What is RSVA?

The Rapid Social Value Assessment (RSVA) tool focuses on the changes that stakeholders involved in an activity or project experience, rather than the targets that have been set. It involves asking the different groups of people involved in, or affected by, an activity or project to tell you about the changes they have experienced through, and as a result of, your work. This process seeks to understand the impact that these changes have had on your stakeholders, as well how much they value these impacts.

RSVA is based on the principles of ‘Social Return on Investment’, which is versatile and flexible, and can be adapted and used by organisations of any size across any sector. Social return on investment and subsequently RSVA can be used as a forecast analysis or an evaluative analysis, depending on which stage you are at in your project.

Traditionally, social return on investment assigns financial values to the changes identified by stakeholders and expresses this as a ratio, to contrast the cost of a project to the social value, in monetary terms. However, this is a complicated, lengthy process and the economic calculations can distract from the focus on broader social value.

Gloucestershire County Council colleagues have therefore developed an approach – the Rapid Social Value Assessment (RSVA) - that adopts the traditional social return on investment principles but is more qualitative and simpler to follow.

The RSVA tool helps to create a story about change and social value that is specific to your organisation and stakeholder groups. It is flexible and can incorporate quantitative data and qualitative date, such as case studies. This means you can adapt it to suit the time and resources you have available.

The RSVA tool allows stakeholders to define which changes they value most. This can be used to understand how the impact and value of a service or project differs across different groups. The findings can help your organisation to understand and communicate the impact and value you create and contribute to strategic planning and improvement efforts.

Gloucestershire County Council has developed a local RSVA template for colleagues across the system to download, save and work on. The template provides a simplified version of the tool and some guidance to get you started.

We have amended the tools locally so that they are easier to use, and whilst we have tested these (as demonstrated in the case studies tab), we need to continue to test these and learn from these experiences to find out how they are working and how they can be improved.

Download the Gloucestershire RSVA tool template (DOCX, 35.3 KB)