Advancing social value analysis: challenges and opportunities to understanding social outcomes in the United States and in the United Kingdom

Abstract This paper addresses the comparability and related scalability constraint of Maier et al. (VOLUNTAS 26: 1805–1830, 2015) of social impact measurement by deploying experimental mapping of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) target indicators onto social return on investment (SROI) data proxies. Datasets on the unit cost database model hosted by the Greater Manchester Authority are derived for the UK and for the US. Discreet differences in data terminology between financial proxies in the UK and in the USA are translated with a contextual approach for data optimization. The resultant mapped datasets of financial proxies offer early evidence in support of the scalability of SROI. This is valuable for local measurement of progress towards the global 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This research finds that there are comparatively wide differences in sufficient data both within and across the UK and the US datasets. Yet, mapped data counts show sufficient cross-geographic financial proxy overlaps, pointing to the viability of data collection with financial proxy sampling and mapping both for the better understanding of place-based social value creation and for comparative localised social value contribution. This paper concludes that initial mapping of data onto the SDG target indicators improves the comparability constraint of SROI.