Before a social audit can take place you have to have a clear vision: (Push the buttons to reveal more information)
When these are in place, it is easy to design simple procedures to log what is going on from day to day (social bookkeeping), to tally up the indicators every now and again (social accounting) and make sure that you are on target - or to do something about it if you are not!
Top Tip
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More importantly, if you don’t record and monitor, how else will you become aware at the earliest possible opportunity that targets are not being met?!
So what questions might we want to ask or what information will be useful at the end of the process?
For example, if I am responsible for a local enterprise agency and I aim to assist enterprise creation, I might want to record:
The number of new tenant businesses renting workspace units
The number of new jobs they have created over each year.
The number of individuals we have assisted to set up their own business
The numbers undertaking different types of training courses and any benefits they gained e.g. employment, promotion etc to see what impact we have had in the community.
The number of people I employ and potential opportunities for further employment.
Pearl of Wisdom
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“It's even more important not to tolerate bad organization, waste, and inefficiency in social enterprises. On Wall Street, the stakes are earnings per share, but in nonprofits, lives are at stake." Michael Chu, Harvard Business School.
Here are some examples of social audit questions that different organisations with different objectives might ask:
Downloadable Support Materials
View further examples of Social Audit Objectives with their costs and benefits.
This Social Auditing Summary shows you how you might record and measure different activities and impacts, and gives an example of when these activities may take place.
Sources of Further Help
An experienced Social Auditor can help an organisation clarify its objectives, indicators, actions plans, recording and accounting procedures. Your Social Auditor should ideally be an outsider to your organisation. Further advice and information can be obtained from:
The Northern Ireland Co-operative Development Agency (NICDA) has developed a Social Auditing training course, accredited by the Open College Network. Contact: 23-25 Shipquay Street , Derry City, Co. Londonderry , BT48 6DL.
At present four systems of Social Auditing have been developed in the UK , these systems are:
The National Centre for Business & Sustainability (NCBS)
Contact: Rob Lawson, National Centre for Business & Sustainability, The Peel Building, University of Salford, Greater Manchester, M5 4WT,
