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Social Reporting Standard (SRS) provides a standardised guideline for reporting of initiatives and projects in the non-profit sector. The term SRS is inspired by the Financial Reporting Standards of for-profit companies.

Since social enterprises and non-profit organisations -unlike traditional businesses-, are not primarily focused on maximising profits, but on social issues, the application of Financial Reporting Standards is not appropriate. Therefore, the development of SRS, which take the special goals of non-for-profit organisations into account, is essential.

Generally, all reporting guidelines in the social sector can be called SRS. Such a concept for reporting standards (accounting and legal) in the social sector has been developed by several experts in the (German social) sector. It has so far received broad support and is widely used. The Social Reporting Standard (SRS) approach is an open non-commercial project.

Background
Analogously to the reporting and annual financial statements of for-profit organisations, social entrepreneurs, non-profit organisations, and other organisations with social objectives also regularly report on their activities. For example, they report to the public, their donors, investors and sponsors, to authorities, or to their partners.

While for-profit organisations have to report in accordance with laws of generally accepted principles such as the German "Handelsgesetzbuch (HGB)” (comparable with the US GAAP or the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), historically consistent reporting standards for socially oriented organisations have not been established. Consistent reporting enables social businesses’ stakeholders to compare information. Such comparability is a very important element in addressing potential investors, but is also relevant for other stakeholders. Complex norms of sustainability reporting standards such as that of Global Reporting Initiative are for social organisations not practicable with reasonable effort. Many organisations therefore have to report separately in accordance with each investor’s guidelines, wasting lots of resources.

Hence, donors, investors, and financiers in the non-profit sector (contrary to for-profit investors) have no standardised basis of information they could use for the selection, assessment, and comparison of different projects. Thus, resources are often not used in the areas where they could have the biggest impact. As a result, social businesses often struggle with the acquisition of capital needed to attain their socially oriented objectives.

Emergence and participating organisations
Starting point for the development of SRS were research findings of TU Munich and the University of Hamburg.

SRS is a joint project of Ashoka Germany, Auridis gGmbH, BonVenture Management GmbH, Phineo gAG, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Spenden.de, TU Munich, and the University of Hamburg with the assistance of PricewaterhouseCoopers Germany. The Vodafone Foundation Germany along with the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth supports research projects on the further development of SRS. In addition, the creation of an English Version of SRS has been supported by the Social Impact Analysts Association (SIAA).

The reporting standard is an open project under the Creative Commons licence and all interested social organisations can participate. In addition to the further development of the standard a dialogue on entrepreneurial thinking and impact-oriented actions to increase common welfare shall be established. For this purpose the involved organisations founded the Social Reporting Initiative e.V. association in September 2011.

Objectives
SRS provides a new reporting framework for stakeholders in the social sector. In particular, it helps to document and communicate the results chain of individual projects. Moreover, several fundamental reporting elements such as organisational structure and finances are systematically captured in the SRS report, so a comprehensive picture of the organisation can be obtained. Another objective of SRS is to promote an impact-orientation of social organisations, and therefore to contribute to focus competition for donations and fundings on a programme’s impact. Hence, focussing on the effectiveness and impact of programmes will become a major issue. The efforts for reporting organisations and recipients of information can be kept at a low level: First, by having a clearly defined reporting framework used by a multitude of organisations, donors, investors, and other stakeholders. And second, by using consistent approaches of measuring impact.

Composition and Structure
A report according to SRS 2014 consists of three central sections, namely Part A to C. Depending on the organisation’s and activity’s type and complexity, they can be filled out multiple times.


 * Part A describes the subject of the report. It gives an overview and a description of the report’s scope and contact persons in the organisation.
 * Part B describes each activity and its impact. It focuses on the social problem and the approach to solve it. Central component is the section about the impact on society. Resources used, services provided, and societal effects are contrasted. Furthermore plans, opportunities, and risks are to be described as well as an introduction given of the participating individuals.
 * Part C includes a holistic profile of the organisation and gives an overview on the financials including revenues and expenditure.

