Social reporting standard

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Social Reporting Standard (SRS) describes uniform guidelines for reporting initiatives and projects in the nonprofit sector. The term SRS is based on the accounting standards (Financial Reporting Standard) that apply to profit-oriented companies .

Since social enterprises and non-profit organizations, unlike traditional companies, do not primarily maximize financial profit, but create a social benefit, it is not advisable to apply the Financial Reporting Standards for these companies. It is therefore necessary to develop SRS, which can take into account and present the special objectives of social enterprises and non-profit organizations.

In principle, all guidelines for reporting in the social field can be referred to as SRS. Such a framework concept for standards for accounting and reporting in the social field, which has so far received broad support and application, was developed by various actors and experts from the sector. This approach, known as the Social Reporting Standard (SRS), is an open, non-commercial project.

background

Analogous to the annual report and annual financial statements of profit-oriented companies, social entrepreneurs , non-profit organizations and other organizations with a social business purpose, such as social businesses, regularly report on their work. For example, you report to the public, to donors, investors and supporters, to public bodies or to your partners.

While for-profit organizations report based on legal regulations in accordance with generally accepted standards such as the Commercial Code or the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) , historically no uniform framework has been established for the reports of socially oriented organizations. Uniform accounting and reporting also enables social enterprises to enable the addressees to compare the information. Such comparability is of great importance for addressing potential investors, but also relevant for other stakeholder groups. Complex sustainability reporting standards such as those of the Global Reporting Initiative cannot be implemented for social initiatives with reasonable effort. So far, many organizations have had to report separately for each sponsor according to their specifications.

Donors, sponsors and financiers in the non-profit sector therefore (in contrast to for-profit investors) do not have a standardized information base that they can use to select, assess and compare different projects. Funds are therefore often not used where they could have the greatest impact. As a result, social organizations regularly experience difficulties in obtaining capital to achieve their social purpose.

Origin and participating organizations

SRS logo and lettering

The starting point for the development of the SRS were research results from the Technical University of Munich and the University of Hamburg .

The SRS is a joint project of Ashoka Deutschland gGmbH , Auridis gGmbH, BonVenture Management GmbH, Phineo gAG , Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship , Spenden.De, the Technical University of Munich and the University of Hamburg with the support of PricewaterhouseCoopers . The Vodafone Foundation, together with the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth, supports research projects to further develop the SRS. The creation of the first English version of the SRS was also supported by the Social Impact Analysts Association (SIAA).

The reporting standard is an open project under a Creative Commons license in which all interested social organizations in Germany can participate. In addition to the further development of the standard, a dialogue on entrepreneurial thinking and impact-oriented action should be promoted for the benefit of the common good and beyond. For this purpose, the organizations involved founded the Social Reporting Initiative e. V.

Goal setting

The SRS proposes a framework for reporting to actors in the social sector . It helps especially here, the impact chain to communicate the respective programs to document and. In addition, other essential reporting elements such as organizational structure and finances are systematically recorded in an SRS report, so that a comprehensive picture of the reporting organization is created when the SRS is used. Another goal of the SRS is to promote the impact orientation of social organizations and thus to raise awareness of the issue of impact orientation among donors and funding agencies. A clearly defined reporting framework, which is used by a large number of organizations, sponsors, investors and other interest groups, as well as the use of uniform concepts for measuring impact, can keep the effort for the reporting organization and the information recipients low.

Structure and structure

The SRS Guide 2014 is divided into three central sections, which can be filled out several times depending on the type and scope of the organization and the offer:

Possible uses of the SRS
  • Part A describes the subject of the report and gives an overview and delimitation of what is reported and who is the contact person.
  • Part B describes the respective offer and its effect. The focus is on the social problem and the solution. A central component of this is the section on social impact, in which the resources, services and social impacts used are juxtaposed. In addition, this chapter further describes planning and opportunities and risks, and the organizational structure and the people involved are presented in detail
  • Part C comprises a holistic profile of the organization and finally an overview of the asset situation as well as income and expenditure

Most users of the SRS report on a single offer that is made available by an organization specially set up for this purpose. Some organizations report on several of their offers. Sometimes a single offer is implemented through a merger of several organizations. Since the SRS has a modular structure, it is possible to use the standard for different constellations. In this way, it is possible for financiers and sponsors without great effort to understand the relationships between different organizations and offers and to structure their funding accordingly.

