Academy / Measurement & reporting
Course progress and additional readings
Measurement & reporting
You will learn: how to decide whether a dollar value is worth the effort, which of three kinds of claim your evidence supports, and how to value wage gains step by step without claiming more than your records show.
Who this is for: both roads, and it is optional. Funders deciding whether to ask partners for a dollar figure, and funded partners asked for one by a board or donor. Read it before anyone multiplies a headcount by a wage, and bring the decision the figure should inform and your data dictionary.
When is a dollar value on your results worth the effort?
In short: when it changes a real decision, such as which program design to fund or whether a service pays for itself to the people who use it. If the only aim is a more impressive headline, a clear account of outcomes serves you better.
Write the decision down before you look for any number. "Should the fund keep paying for mentoring?" can use a dollar estimate. "Make the annual report stronger" cannot: it does not say which outcome to value, or for whom.
A dollar figure cannot replace listening to the people affected. Social Value International's guidance on valuing the things that matter puts stakeholders' own view of what is important at the center.
A funder is choosing between two program designs. Your records link each person's wage before and after. You can name who benefits, by how much and for how long.
The request is for a headline. Key outcomes lack a before measure or a follow-up. The value would rest on one national figure multiplied by everyone served. Report the outcomes plainly and plan the evidence instead.
Should you report outcomes, a forecast or an evaluation?
In short: pick the kind of claim your evidence can carry. An outcome account says what changed; a forecast says what you expect under stated assumptions; an evaluation values outcomes that have already happened.
Social Value International's Guide to SROI separates an evaluative analysis of outcomes that have occurred from a forecast of expected ones. A pilot can use a forecast to plan. It should never present forecast value as an achieved result.
If the proxy, quantity or contribution cannot be justified yet, defer the dollar claim. An outcome without a dollar value can still matter and should stay in the report.
How do you value wage gains for placed participants?
In short: multiply the people placed by their hourly gain and the hours they work, take out what would have happened anyway, and count only the period your evidence covers. Each step needs a field someone collected.
In the fictional workforce fund, Partners A, B and D placed 100 people in a job within 90 days of exit. Partner C's 55 used a six-month window, so they stay out, as in the roll-up. The agreement asks for starting wage, hourly, by track, and retention at 12 months, reported annually.
That is not yet enough for a wage gain. A gain needs each person's wage before enrollment, the hours they work, and how long they stay. None of those is in the agreement, so the first finding is a list of fields to add.
Workforce fund example · fictional
The 100 people come from the fund's roll-up. The three other figures below are teaching numbers invented for this arithmetic, not reported by any partner: an average gain of $2.50 an hour over each person's wage before enrollment, 1,500 paid hours a year, and 30% who would have found similar work anyway.
| Step | Calculation | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Gross yearly gain, if all 100 stay a full year | 100 × $2.50 × 1,500 hours | $375,000 |
| Take out what would have happened anyway | $375,000 × (1 − 0.30) | $262,500 |
| What placement evidence supports: the first three months | 100 × $2.50 × 375 hours × (1 − 0.30) | $65,625 |
The $262,500 assumes everyone stays a year. The fund will not know that until 12-month retention arrives, and Partner C has not reported it at all. Until then, the honest figure is $65,625 for the first three months, labelled as such. When retention comes in, replace 100 with the number still employed and recalculate.
Two details change the answer. Someone who earned nothing before gains their whole wage, which makes the "anyway" estimate matter more. And "retained" means the same job; decide before the numbers arrive how to count a graduate who moved to a better one.
What makes a dollar figure credible to a funder?
In short: a reviewer can see the decision it serves, whose outcome it values, the quantity and period, the source of each value, what was taken out for others' contribution, and who checked it.
