Measuring Social Return on Investment for Community Schools

Posted by on June 24, 2013

We are pleased to announce the release of “Measuring Social Return on Investment for Community Schools,” a case study and companion guide designed to help educators and administrators across the country begin to measure and communicate the social and economic value of community schools.

As you know, community schools make an invaluable contribution to student academic achievement, children’s social and emotional health, family participation and community engagement—in districts around the country and the world.

Still, we face daunting challenges as we try to scale this proven model to achieve widespread impact, especially when resources are constrained and the effectiveness of investments is under increased scrutiny by grantmakers, individual donors and public agencies.

Social return on investment offers a new way to measure and share the value of outcomes from community schools that provide social, health and education services to children and their families.

For this case study, The Finance Project piloted a methodology to determine the return on investment of two Children’s Aid community school sites, which were chosen for their full-service approach and longevity. The results are very promising, so we have gathered the lessons learned and tools for analysis into a practical guide for use by community school leaders everywhere.

You can download a copy of the case study and the guide from our website.

Case Study: http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/files/CASE%20STUDY%20final.pdf
Guide: http://www.childrensaidsociety.org/files/GUIDE%20final_0.pdf

We hope these materials will provide a useful contribution to our shared efforts to reform education using this exciting strategy. We look forward to working with you to get one step closer to our goal of making every school a community school.