Social impact analysis tool - The Sustainability Management Wiki

Authors: Teresa Huber, Marlene Lettmann, Nic Merke
Edited by:
Last updated: June 23, 2026

Executive summary

Social Impact Analysis (SIA) helps organizations identify, evaluate, and manage the social effects of projects before, during, and after implementation. For companies, SIA supports responsible decision-making, strengthens stakeholder communication, improves planning reliability, and helps detect risks and unintended consequences early. Although SIA originated mainly in nonprofit and public-sector contexts, it is increasingly relevant for businesses seeking to improve social and ecological performance, demonstrate accountability, and build trust with investors, communities, employees, and other stakeholders.

The article reviews major SIA-related approaches, including Social Return on Investment, Theory of Change, Sopact, the Rainbow Framework, and the OCM Solution Process Impact Assessment Toolkit. These tools offer valuable methods for measuring impact, engaging stakeholders, evaluating outcomes, and reporting results. However, many are complex, resource-intensive, costly, or difficult for small and medium-sized organizations to apply without specialized expertise. This creates a need for a practical, accessible tool that preserves methodological quality while lowering barriers to entry.

The proposed SIA tool addresses this need by combining useful elements from established methods into a structured Excel-based process. It is designed for project-level application and emphasizes stakeholder involvement, data sovereignty, flexibility, and ease of use. The tool includes a module handbook and overview sheet, followed by six main steps: project profile, stakeholder analysis and engagement, Theory of Change, impact evaluation, prevention and mitigation, and Social Return on Investment. Together, these steps guide users from defining project goals and relevant Sustainable Development Goals to evaluating impacts, developing countermeasures, and communicating results.

A central feature of the tool is early and continuous stakeholder engagement. By identifying, prioritizing, and involving stakeholders, organizations can better understand needs, risks, concerns, and opportunities. The Theory of Change step then links resources, activities, outputs, outcomes, and impacts, helping users clarify the logic behind expected change. Impact evaluation makes social effects comparable and strategically usable, while prevention and mitigation encourage proactive management of negative impacts. The optional SROI step translates selected impacts into a financial indicator, which may support communication with investors and decision-makers.

The tool offers a practical starting point for organizations that want to integrate social impact thinking into project management. Its current limitations include limited built-in support for stakeholder data collection, monitoring, and advanced analytics. Future development could include survey templates, interview guides, monitoring logbooks, feedback loops, AI-supported analysis, and modular software functions. Overall, the tool aims to make SIA more accessible and to support more transparent, responsible, and socially valuable projects.

1 Introduction

We live in a world where awareness of the far-reaching impact that business activities can have on society and the environment is constantly growing, which is why responsible decision-making and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) are becoming increasingly important. Social Impact Analysis (SIA) is an important tool for identifying, evaluating and specifically managing the social impact of projects at an early stage. While SIA was originally used primarily in the nonprofit sector, more and more companies are now discovering its strategic added value – for example, for risk minimization, improving stakeholder communication or positioning in the area of sustainable corporate management. Social impacts can extend to a wide range of areas of life – from health and education to economic development, social justice and environmental sustainability. Against this backdrop, a practical SIA tool was developed as part of this work to provide companies with a simple but sound introduction to SIA, without compromising on depth or quality.¹

2 Fundamentals of Social Impact Analysis

In the following chapter, SIA will be defined, and its relevance will be elaborated. Furthermore, the value for companies conducting an SIA is considered.

2.1 Definition and methodological approach

SIA can be used to assess the social impact of a project or measure. It serves as a structured analytical approach with the aim of identifying, assessing, and, where possible, reducing social impacts at an early stage. SIA is an interdisciplinary approach that combines insights and methods from various fields such as anthropology, sociology, demography, development studies, and other disciplines.²

Due to the complexity and individuality of an SIA, there is no uniform definition of it in the literature. A definition that comes closest to our understanding and which we have used as a basis for our tool comes from Burdge and Vanclay (1996). They describe SIA as a strategic process with the aim of assessing social impacts at an early stage:

„Social impact assessment can be defined as the process of assessing or estimating, in advance, the social consequences that are likely to follow from specific policy actions or project development, particularly in the context of appropriate national, state, or provincial environmental policy legislation. Social impacts include all social and cultural consequences to human populations of any public or private actions that alter the ways in which people live, work, play, relate to one another, organize to meet their needs, and generally cope as members of society. Cultural impacts involve changes to the norms, values, and beliefs of individuals that guide and rationalize their cognition of themselves and their society”.³(p. 59)

