Community-driven change can be difficult to measure. Organisations working closely with communities often work towards change and impact in areas such as agency, confidence, collective problem-solving, and social norms. These changes can take years to emerge and are not always captured by conventional monitoring and evaluation metrics.

Social Return on Investment (SROI) offers one way of making these outcomes more visible. It helps assign an economic value to social outcomes. It also enables organisations to communicate the broader value of their work to funders and other external audiences.

Mumbai-based nonprofit Apnalaya has grappled with this challenge in its own work. For nearly half a century, it has worked with communities in the densely populated Govandi area of the city. Residents of the informal settlements that make up over 70 percent of this area have faced poor living conditions for years, mainly due to their proximity to one of Mumbai’s largest landfills. They also have limited access to basic amenities, quality healthcare, and education.

Through its ‘collectivisation’ approach, Apnalaya helps local communities take collective responsibility and action to address the socio-economic challenges they face, including those related to health, sanitation, and access to entitlements. This model is built on the principles of community-driven change (CDC), which empowers communities to act as owners of their own development goals.

The Challenge of Measuring CDC

Despite working with communities for nearly half a century, Apnalaya faced a persistent challenge in assessing and communicating its progress—an issue also experienced by other community-driven change organisations. Regular measurement and evaluation models captured more traditional metrics (for example, the number of volunteer groups created), but didn’t adequately measure shifts in social norms, agency, or improvement in a community’s ability to collectively solve problems. The team knew these changes were taking place through stories and field visits, but it was difficult to show outcomes such as ‘increased confidence’ to external audiences, including funding partners and the government. Since transformative change takes time, communicating this value was important to sustain long-term investment in the work.

Read the full article about measuring the social return on community-driven change by Shachi Phadke and Riti Mohapatra at India Development Review.