An offer is understood as the sum of the activities of an organization to solve a social problem. These are therefore definable programs, projects, activities and plans, including the parts that fall under them, such as consulting services, courses and training, services, conferences, technical and other products, publications, prices, lobbying activities, online platforms, etc. On the SRS Sample reports can also be viewed and downloaded from the homepage.

Application and dissemination

The SRS was first published in 2010 and has been used by an increasing number of stakeholders since then (a current list of users is published on the SRS homepage). In 2014, a new version of the guide was published, which takes into account the findings from the user workshops and telephone consultations on the SRS 2012 as well as the feedback from numerous users. The proven basic concept remains unchanged. The SRS 2014 has been optimized in terms of user-friendliness and informative value, taking practical feedback and the current state of science into account. Ashoka accepts an SRS report in place of the application form. Most of the Ashoka Fellows now report in SRS format. Ashoka itself also prepares its annual reports according to the SRS. Bonventure accepts an SRS report as an application for equity and loans. The impact indicators are used in a commitment to plan and evaluate the social impact. Submitting an SRS is recommended for the more in-depth examination of an organization as part of the Phineo analysis process. For the selection process for “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” Germany and the Schwab Foundation network, the foundation accepts the SRS as an application. An SRS report is accepted as annual reporting for members of the Foundation's network.

Applications to social business angels can also be made according to SRS. startsocial also accepts a report according to SRS as an application document. The tenders of the Act for Impact program of the Vodafone Foundation Germany and the Social Entrepreneurship Academy are also based on SRS.

The SRS is also recommended by the Association for Development Policy and Humanitarian Aid of German NGOs . The SRS will also play a key role as best practice in the future as part of the European Commission's Social Business Initiative , which manages a volume of 90 million euros . In the context of the betterplace lab trend report, the SRS has meanwhile been identified as the leading instrument for impact documentation.

All organizations with a social business purpose can use the SRS. The SRS guide is primarily aimed at small and medium-sized organizations with a social business purpose (e.g. social entrepreneurs) and was developed for them. In the future, the SRS can be used as a reporting tool by all foundations , in particular funding foundations, venture philanthropists , charities, and government sponsors of social services. In summer 2013, the SRS was presented at the welfare congress of the German Red Cross and a network meeting for social welfare office managers of the AWO. The first organizations in the welfare sector are the Diakonisches Werk Rosenheim and in particular the Diakonische Jugendhilfe Oberbayern, which uses the SRS as a reporting standard for all of its facilities. The Albert Schweitzer Foundation was the first to use the SRS as a template for its annual report.

The SRS was presented in workshops and an introduction to its use was given at the Vision Summit 2012, which now has over 1000 participants as the leading international conference for social innovation, social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, eco business and social impact business. There was also an introductory workshop on the SRS at the Vision Summit 2014, which took place on September 10 and 11, 2014 in Berlin. In April and May 2012, the Federal Ministry for Family, Seniors, Women and Youth sponsored user advice for those involved in the field. This has been carried out several times a year since then. In February 2013, a multi-stakeholder conference on “Promotion and dissemination of social innovations in Germany” took place. A total of over 200 representatives from politics, business, research and social entrepreneurs took part. The Social Reporting Initiative led a workshop to document the impact of organizations, during which the SRS was presented and discussed.

International distribution

So far there is a German, English and Spanish version of the SRS guide. Initiated by the conference “Think Social. Act Business ”in Athens in December 2013, the SRS Guide was also translated and published in Greek. The SRS will also be disseminated here through workshops in the Czech Republic; a Czech translation of the SRS is also available. A translation of the guide into Portuguese, French and Hungarian is also being planned.