The SIA is therefore based on the evaluation of quantitative and qualitative data from the impact analysis. A key challenge is collecting and assessing qualitative data through stakeholder engagement. Given dynamic developments in the social sector, relying only on secondary data is discouraged. The use of primary data is recommended to build a solid basis for identifying stakeholder needs.²^,⁴

In general, the literature offers many approaches, methods, and tools to measure social impact. An SIA can be prospective, accompanying, or retrospective, with most based on the prospective view and applied throughout a project’s duration.⁵ Our tool follows this approach.

2.2 Relevance and added value for companies

Originally, SIA was reserved for nonprofit organizations to evaluate the potential impacts before the implementation. With the increasing relevance of CSR, interest in SIA is also growing among profit-oriented companies.⁶

Companies see SIA as an opportunity to stay ahead of competitors. They pursue several goals: external communication with stakeholders should be improved to create dialogue and increase planning reliability by identifying risks and conflicts early. Also, involving stakeholders helps detect negative impacts before a project starts, allowing preventive or mitigating measures. This fosters acceptance and strengthens trust.⁷

Follow-up communication also offers added value for companies. By communicating project efficiency and publishing key figures, reputation can be enhanced and doubts dispelled. A strategically implemented SIA can improve the image with investors or financiers, supporting further funding. It can also optimize internal processes and structures. Limited resources force strategic decisions, which an SIA helps analyze in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Finally, a well-founded SIA provides a basis for similar or identical projects at other locations. Concrete impact analysis can be crucial for convincing politicians or financiers of future projects.²^,⁴

From a stakeholder’s perspective, even small project changes can affect community quality of life, making participation in planning and implementation beneficial. However, two problems may arise: Stakeholders may be opposed to the project even though an objective assessment of the project indicates a positive impact, or they might be convinced of the project even though the negative impacts outweigh the positive ones – e.g. due to distorted public opinion through advertising or media, which highlights the need for constructive dialogue.³

Nevertheless, the potential of SIA remains unrealized in most companies. This is often due to controversial perceptions: some assume the financial perspective can be transferred to SIA and believe social impact can be presented and monetized with little effort. Others are skeptical about the measurability of social impacts. Internal implementation is rarely feasible due to limited expertise.⁴

3 Existing tools

The following chapter examines existing methods and tools. As explained in Chapter 2, there is no standardized method for SIA. The table below lists the most frequently cited approaches in the literature. For this, websites and scientific articles were analyzed using Google and Google Scholar with the search terms ‘Social Impact Analysis’, ‘Social Impact Analysis tool’, ‘Social Impact Measurement’, ‘Social Impact Measurement tool’, and ‘Social Impact Assessment tool’.

In this paper, tools include established guidelines or instruments as well as software or frameworks that support their practical application and make SIA more accessible.

