The Canadian Social Value Exchange
Meet Sheila Durie – co-author of the 2009 SROI Guide
Meet Sheila Durie – co-author of the 2009 SROI Guide
For Sheila Durie it all starts in the late 1990s through an informal meeting with a couple of European friends and colleagues. At the time, she has been working in setting up social firms as employment creation for person with disabilities when she is invited to discover a new methodology brought back from San Francisco, of which she is quickly convinced. Plans to discuss the formation of a European network are promptly set in motion, and Sheila reaches out to the Scottish government through her organisation Forth Sector to fund a pilot program with their social firm Six Mary’s Place. Throughout this pilot, which ends up including two more organisations, Sheila tests out REDF’s model for her calculations and realises it is unsuited to the UK.
This construction therefore starts out in a profoundly European setting. As the experimentation continues and more pieces are brought together – the concept of “stakeholder engagement” from the New Economics Foundation, a new approach to the calculations and a first attempt with a firm in Hungary – the group realises there is a distinctive UK approach to their work and create the SROI network in 2003. From this, the organisation works on the template and disseminates the methodology, eventually receiving funding by the UK Cabinet Office and Scottish government to write the official SROI guide and produce it for publication in 2009. Throughout this time, they of course experience resistance and objections particularly when it comes to the new practices they introduce, such as the monetisation of intangible outcomes.
One consequence of the creation and funding of the SROI guide is that Sheila’s organisation Forth Sector is awarded a contract with the Scottish government in 2009 to develop and disseminate the SROI methodology for two and a half years. Despite this contract, and the Scottish government funding the production of the SROI guide (as well as the indicative financial proxy database and a number of dissemination work) and supporting the establishment of the Global Value Exchange, Scotland has actually taken a on different approach to social value than its neighbour.
Looking back on it now after years of discussing the methodology, and despite her reservations to the Scottish government’s procurement policy, Sheila values all the progress that has been done since 2011. In her own words “It's a given now that you have to report on your social impact, whereas 15 years ago it wasn't”. Her involvement since the onset of the social value movement has continued: she was on Social Value UK’s board until 2015 and will join the new International Standards Committee.
On June 11th 2025, Social Value Canada and Jacqueline Corey had an engaging conversation.
Some of Jacqueline’s major insights include her viewpoint on implementing a mixed methods methodology to calculate social value, her collaborative approach to involving every player in the realization of social value in their practices, and her clever use of existing networks and frameworks to build her strategy.
Click here to download the presentation and Watch the event recording.
On March 7th 2025, Social Value Canada joined by colleagues from Social Value Malaysia took this opportunity to experience how Social Value, SROI, the SDG Impact Standards, and the other SVC/SVI initiatives all come together in a meaningful and high-impact way.
On Sep 27, we hosted a fascinating and insightful conversation about conducting an SROI with three seasoned practitioners. Between them, Melek De-Wint, Dan Kershaw and Scott Richter illustrated the value and relevance of SROI for organizations operating in vastly different sectors and contexts.
If you missed it and are interested in impact management and SROI, you’ll want to watch the event recording.
Social Value Canada members were joined by colleagues from Social Value US, Social Value Aotearoa, and Social Value International, to discuss how social value practice has and is evolving around the world. Sara, Yulia, Jo, and Nicole are involved in very different ways. They offer great context and perspective. An interesting listen!
Social Value Canada Members gathered on April 29, to discuss changes in the Bylaws, opportunities to get more involved, and to expand professional practice. All are welcome. Together, we are changing the way the world accounts for value.
On May 31, Rosemarie Powell made compelling cases for the social and economic value that is created through Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs) and the need to enshrine social procurement in all publicly funded contracts.
Time for a social value act for Canada?
Social Value and Impact Evaluation in Malaysia – Key Takeaways from Jonathan Choo.
Social Value and Impact Evaluation in Malaysia – Key Takeaways from Jonathan Choo.
As part of our first interview in a series with Social Value International networks across the world, I had a chat with Jonathan Choo, the Assistant Manager for Social Value Malaysia. Let’s dive into some of what I learned about the world of impact evaluation in Malaysia!
Looking at the history of impact evaluation frameworks in Malaysia, Jonathan explained to me how the impact landscape is quite scattered prior to the rise of the social value movement, with no existing institutionalised evaluation committee. Social Value Malaysia evolved from a non-profit philanthropy organisation called Social Innovation Movement, which is how Jonathan started getting involved through writing a grant for them during his PhD.
The profile of Social Value Malaysia’s trainees is quite diverse and is balanced across industries. They include players from the finance, gas and oil, education or property development industries as well as social enterprises and NGOs. What might come as a surprise to the Canadian perspective is that all of Social Value Malaysia’s Level 1 Practitioners come from the private sector. This is because the cost of accreditation is more affordable for private companies, forming a sort of barrier for the non-profit organizations, which Social Value Malaysia is trying to tackle by ensuring the value-added benefits of the accreditation is being announced properly to the clients. For now, the role of private companies is thus essential to their business model and plays a large role in the spread of the social value movement in Malaysia.