Most SRS users report on a single activity provided by an organisation specifically created for this purpose. Some organisations report on several activities. And sometimes a single activity is implemented by an association of several organisations. Since SRS is structured modularly, it is possible to use the standard for different constellations. This enables investors and donors to understand the connections between the different organisations and activities without great effort and to arrange their supports accordingly.

An activity in this sense can be defined as the sum of all actions of an organisation to solve a social problem. Activities are therefore definable programmes, projects, and plans including advisory services, courses and trainings, services, conferences, technical and other products, publications, awards, lobbying activities, online platforms etc. Sample SRS reports can be viewed and downloaded on the SRS website.

Application and distribution
SRS was first published in 2010 and has been used by an increasing number of users since then (a current list of adopters is available on the SRS website) ). In 2014, a new version of the guidelines was published. Findings from user workshops and phone consultations regarding SRS 2012 as well as feedback from numerous users were taken into account. The basic concept has proven itself successful and remains unchanged. SRS 2014 is optimized with regard to user-friendliness and significance, taking into account practical feedback and the current state of science. Ashoka accepts a report following SRS guidelines instead of an application form. By now, the major part of Ashoka fellows reports in the SRS format. Ashoka itself uses SRS for their own annual reporting, too. BonVenture accepts reports according to SRS as an application for equity and credits. The impact indicators are used in an involvement for planning and evaluating social impact. For in-depth assessments of an organisation the Phineo analysis method recommends SRS. For the selection process of “Germany’s social entrepreneur of the year” the network of the Schwab Foundation accepts SRS as an application. Network members of the foundation can submit their annual report in the SRS format.

Members of the Vodafone Foundation also use SRS for their annual reporting. Applications for social business angels can also be done via SRS. Startsocial accepts SRS reports as applications, too. The announcements of the Act for Impact programme of the Vodafone Foundation Germany and the Social Entrepreneurship Academy are also done according to SRS standards.

SRS is, among others, recommended by "VENRO" (umbrella organisation of development non-governmenal organisations in Germany). Also within the scope of the Social Business Initiative of the European Commission, which manages 90 million Euros, in future SRS is to play a major role as best practice. Within the scope of betterplace lab Trendreports SRS has been identified as a leading instrument for the documentation of impact.

SRS can be used by all organisations with social purposes. SRS guidelines primarily address small and medium-sized organisations with social purposes (e.g. social entrepreneurs) and were developed for them in particular. Perspectively, SRS can be used by all foundations, especially by beneficiary foundations, venture philanthropists, charities and governmental foundations of social services as a reporting tool. In summer 2013, the SRS was presented on conferences organised by some of Germany’s non-statutory welfare services organisations. As the first organisation “Diakonisches Werk Rosenheim”, and particularly “Diakonische Jugendhilfe Oberbayern” are to be mentioned, using SRS for all of its institutions. As the first foundation, “Albert-Schweitzer-Foundation” applicated the SRS for its annual report.

On the Vision Summit 2012, which by now has over 1,000 participants, and has been named an internationally leading conference for social innovation, social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, eco business, and social impact business the SRS was presented, and an introduction in its use was given in workshops. Moreover, in April and May 2012 a user consultation session was offered for players in this field for the first time, sponsored by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. These consultations are executed several times a year since. In February 2013, a multistakeholderconference on the “promotion of social innovation in Germany” took place. Over 200 representatives from politics, business and science as well as social entrepreneurs participated in this conference. The Social Reporting Initiative e.V. organised a workshop on organisations’ impact documentation, introducing and discussing SRS.

International distribution: Initiated through the conference ThinkSocial.Act Business in December 2013, Athens, the SRS guidelines have been translated into Greek. Due to workshops organised in the Czech Republic SRS will also spread here, meanwhile a Czech version of the guidelines is available, too. A translation of the guidelines into Spanish, French and Hungarian is planned.

Literature

 * Barbara Roder: Reporting im Social Entrepreneurship: Konzeption einer externen Unternehmensberichterstattung für soziale Unternehmer. Gabler 2010.
 * Achleitner A., Bassen A., Roder B., Lütjens L.: Ein Standard für die Berichterstattung von 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: Wie wirke ich? Hilfe für Social Enterprises (2014)
 * Scheck, Barbara: A Standard for Social Impact Reporting (May 2014) (PDF)