3.1 Overview of existing tools

Table 1: Overview of existing tools

Tool	Purpose/objective	Method type	Users
AA1000 Assurance Standard⁸^,⁹	Provide principles-based assurance for sustainability and social impact reports	Assurance framework, audit	Auditors, organizations
Co-operative Environmental and Social performance indicators (CESPIs)¹⁰	Measure co-operatives’ social and environmental performance	Indicator-based assessment	cooperative organisation
Eco-Mapping¹⁰^,¹¹	Identify environmental and social impacts at the workplace	Visual mapping, participatory	small SME’s
Global Reporting Initiative Framework (GRI)¹⁰^,¹²^,¹³	Framework sustainability reporting	Reporting framework, indicators	All kinds of organizations (esp. for large ones)
Local Multiplier 3 (LM3)¹⁰^,¹⁴^,¹⁵	Measure local economic impact of spending	Multiplier tool, tracks three rounds of spending through local economy	companies, government, community organisations
Prove it!¹⁰^,¹⁶	Assess and demonstrate the social impact of projects	Toolkit with storyboards, questionnaires, Poster Evaluation	Organizations concerned with local community involvement
Social Accounting and Audit (SAA)¹⁰^,¹⁷^,¹⁸	Framework to help organizations define values, measure performance, and show social, environmental, and economic impact.	Framework: Audit, accounting, reporting	Social enterprises, NGOs
Social Impact Measurement for Local Economies (SIMPLE)¹⁹^,²⁰	Measure and manage social impact in local economies	Measurement framework, indicators	Local authorities, social enterprises
Social Return on Investment (SROI)¹⁰^,²¹^,²²^,²³	Quantify social value in monetary terms	Economic analysis, stakeholder engagement	NGOs, funders, social enterprises
Volunteering Impact Assessment Toolkit¹⁰^,²⁴	Assess the impact of volunteer programs with stakeholders	Toolkit, surveys, qualitative	All kinds of organizations
Social Cost-Benefit Analysis²⁵^,²⁶^,²⁷	Evaluate social, economic, and environmental costs and benefits in monetary terms	Economic modeling, quantitative	Governments
Acumen Scorecard²³^,²⁸	Assess and track social venture performance using outcome-based benchmarks.	Scorecard with indicators and metrics	Large & mid-sized family and closely held corporations
Atkinsson compass assessment for investors²³^,²⁹	Guide investors in assessing social/environmental impact of investments	Multi-dimensional assessment compass, qualitative	Impact investors
Robin Hood Foundation benefit-cost ratio³⁰^,³¹^,³²	Compare social benefits to costs in grantmaking	Benefit-cost analysis	Philanthropic foundations
Social footprint³³^,³⁴	Context-based approach for measuring, managing and reporting the social sustainability performance	Metrics, reporting	All kinds of organizations
Socioeconomic assessment toolbox (SEAT)³⁵	Assess socioeconomic impacts of projects	7-step-guide including qualitative tools	All kinds of organizations
Practical Quality Assurance System for Small Organizations (PQASSO)³⁶	Self-assessment for quality and impact in third sector organizations	Self-assessment, benchmarking	small and medium organisations or for a project within big organisation
Theory of Change (ToC)³⁷^,³⁸^,³⁹^,⁴⁰	Helps organizations plan, measure, and adapt their social impact by linking activities to outcomes while accounting for key assumptions and stakeholder insights.	Logical framework with outcomes, assumptions, indicators	All kinds of organizations
Social Business Model Canvas⁴¹	To help social entrepreneurs map and align financial and social aspects of their venture for strategic planning.	Adapted Business Model Canvas with social blocks	Companies
Sopact⁴²	Software for impact measurement and management	Data analytics, dashboards	All kinds of organizations
Rainbow Framework⁴³^,⁴⁴	To guide organizations through the impact measurement and evaluation process.	Framework, Mixed methods	All kinds of organizations
OCM Solution Process Impact Assessment Toolkit⁴⁵	Process-based impact assessment	Toolkit, process mapping	All kinds of organizations

3.2 Most relevant tools in more detail

This section reviews selected methods and tools that have significantly influenced the development of our own tool, outlining their respective strengths and limitations.

3.2.1 Social Return on Investment

SROI is an evaluation approach developed to measure the social, environmental, and economic value of projects in monetary terms. Initiated in the 1990s by the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, it aims to make social benefits measurable and comparable.⁴⁶ SROI compares the costs of a measure with its measurable returns. Specific outputs are defined for different stakeholder groups, which trigger outcomes leading to measurable impacts. The monetized impact is adjusted for factors such as deadweight (impact that would have occurred anyway) and drop-off (annual decline in impact), and expected returns are discounted based on duration. SROI enhances transparency by allowing project initiators to communicate social value clearly. Its strength lies in translating complex social impacts into a monetary indicator, aiding decision-makers in allocating resources effectively. However, SROI also has limitations. Monetizing social impacts involves extensive data collection and analysis, which is particularly costly if there is insufficient data available for the measure. In addition, subjective assessments can lead to false conclusions. The significance of the results therefore depends heavily on the quality of the data and the implementation.²¹

3.2.2 Theory of Change

The ToC is an approach for representing and analyzing cause-and-effect relationships, gaining prominence in the 1990s in social investment and entrepreneurship. At the heart of the approach is a chain of effects. This begins with the inputs, i.e., the resources used, such as personnel and budget. The resources enable direct activities, which in turn lead to outputs, defining the short-term measurable results. This is followed by outcomes, which represent medium- to long-term changes. Finally, at the impact level, the sustained effect becomes visible through changes at the structural level.⁴⁷ Stakeholder interests should be considered throughout the entire process, as they can be easily overlooked if they are not directly involved. While ToC simplifies complex cause-and-effect relationships, it is often resource-intensive. All in all, it offers a strong foundation for strategic project management and enables clear, transparent communication with stakeholders.⁴⁷^,⁴⁸

