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Social Reporting Standard (SRS): Making Social Impact Visible

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Theories of Change

Part of the book series: Sustainable Finance ((SUFI))

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Abstract

Social purpose organizations regularly assess and document the results of their work for a variety of stakeholders, such as funders or partners. However, so far, no standardized, generally accepted set of metrics or frameworks exists on how to derive a meaningful statement about the realized societal change. Consequently, social impact assessment remains a major obstacle and roadblock for the development of the social finance field. There is no consensus on what impact is, how it should be measured, or even the process by which metrics that matter could be developed. The Social Reporting Standard (SRS) has been developed roughly 10 years ago in Germany as one way and a first step to collect and account for information on social impact in a structured way and constitutes a standardized reporting tool with multiple possibilities for application.

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Correspondence to Barbara Scheck .

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Scheck, B. (2021). Social Reporting Standard (SRS): Making Social Impact Visible. In: Wendt, K. (eds) Theories of Change. Sustainable Finance. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52275-9_7

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