SROI in the art gallery; valuing social impact

ABSTRACT

This article considers a project that used the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology to describe and measure the social impact of Turner Contemporary art gallery in Margate, a coastal town in the South East of England. The article details the reasons why the methodology was chosen by the gallery, setting this in the context of the wider debate around evaluation and social impact reporting. A section of the research and analysis, which was carried out by COaST, a consultancy and research centre based within Canterbury Christ Church University, is described in detail, allowing the reader to understand the processes involved in this type of project and the kinds of outcomes that can be delivered using this method. Finally, an account is given of the impact the work had on the management of the gallery, and the ways in which the final report was used.

KEYWORDS:

• SROI
• evaluation
• social impact
• Turner Contemporary
• Margate
• art galleries

Notes on the contributors

Andrew Jackson is Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University, where he is Director of the COaST arts evaluation and research group. His research interests are centred around cultural consumption and participation, with a focus on cultural value and arts evaluation, particularly in relation to place and regeneration.

Richard McManus is Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University, whose research includes the aggregate and distributional consequences of government spending and taxation policy.

ORCID

Andrew Jackson http://orcid.org/0000-0001-7947-154X

Richard McManus http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8056-0523

Notes

1 The building was design by internationally known David Chipperfield Architects and received wide press coverage when it opened: https://www.turnercontemporary.org.

2 Visit numbers are recorded by the gallery using an electronic door register.

3 Thanet is the geographical area in the north east of Kent.

4 Economic impact reporting carried out by Christ Church Business School.

5 The full 79 page report is available for download here: https://www.turnercontemporary.org/media/documents/COaST%20Turner%20SROI%202015-2016%20FINAL%202.pdf

6 The UK government’s Office of the Third Sector and the Scottish Government commissioned a project beginning in 2007 that continues to develop guidelines that allow social businesses seeking government grants to account for their impact using a consistent, verifiable method. This resulted in another formal revision to the method, produced by a consortium led by the SROI Network, published in the Guide to SROI (Nicholls et al., 2012).

7 The well-being valuation approach looks at calculating the monetary value one would need to be compensated were they not to have certain factors. This done by looking at stated well-being of respondents compared against their income.

8 Calculated by taking the estimated value from annual intensive lifelong learning and multiplying by the number of participants (£885,300), and adding the hourly value of participation in drop-in sessions and use of the facilities and multiplying by the number of hours of participation in each of these (resulting in values of £283,950 and £16,320 respectively).