3.2.3 Sopact

One tool that is often mentioned in connection with SIA is Sopact. It is an all-in-one platform that assesses the social, economic, and environmental impacts of projects, programs, or strategies, with a strong focus on stakeholder involvement. Sopact automates data collection, analysis, and visualization, making social impacts easy to understand. Dashboards offer a clear view of progress and key KPIs, while AI tools provide real-time insights for ongoing optimization. Its strengths include integration with over 300 systems, scalability, collaboration features, mobile data capture, customizable templates, and robust reporting.⁴⁹^,⁵⁰^,⁵¹^,⁵²

The main disadvantage of Sopact may be that it is not free. This could be a problem for SMEs or smaller projects with limited budgets. Also, it takes time and staff resources to get started with the tool. Furthermore, using it requires some digital skills, which might require employee training.⁵³^,⁵⁴ Even the free guide (the Impact Framework) is quite extensive, which can be overwhelming for some companies.⁴⁹

3.2.4 Rainbow Framework

The Rainbow Framework was developed by BetterEvaluation, a platform that has been part of the Global Evaluation Initiative (GEI) since 2022, a worldwide network promoting evaluation and evidence-based decision-making.⁵⁵ The framework helps structure evaluation processes clearly and enables users to quickly and easily find the information and methods they are looking for. To ensure better planning, the range of tasks is divided into seven color-coded clusters: Manage, Define, Frame, Describe, Understand Causes, Synthesize, and Report & Support Use.⁴⁴ Each of these steps contains comprehensive information and options relating to monitoring and evaluation (M&E). Overall, the Rainbow Framework provides an overview of more than 300 evaluation methods and processes and over 20 different evaluation approaches.⁴³ As a result, the Rainbow Framework offers a high degree of flexibility and adaptability for each step of the SIA and can be widely applied, e.g., across sectors, internal or external projects. The clear structure makes it particularly easy for beginners and organizations without extensive evaluation experience to use. In addition, the involvement of stakeholders is also a high priority here, enabling the participatory design of evaluation processes.⁴⁴^,⁵⁶

However, while the Rainbow Framework provides a wide range of methods and detailed approaches, it could become overwhelming – especially for companies that are working with SIA for the first time and have limited time and human resources. The framework itself emphasizes that conducting evaluation requires specialist knowledge as well as time and personnel resources.⁵⁶^,⁵⁷^,⁵⁸

3.2.5 OCM Solution Process Impact Assessment toolkit

OCM Solution is a platform that offers a wide range of guidelines, tools, and solutions for change management in companies.⁴⁵ OCM Solution has developed the OCM Solution Process Impact Assessment Toolkit. It offers various tools and templates for all aspects of SIA, which are designed to make it easier for beginners to start processing change assessments. The template is flexibly customizable, allowing additional data to be captured, making it adaptable to a wide variety of projects and enabling even more tailored processing for the company. In addition, the toolkit offers automated analysis, dashboards, and reports that support continuous optimization of measures and a quick and clear presentation of the progress of the impact analysis. Furthermore, the toolkit is based on industry standards and change teams can collaborate online. This promotes a uniform, comparable approach and facilitates cross-functional collaboration.⁵⁹

Similar to Sopact, one of the main disadvantages of OCM Solution is that it is not free, especially for smaller organizations with limited budgets.⁵³ In addition, effective use requires time, technical understanding, and human resources.⁶⁰ If organizations do not have these resources, there is a risk that they will not carry out an SIA, which can have a negative impact on social outcomes overall.⁶¹

4 Development of our own social impact analysis tool

We developed the SIA tool with the goal of creating a practical, easy-to-understand tool that both small and medium-sized businesses and organizations could use without difficulty. By summarizing the most important aspects we developed a best-of tool for SIA. In the following, the objective and methodology of the tool, its structure and application as well as limitations and avenues for future work will be discussed and explained.