See also

literature

  • Barbara Roder: Reporting in Social Entrepreneurship: Conception of external corporate reporting for social entrepreneurs. Gabler 2010.
  • Achleitner A., ​​Bassen A., Roder B., Lütjens L .: A standard for reporting by social entrepreneurs In: ÖkologischesWirtschaften 4 (2009).
  • Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Wolfgang Spiess-Knafl, Andreas Heinecke, Mirjam Schöning, Abigail Noble: The Social Investment Manual. An Introduction for Social Entrepreneurs (2011). (PDF; 2.2 MB)
  • Bittner, Phillip: How do I appear? Help for Social Enterprises (2014) (to the article)
  • Scheck, Barbara: A Standard for Social Impact Reporting (May 2014) (PDF)
  • Wörrlein, Lena M .: A standard for impact- oriented reporting - the Social Reporting Standard In: npoR 1 (2015) (PDF)
  • Wörrlein, Lena M .: What's the point? In: Couragiert-Magazin 4 (2014)
  • Hölscher P., Hinze F .: Establishing and establishing chains of effects In: Sozialwirtschaft 1 (2015), Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Freie Wohlfahrtspflege ( PDF of the article )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Website of the Social Reporting Standard. Retrieved July 7, 2012.
  2. ↑ The Social Investment Manual provides an overview of the important points in the context of financing social enterprises. (PDF file; 2.2 MB)
  3. ↑ Touchstone for social entrepreneurs ( Memento of the original from February 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. of October 8, 2009, press release from the University of Hamburg . Retrieved June 19, 2012 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-hamburg.de
  4. ↑ Ashoka Idea Paper How do we overcome hurdles for social problem solvers? Ashoka Germany website. Retrieved June 19, 2012
  5. ↑ Achleitner, Ann-Kristin, Bassen, Alexander and Roder, Barbara: An Integrative Framework for Reporting in Social Entrepreneurship (January 10, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1325700 or doi : 10.2139 / ssrn.1325700 .
  6. ↑ Touchstone for social entrepreneurs (PDF file; 150 kB) Press release from the Center for Entrepreneurial and Finance Studies at the Technical University of Munich . Retrieved June 19, 2012
  7. ↑ Who developed the SRS? ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website of the Social Reporting Standard. Retrieved July 7, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.social-reporting-standard.de
  8. ↑ Business models for a better life In: The Foundation December 2011. Accessed on June 19, 2012.
  9. ↑ Initiative for the Social Reporting Standard meets at PHINEO  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Phineo News website. Retrieved June 19, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.phineo.org  
  10. ↑ Susanna Krüger and Bernhard Lorentz: Passion for Impact? A plea for more creativity and impact orientation ( memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Foundation & Sponsoring Edition 2/2011. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.joanabreidenbach.de
  11. ↑ How can the impact of civic engagement be assessed or measured? (PDF file; 6.9 MB) Presentation by Dr. Andreas M. Rickert (Phineo) at the Civic Engagement Forum. Ingolstadt, May 14, 2012. Retrieved June 19, 2012.
  12. ↑ www.ffekt-lernen.de , accessed on September 12, 2017
  13. ^ Website of Price-Waterhouse-Cooper (PWC) Germany: New reporting standard makes work easier for social organizations ; Retrieved July 7, 2012
  14. ↑ List of users of the SRS ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.social-reporting-standard.de
  15. ↑ SRS Guide 2014 ( Memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2 MB) Accessed August 19, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.social-reporting-standard.de
  16. ^ Design grant for Fellow Annual Reports Ashoka News. Retrieved June 19, 2012
  17. ↑ Example Ashoka Impact Report 2013 ( memento of the original from August 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.6 MB) Accessed August 19, 2014 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.social-reporting-standard.de
  18. ↑ Glossary - Social Reporting Standard  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. BonVenture website . Retrieved June 19, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.bonventure.de  
  19. ↑ Business plan competition ( Memento of the original from January 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.enorm-magazin.de
  20. ↑ This is how you can apply to startsocial ( memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website of the echo open source community project for active citizen participation. Retrieved June 19, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / echo.to
  21. ↑ Thomas Leppert , Social Entrepreneurship , magazine: Stiftung & Sponsoring, May 11, 2012
  22. ^ Website of the Association of Development Policy of German Non-Governmental Organizations V .; Retrieved July 7, 2012
  23. ^ Social Business . europa.eu. Retrieved July 23, 2012.
  24. ↑ Social Reporting Standard | Trend report
  25. ^ Reports of the Diakonischen Jugendhilfe Oberbayern. Accessed on August 20, 2014.
  26. ^ Reporting by the Albert Schweitzer Foundation
  27. ↑ Vision Summit ´12 (PDF; 1.6 MB) visionsummit.org. Archived from the original on May 22, 2012. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved July 23, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.visionsummit.org
  28. ↑ External workshop offers Vision Summit 2014 ( Memento of the original from January 27, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.visionsummit.org
  29. ↑ In April / May: User advice for Social Reporting Standard | Ashoka Germany
  30. ↑ Short article on the multi-stakeholder conference ( memento of the original from August 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.social-reporting-standard.de
  31. ↑ Guide 2011 Greek ( Memento of the original dated August 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 538 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.social-reporting-standard.de
  32. ↑ Guide 2011 Czech ( Memento of the original dated August 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 412 kB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.social-reporting-standard.de
  33. ↑ Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Alexander Bassen, Barbara Roder, Lena Lütjens: A Standard for Reporting by Social Entrepreneurs In: OekologischesWirtschaften 4 (2009)