Community-driven change often unfolds quietly and over years, making it hard to quantify. Mumbai nonprofit Apnalaya is turning to Social Return on Investment (SROI) to translate complex social outcomes into economic terms, shining a light on the real value generated by their efforts in the Govandi area.
- Community-driven change grows agency and social problem-solving.
- SROI assigns economic value to complex social outcomes.
- Investments in Govandi generated over 11 times social returns.
What happened
Apnalaya, a Mumbai-based nonprofit, has been working for nearly 50 years in Govandi, one of the city’s most densely populated areas. Over 70% of this community lives in informal settlements near a large landfill, facing poor living conditions, limited healthcare, education, and basic amenities. Apnalaya’s ‘collectivisation’ approach encourages residents to come together to tackle these challenges through collective responsibility and action.
The organisation found that traditional monitoring struggled to capture the changes they observed, such as improved agency and shifting social norms. In response, Apnalaya undertook a Social Return on Investment study to assign an economic value to these broad social outcomes and better communicate the value of their work to funders and partners.
Why it feels good
The SROI study revealed that for every rupee Apnalaya invested in engaging the community, more than INR 11 in social value was generated. Over three years, the roughly INR 6 crore investment yielded over INR 68 crore in social returns. These returns come not just from one-time benefits but from ongoing access to government schemes and financial savings for households.
Highlights include helping over 1,800 households independently obtain key government documents, saving them nearly INR 11,000 each by avoiding intermediaries. Households gained substantial benefits from schemes providing food subsidies, pensions, and scholarships, quantifying a broader community agency and sense of empowerment that traditional metrics often miss.
What to enjoy or watch next
Apnalaya’s example illustrates a growing trend among community organisations to use economic tools like SROI to make social progress more visible and measurable. This approach could inspire other groups working on long-term change to better communicate their impact and secure sustained funding.
As more communities adopt collective approaches to improve livelihoods and access rights, tracking the balance between social and economic returns will be key. The insights from Mumbai’s experience encourage funders and policymakers to appreciate community-driven change, not just by numbers but by its transformative effects on people’s lives.