4.1 Objective and scope

The main goal of our tool is to give companies an easy way to get started with SIA – without losing any quality or depth. A lot of existing SIA methods and frameworks are often really detailed, theoretical, and sometimes quite complex and resources are lacking, which can make it hard to start the process.⁴⁹ In addition, environmental and social commitments incur costs.⁶² At the same time, customers, investors, and even companies’ own employees are increasingly interested in companies’ sense of responsibility. Investors are increasingly looking at the sustainability performance of the companies they invest in.⁶³ That is where our tool comes in: it offers a structured and comprehensible approach that is practical yet sufficiently in-depth to avoid being superficial, even without large teams or budgets. This is primarily ensured through the comprehensive involvement of stakeholders.

The tool focuses on the project level. Since the topic of sustainability is becoming increasingly important, which also includes the social sector, recording and improving impacts on the project level could be essential for companies. In addition, focusing on individual projects allows companies and organizations to start small, gain initial experience, and directly involve stakeholders. In this way, we want to create an incentive for the corporate world to address social impact.

4.2 Methodological approach

We used research platforms like Google Scholar to research existing tools, methods, guidelines, and templates such as Sopact, Rainbow Framework, the ToC approach, SROI, and others (see Chapter 3). Many existing tools follow a relatively consistent basic structure: scoping & stakeholder involvement, data collection & baseline analysis, evaluation & interpretation, monitoring & reporting. The differences mostly lie in the methodological depth and complexity, as well as in the resources and expertise required.

Given that our main target group is SMEs with limited human or financial resources, we decided on the best-of approach. To do this, we selected the methodological elements from existing tools that we considered most relevant and practical and translated them into a clearly structured, simplified step-by-step logic in Excel. In doing so, we always kept our goal in mind to ensure that the tool remains understandable for users with varying levels of experience—without compromising on substance. During this process, we identified six steps. These are explained in more detail in the next section.

4.3 Structure and functionality of the tool

In addition to the six content-related steps, the tool includes two supporting introductory elements – a module handbook and an overview sheet. The module handbook is the starting point for our tool and helps users quickly familiarize themselves with the topic in a structured manner, even without prior knowledge. It contains explanatory texts, definitions, examples, and methodological notes on key topics such as project organization, data collection, reporting, impact assessment as well as references to relevant standards and additional sources. It is heavily based on the recommendations of the Sopact Impact Framework and the Rainbow Framework.

By providing a shorter and more compact presentation of selected M&E options, we aim to lower the barrier to entry for companies and provide low-threshold access to the topic of SIA. The tool is flexible, can be adapted to different types of projects, data remains stored locally, ensuring data sovereignty and no registration or installation is required. Its ease of use is perfectly adequate for manageable projects with few participants and low data volumes, providing a quick overview. Finally, our SIA tool offers the advantage of being available free of charge – an incentive, especially for smaller companies or organizations that have previously had little involvement with impact measurement (e.g. due to resource constraints).

For the Overview Sheet at the end, we opted for an automatically generated graphical overview of relevant KPIs and results. It presents the most important findings in a compact form and is well suited for internal reporting and external communication and is useful for ongoing M&E by helping track mitigation efforts, identify challenges, and ensure accountability and transparency in managing social impacts.⁶⁴ The OCM Process Impact Assessment Toolkit, provided the inspiration for this approach, which served as a helpful template for us in terms of structuring and visualizing important key figures.

4.3.1 Step 1 – Project profile

In the first step of the SIA tool, a clear and comprehensive project profile is created. It ensures a consistent and structured approach to evaluate the social impact of the project and serves as the foundation for all subsequent steps. The profile comprises the project’s purpose, context, and strategic alignment. We have also decided to include the selection of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As the 17 SDGs are an internationally established reference system, this should strengthen the strategic orientation of the project, facilitate its compatibility with existing reporting formats, and simplify communication with stakeholders including impact investors.⁴⁹

4.3.2 Step 2 – Stakeholder analysis & engagement

Our approach is to involve stakeholders right from the start so that their needs and views can be considered from the outset. Early involvement helps to increase the relevance, acceptance, and credibility of the analysis, ensures the targeted use of resources and helps to identify meaningful impacts, indicators and potential measures for risk reduction and benefit enhancement.⁴⁴^,⁴⁹^,⁶⁴^,⁶⁵

Step 2 is divided into two phases: stakeholder identification and stakeholder engagement. In stakeholder identification, stakeholders who are relevant to the project are systematically identified, assessed, and prioritized. Users evaluate the following aspects: internal or external status, influence on the project, affectedness, and interest. This procedure ensures that those who may influence or be affected by the project are adequately considered and, where necessary, involved in decision-making processes. The prioritization matrix is intended to provide support in automatically deriving the need for action from the possible influence of stakeholders on the project and the impact the project could have on them.

