this is accounted for as if it happened in the period after the activity. We will consider
two examples: fewer falls as a result of the mild exercise and fewer GP visits as a
result of the practice nurse sessions.
• Fewer falls
The activities were designed to maintain and improve general wellbeing in older
and less mobile people. We have assumed that residents would not have mild
exercise sessions without coming to the luncheon club and so, for our impact
map, residents will stop having these sessions at the end of the year and the
benefit will not endure. The duration is one year.
• Fewer GP visits
Here, the change is due to increased awareness of health issues and contributing
factors. Residents are given knowledge. When they stop having the practice
nurse sessions at the luncheon club they do not lose the knowledge. They might
use it less as time goes on (the effect of which on our analysis is picked up later
in “drop-off”), but the change is not reversed. So the benefit endures beyond the
activity. We have estimated the duration to be 5 years.
Stag Stag
Over to you: Duration of outcomes
e
Complete the ‘Duration’ column on your Impact Map.
e
 
3.4 Putting a value on the outcome
Now that you have quantities of each outcome indicator the next step is to give each
outcome a financial value. Remember that you are identifying a value for the outcome
and not the indicator. You will then be able to complete the columns on the impact map
relating to financial proxies, their value and their sources.
What is valuation?
This process of valuation is often referred to as monetisation because we assign a
monetary value to things that do not have a market price. All the prices that we use in
our day-to-day lives are approximations – ‘proxies’ – for the value that the buyer and
the seller gain and lose in the transaction. The value that we get will be different for
different people in different situations.
For some things, like a pint of milk, there is considerable agreement on and
consistency in the price. For other things, such as a house, there is likely to be a wider
spread of possible prices. For others – a new product that has never been sold before,
for example – there may be no comparison.
All value is, in the end, subjective. Markets have developed, in large part, to mediate
between people’s different subjective perceptions of what things are worth. In some
cases this is more obvious than in others. But even where prices are stable and have
the semblance of ‘objective’ or ‘true’ value, this is not really the case.
A guide to Social Return on Investment 
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