Economic Development: demonstrate the impact of your initiatives

Economic Development teams shape thriving communities and local economies. But demonstrating the real value of your projects can be challenging—particularly with limited resources and increasing accountability demands.

The Social Value Engine provides a clear, credible way to measure and report social impact, ensuring your work is understood, valued, and properly funded.

Evidence that drives Economic Development decisions

Accurate measurement of social value is critical for effective project management, informed grant allocation, and meaningful community engagement. Our platform helps your team go beyond basic compliance, ensuring every initiative aligns directly with local priorities and delivers tangible, measurable impact.

Three ways we support your work

At the end of the day, when you see that a government grant has delivered much more in social value terms, it’s not just useful for reporting—it’s essential for justifying future investment in our communities.

Jayne Adamson Tyne & Esk Community-Led Local Development (CLLD) Officer, East Lothian Council

How it works

Input your project or initiative

Fill out basic information about your initiative, then select to align with global frameworks like the UN Sustainable Development Goals, or choose to report against your own strategic framework.

Add stakeholders and outcomes

Our outcomes are measured using an extensive set of validated proxy values, using government and academic (open data) sources. We will propose relevant impact adjustments ('deflators') per outcome.

Instantly see your SROI report

Your report will show how your Social Return on Investment was calculated, providing values such as Present Value and Value Over Time. You can easily save your report to PDF or export in spreadsheet format.

A platform tailored specifically for Economic Development

Developed in partnership with East Riding of Yorkshire Council’s Economic Development team, the Social Value Engine is the UK’s only accredited platform for measuring Social Return on Investment (SROI). It leverages over 700 rigorously validated financial proxies from trusted academic and government sources, providing clarity, credibility, and consistency across your projects.