’s activities. He set up the Cat’s Pyjamas running events to promote the value of social enterprise and shortly after started working on the development of SROI. He wrote’ There is no business like Social Business’ with Liam Black and co-wrote the UK Government supported ‘Guide to SROI’ He is the chair of FairPensions, a director of the FRC Group - a social business based in Liverpool and a director of Social Evaluator - an online platform for the analysis of social returns. As an occasional lecturer he has lectured at several Universities including Said Business School at Oxford University. Cambridge University and the University of Western Australia.

Office Manager
Tania Vera- Burgos is responsible for finance, supporting the assurance process and our training.

Training Manager
Tim Goodspeed has been the Training Manager since 2008. He has a background in economic development and social enterprise. He is an experienced trainer and an Accredited Practitioner. Tim is one of the authors of the Guide to SROI and has written and been involved in many SROIs. He is also a member of the Methodology subcommittee and is actively involved in developing and applying SROI.

Assurance Manager

Karl Leathem has previously worked as a lecturer in social education, in community development/community relations and social policy settings in Northern Ireland followed by work on employability of excluded people. He has latterly worked as a freelance consultant largely with social economy projects. Karl is an experienced SROI practitioner who has been involved in SROI in the early days of its introduction to the UK including early work with the European SROI Network and collaboration with others, which led to him being part of the initial group that formed the Board of Trustees that launched The SROI Network. Karl has been an SROI Accredited Practitioner for some years, his current practitioner work involves projects with excluded inner-city young people, the impact of training for women in community settings, SROI analysis of services in support of people involved in substance misuse and a project looking at the impact of conflict resolution initiatives in Belfast. Taking an interest in the promotion and development of SROI, Karl has been involved in the early work on SROI Network Assurance and Accreditation. His immediate plans for the Assurance Manager post are to look at the development and improvement of member assurance services which will include a rationalisation and strategic review of current processes while retaining a hands on perspective through continuation of work as a freelance SROI practitioner. Senior Researcher

Sarah McCoy is responsible for SEIF (Social Enterprise Investment Fund). Her role focuses on working with social enterprises to prepare forecasts of their Social Return on Investment.

Marketing and Communications Officer

Ashleigh Christie is responsible for all our advertising and marketing.

The Board

Chair

Richard Kennedy operates in the field of social investment and is part of the Breakthrough team at CAN. His roles and responsibilities include measuring of the economic, social and environmental performance of the fund as well as managing relationships with social entrepreneurs and CAN's corporate partners. Richard has an MBA from the Graduate School of Business at Cape Town University and London Business School specialising in social enterprise and was a finalist at the Global Social Venture Competition 2007 held at Haas Business School in San Francisco. Previous to the MBA, Richard worked for Brown's Restaurants in London for 7 years in various roles. For more information on CAN please visit http://www.can-online.org.uk/

Director

Jenni Inglis is consultant on social value in public service markets. Current work includes support to social enterprises selling to the public sector in the West Midlands and training and bespoke projects for Local Authorities on commissioning for Social Value. Recent work includes a supplement for commissioners to the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Guide published by the Cabinet Office, contribution to a study of social value created by social enterprises supplying mainstream health and social care for the Department of Health and major research into social enterprises in an English Region. Previously at Social Enterprise East Midlands, she initiated and contributed to “Social Enterprise and the Public Sector, a practical guide to law and policy” and was a Board member for the Office of the Third Sector Social Clauses Project. She has an MSc in Responsibility and Business Practice from the University of Bath (2007).

Director

Sheila Durie operates in the fields of social enterprise development, mental health and employment policy and organisational development. She has completed a large pilot programme on SROI, working with Forth Sector and supported by the Scottish Government and the European Equal programme. This helped 8 organisations implement SROI, resulting in 10 SROI reports across a spectrum of activities in the social enterprise and social economy sectors. During this pilot, building on her academic background in psychology, she developed new methods for measuring and financialising ‘soft outcomes’ such as employability, social capital and health improvement. She is the chair of ‘Social Enterprise in East Lothian’, a Board member of Social Firms Scotland and is chair of Re-Union Canal Boats Ltd.

Director

Nick Temple currently works at Social Enterprise UK, prior to this Nick was working as an independent consultant with a whole host of organisations, including UnLtd, Skills Third Sector, the Guardian, Venture Partnership Foundation, Stepping Out, British Council and the London School of Economics. Nick also co-founded and helped run POPse!, the world’s first pop-up social enterprise think-tank.

Nick was previously the Director of Policy and Communications at the School for Social Entrepreneurs, with responsibility for all communications, policy work with government, and overseeing evaluation and research. He also designed and delivered learning programmes on social franchising and for leaders of NHS Right to Request social enterprises. Before that, he was director of the Global Ideas Bank and the Natural Death Centre, and co-edited Poem for the Day Two and the Time Out Book of Country Walks vol.2, books whose royalties go back into charitable work.

Director

Pieter is the managing partner of shærpa. His professional background is in accountancy and finance. In that field, he has had various top-level functions, including the position of CFO, for international organisations. Eight years ago, he switched to the philanthropy sector. As a director of Noaber Foundation he managed the service organisation which ultimately was the foundation for shærpa. The decision to switch resulted from his ambition to make societal impact and value creation (in addition to creating shareholder value) a significant part of his professional activities. The objective of these professionally structured activities is to realise positive changes for the wicked problems in society. He often states that his ambition is to “merry a venture capital approach to societal goals”, and his work with shærpa is dedicated to doing exactly that on a daily basis. Furthermore, as a board member of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA), he actively works to further professionalise venture philanthropy on the European stage. He is also a member of the board of directors of Social Alpha Investment Fund of Alpha Mundi.