Based on the prioritization, the next step is stakeholder engagement, with a clear focus on actively involving the key stakeholders identified. The various ways in which stakeholders can be engaged, such as interviews, surveys, or Delphi studies, were particularly helpful in shaping our approach.⁴⁹^,⁶⁶ The reference to the Engagement Toolkit in the handbook provides users with a practical resource to select engagement methods that best fit their context, intended to provide guidance and facilitate research efforts.

Overall, stakeholder engagement should enable organizations to identify and understand the needs of their stakeholders, which should ultimately contribute to better quality SIA and informed decision-making.⁶¹ Step 2 thus contributes significantly to the quality and effectiveness of the entire SIA.

4.3.3 Step 3 – Theory of Change

The ToC is the third step in our SIA tool. We have deliberately integrated this step because the ToC is very often mentioned in the literature in the context of SIA and is a proven methodological approach for systematically planning, tracking, and evaluating social impacts. Sopact considers the ToC to be an important tool for avoiding potentially harmful false conclusions in impact planning and for establishing a clear, comprehensible logic between activities, outputs, and outcomes.⁴⁹

This step is intended to provide guidance for users – especially those who have little previous experience with SIA. To simplify the application, inputs, activities and outputs are queried in a bundled form, as they usually apply to the entire project.

Outcomes and impacts, on the other hand, are filled in for each impact because they can vary depending on the target group or measure. Impacts are derived from the stakeholder analysis, which ensures that their opinions are considered. The backward mapping followed by a gap analysis allows for a realistic impact chain and shows, which impacts need further considerations for example due to missing inputs.

All ToC steps in the tool are supplemented by specific notes in the module manual and on the sheet to ensure even clearer application. These steps enable a systematic evaluation of the project which helps plan the project more clearly and communicate it more comprehensibly, e.g. to funding bodies, investors and the public.

4.3.4 Step 4 – Impact evaluation

In the fourth step, ‘Impact Evaluation,’ the identified social impacts are systematically evaluated. This involves not only recording that certain impacts exist, but above all assessing how relevant and significant these impacts are. To assess the impacts, we used the SIA tool from Assessment tools as a guide.⁵⁹

First, it is checked whether the identified impacts align with the previously determined interests of the stakeholders. This clarifies whether important concerns have been taken into account and provides a holistic picture of all perspectives. This is followed by an assessment of whether the impact is positive or negative, how likely it is to occur and how strong it will be – on a scale from ‘very low’ to ‘very high’ in each case. All assessments must be justified by the users to avoid arbitrariness. Next, the number of stakeholders affected and the groups involved are recorded. This results in a percentage that illustrates the scope of the impact. Finally, an assessment is made as to whether the effect is permanent or reversible.

This structure makes the impact comprehensible, comparable and strategically usable. In addition, the impact evaluation provides important information for risk management – especially in the case of negative effects on influential stakeholders. Overall, step 4 should contribute significantly to assessing the impact of a project on a fact-based basis and highlighting weaknesses and fields of action.

4.3.5 Step 5 – Prevention & mitigation

Another important step in a SIA is the development of prevention and mitigation strategies.⁶⁵ After assessing negative impacts in step 4, the next step is to find possible countermeasures like prevention and mitigation strategies. These are supposed to minimize potential risks, maximize benefits, and address any compromises, conflicts or uncertainties.⁶⁴

The structure here is clearly defined: First, the question arises as to whether it is possible to prevent the negative impact. If this question can be answered with “Yes,” a free text field should be used to describe the options available for preventing the negative impact. If the negative impact cannot be prevented, the question is asked whether there are ways to mitigate the negative impact. There are diverse forms of mitigation measures, some examples are compensation, policy adjustments or capacity-building programs.¹ This ensures that negative impacts are considered and possible countermeasures are evaluated.