Use this worksheet before any figure leaves your team, and give each area a status: ready for review, needs evidence, or not suitable for this claim. Ready for review is not independent assurance.
| Area | Question | What to record |
|---|---|---|
| Decision | What would the figure change? | A resource or design choice, not a headline |
| Stakeholder and outcome | Whose change is valued? | One outcome, in the words of the people affected |
| Quantity and period | How much change, over what time? | Observed counts, or forecast assumptions marked as such |
| Value source | Does the value fit this outcome and place? | Source, unit, population, currency, year |
| Contribution and overlap | What would have happened anyway, or is counted twice? | Assumptions, evidence and open questions |
| Review | Who checks the claim? | A named reviewer, the date, and the saved worksheet |
Prompt · paste into Claude, ChatGPT or your AI tool
Help me decide whether a dollar value would help this decision: [DECISION AND AUDIENCE]. Outcome and who experiences it: [OUTCOME, STAKEHOLDER]. Evidence I have, with periods: [SOURCES, COUNTS, DATES]. No names. 1. Say whether this supports an outcome account, a forecast or an evaluation, and why. 2. List what is observed and what would have to be assumed. 3. List missing evidence: quantity, duration, value source, what would have happened anyway, others' contribution, overlap. 4. Do not invent values or percentages. Do not treat missing evidence as zero. 5. If a dollar claim is not ready, write what we can report without one, and the next field to collect.
Open every source the assistant suggests and check that the value exists and fits your context.
Where should the dollar values come from?
In short: from your own before-and-after records where you have them, and from a published source that matches the outcome, place and year where you do not. A value that measures something else is not a shortcut.
For wage gains, the most direct evidence is your own: each person's wage before enrollment and after placement, joined by one ID. A local wage benchmark from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is useful context, as the outside data chapter shows, but it describes all workers in a job, not what your graduates gained.
For outcomes with no market price, such as confidence or wellbeing, the SROI chapter covers how to choose and record a financial proxy, and how to adjust for deadweight, attribution, displacement and drop-off before you calculate a ratio.
ASK ANY TOOL, INCLUDING OURS
Give any AI tool your worksheet and ask: "Which step in this calculation rests on an assumption rather than a record, and what would I need to collect to replace it?" In Sopact Sense, a persistent unique ID from the first form links each person's intake wage to their placement wage, and each answer from the AI Assistant links to the records behind it.
What can a dollar value not tell you?
In short: it does not prove the program caused the change, it is not cash anyone can spend, and it leaves out whatever you could not value.
A wage gain figure rests on your estimate of what would have happened anyway, which is rarely better than informed judgment. Outcomes without a defensible value, including harms, stay outside the total. Say what was left out, and keep the outcome account in the same report.
Try it on your own reporting
- Write the decision a dollar value would inform, in one sentence. If you cannot, stop here and report outcomes.
- Choose one outcome and decide whether your evidence supports an outcome account, a forecast or an evaluation.
- List the fields the calculation needs, and mark which ones you collect today.
- Run the arithmetic with only the period your evidence covers, and label every assumed figure.
- Fill in the worksheet and give each area a status.
Check your reasoning
For the fictional workforce fund, the decision might be whether to keep funding placement support. The evidence supports an outcome account now (100 people placed within 90 days across A, B and D) and, at most, a labelled estimate for the first three months after placement. Three fields are missing: wage before enrollment, hours worked and 12-month retention. The full-year figure is a forecast until retention arrives, and Partner C stays out until its placement count uses the agreed 90-day window.
Questions teams ask
Is a dollar value the same as an SROI ratio?
No. A dollar value estimates what one or more outcomes are worth. An SROI ratio divides the present value of all valued outcomes, after adjustments, by the value of what was put in. You can report a dollar value for one outcome without calculating a ratio, and often should. The SROI chapter walks through the full method.
Can we multiply everyone placed by a year of typical wages?
That overstates the claim in three ways. It counts the whole wage rather than the gain over what people earned before. It assumes everyone stays employed a full year. And it ignores people who would have found work anyway. Use each person's before and after wage, count only the period you observed, and state the "anyway" assumption.
What if an outcome has no good dollar value?
Keep it in the report as an outcome, with its count and what people said about it. "Not yet valued" is different from zero. Do not borrow a loosely related figure and discount it to make it feel careful; that adds a second guess on top of the first. Record the gap and what evidence would close it.
Should we have the figure checked by someone outside the team?
For a figure that will inform a large funding decision or appear in public, an outside review is worth considering. Social Value International runs an assurance process for SROI reports against its principles. For internal decisions, a colleague who reproduces the arithmetic from your worksheet without seeing your total is a good first check.