Interesting upcoming projects include supporting the redesign of the social impact management framework for a large Malaysian Government-linked company (GLC). This opportunity could be key to Social Value Malaysia’s growth as the brand name recognition of this GLC could truly propel them forward. This year, they have also been running in-house training programs for universities and large companies. Jonathan sees this work as a shift in the general public’s knowledge of SROI and impact measurement, which has resulted in a growth of the demand for Social Value Malaysia’s trainings.
Regarding the courses they offer, the SROI training and the SDG Impact Standards training, Jonathan does notice a 3:1 ratio in favour of SROI training. He recalls that one of the challenges they face is in finding sufficient trainees in C-suite or senior level executive positions, while they generally manage to encounter and train more people in junior level positions. Training more people at the C-suite level is a strategic objective for Social Value Malaysia as involving them ensures more avenues for top-bottom change and longevity, the idea being to enact social value principle from both a strategic thinker and an enabler-executer point of view with the multiple levels of training. This would then trickle down to the lower management, enabling an organization-wide transformation that embeds impact into its core operation rather than as an afterthought.
Finally, Social Value Malaysia is undergoing a process of restructuring of their courses by implementing a blended e-learning approach with Thinkific. This solution would allow them to accommodate the demand for in-person trainings while balancing logistical constraints.
I hope you enjoyed learning a little about Social Value Malaysia’s point of view! To hear some of Jonathan’s direct responses to my questions, which offer a lot of valuable information, feel free to check out the transcript click here!
Listen to Social Value International CEO, Ben Carpenter, discuss current and evolving international priorities, and how they relate to Social Value Canada’s role as a joint member network and current priorities. Its a succinct overview and hugely informative.
On May 14th 2025, Social Value Canada joined with Natasha Jolob.
Natasha shared her experience on capacity-building, charity, government work, social investing & strategic development.
MIGA’s investment guarantee to clean-cooking climate tech firm safeguards carbon credit initiative in Rwanda and Kenya
MIGA’s investment guarantee to clean-cooking climate tech firm safeguards carbon credit initiative in Rwanda and Kenya
Have you heard of sustainable bio-cooking solutions being developed across Africa? Are you aware of the uncertainty faced by carbon credit markets despite the Paris Agreement? In our first Content Corner, come find out about KOKO Networks’ projects and how MIGA’s investment guarantee ensures their protection and support of article 6 of the Paris Agreement.
Last week the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) guaranteed an investment of 179.6 million USD to climate tech firm KOKO Networks. KOKO Networks operates in Rwanda and Kenya and aims to supply more sustainable and clean cooking solutions to low-income households by phasing out the traditional use of charcoal and wood and replacing it with bioethanol cookstoves and fuel.
KOKO Networks’ projects do learn from past design and implementation mistakes. Their model does not only supply the cookstoves – it also implements 3,000 ATMS that supply sustainable bioethanol cooking fuel at very strategic locations like corner shops in low-income neighbourhoods. The model also relies on carbon credits from the switching to sustainable fuel to fund the cookstoves and fuel for these low-income families.
Why is this guarantee by MIGA particularly important? Beyond the solves put forward by KOKO Networks to actually adapt the clean cooking solutions to the local population’s needs, its efforts directly involve the use of carbon-credit financing, a domain that can suffer from the regulatory uncertainties of carbon markets internationally. MIGA’s guarantee protects these credits even in the case in which the host governments would fail to uphold the Paris Agreement, and their contract spans fifteen years and covers “risks of expropriation, war and civil disturbance, transfer restriction, and breach of contract” (Impact Investor).
What are your thoughts? Had you heard about the introduction of clean-cooking solutions before? Did you know about how MIGA, which is under the World Bank Group, and its contributions to upholding the Paris Agreement even as a safeguard against potential state actions?
To learn more about these topics:
About MIGA’s pledge
MIGA issues $179.6m guarantee to back African clean-cooking initiative click here!
MIGA Fuels Clean Cooking Innovation in Kenya click here!
About the introduction of clean cooking solutions in African countries KOKO Networks’ website KOKO Networks click here!
Article about the failures of humanitarian engineering to take into local needs Engineering and humanitarian intervention: learning from failure” by Adeela Arshad-Ayaz, M. Ayaz Naseem and Dania Mohamad in the Journal of International Humanitarian action click here!
About article 6 of the Paris Agreement and the carbon credit system Worldbank click here!
On April 26, Keith Taylor, the Executive Director of DUCA Impact Lab, joined us for a fascinating conversation about Impact Lab initiatives to provide credit to Canadians who are currently not eligible to access mainstream banking options.
The discussion highlighted the value of the economic and social impact that such relief from predatory loans can deliver for individuals, households, and communities.
Gender empowerment has driven all of Bonnie’s work — from establishing a social enterprise that supports marginalized women across Asia and Africa to founding a consultancy that promotes diversity within impact investing.
SROI (social return on investment) training has shaped her international career, how she conducts impact measurement and stakeholder engagement projects, and has enabled her to speak truth to powerful institutions.
Click here to see the full webinar.
Sean Wilshire spoke about transforming your organization through decision making, this webinar which took place on March 1st, 2023. Click here to see the full webinar.
On April 24th 2025, Social Value Canada had a conversation with a great group abut what is Social Value.
On April 9th 2025, Social Value Canada joined by Jo Nicholson took this opportunity to learn how her work in change management has contributed to the development of Social Value Aotearoa (SVA) in New Zealand.