Here, too, stakeholders can be involved again to develop joint measures, strengthen acceptance, and build trust. In addition, the tool mentions other methods that are helpful in developing strategic measures to make the approach easier for users.

Overall, this step is intended to ensure that our tool not only serves as an evaluation instrument but also encourages users to engage in further strategic thinking and promotes a holistic approach to impact, responsibility and continuous improvement.

4.3.6 Step 6 – Social Return on Investment

The final step in our tool is SROI. The SROI indicates how much social value is created for every euro invested. By including this, we aim to translate the social impact of a project into a quantifiable financial indicator.

To determine the SROI, companies first enter their project costs (costs of inputs), then estimate a monetary value for each impact (value per impact) and adjust this using interest rate, deadweight, and drop-off. In addition, the expected impact over the project period is discounted. The net impact is calculated automatically, resulting in the SROI value.

However, users should note that the lack of standardization makes it difficult to compare SROI results. Many assessments are based on subjective assumptions, as there are no clear criteria – for example, when alternative production costs or savings should be considered and to what extent. This leaves room for interpretation, which can limit the significance of the SROI.⁶⁵

Nevertheless, we have made a conscious decision to include SROI in our tool, as investors are increasingly turning to impact investing – i.e. they not only expect financial returns, but also factor positive social and environmental impacts into their decisions. In addition, future trends point to increased use of technological solutions – including AI-based tools – to further improve the accuracy and efficiency of SROI calculations.⁶⁵

4.4 Limitations and avenue for future works

Even though our tool offers a practical and well-structured introduction to SIA, certain limitations remain – both in terms of content depth and technical capabilities. One example would be stakeholder analysis. Although we already have a separate step for this, in the future, it could be supplemented with specially developed, concrete tools such as templates for surveys, interview guides or digital tools for stakeholder categorization. Currently, we refer to external sources here. The evaluation of stakeholder data could also be expanded in terms of content and technical expertise, for example through evaluation logic or further sample analyzes from various industries. In the long term, a contact database or a company-specific ‘social impact network’ could also be created to promote continuous exchange.

Furthermore, the monitoring area could be expanded, for example, by a monitoring logbook, additional sheets containing Gantt charts, or additional data points on the progress status of project tasks. Another aspect of this would be the promotion of feedback loops with stakeholders through the development and provision of recurring surveys or feedback forms.

Apart from the tool itself, the range of services offered could also be supplemented, for example, with training courses on project organization for social impact analyzes. However, this would require trained and qualified specialist staff. In turn, the promotion of an SIA network would be helpful for this.

Overall, the trend in the field of SIA is towards increased use of technology, in particular the use of AI-supported solutions. Among other things, these tools enable real-time access to impact data, automated data analysis and the automatic generation of reports. This significantly increases the transparency, efficiency and informative value of social impact assessments.⁶⁵^,⁶⁷^,⁶⁸ Tools such as Sopact are already successfully implementing these developments.⁶⁷ However, with the current form of our tool in the form of an Excel file, such functions are not feasible. Should the need arise, the next logical step would be to develop our own software with modular components. One possible structure would be a structure in which individual areas – e.g. stakeholder analysis, impact path, reporting or SROI calculation – can be activated or deactivated individually. This would allow the tool to be tailored even more closely to individual needs.

5 Conclusion

The development of our SIA tool has shown us that SIA is an increasingly relevant tool for companies to systematically record, evaluate and strategically manage the social impact of their projects. While existing methods and tools provide important momentum, they also present significant barriers to entry for small and medium-sized enterprises – for example, in terms of complexity, costs and necessary resources.

Therefore, the developed tool aims to be user-friendly and easily accessible, even for inexperienced companies. It is clearly structured, each step is explained individually, stakeholders are specifically involved, and it offers flexibility, data sovereignty and cost-free use. The detailed module handbook helps users understand each step and its background and provides useful references for further information.

At the same time, the tool, despite its potential, still has room for development. Future steps could be to create more detailed analysis options, to add standardized templates for stakeholder engagement and further technical development towards a software solution. The increasing use of AI also offers a good opportunity for SIA and our tool, for example, to automate and refine the evaluation process.

Overall, the tool developed helps make SIA accessible to a broader spectrum of companies, thereby contributing to more responsible, transparent projects with greater social value added.

References

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