Analysing VARCITIES’ social return on investment

As part of our project, a socio-economic research process called Social Return on Investment (SROI) was conducted in our seven Pilot Sites. The SROI is a forecast analysis of the social impact that can be generated by the intervention in the first year following the project completion.

The SROI framework is a methodology applied to design and evaluate activities or projects that promote social change through the participation of local actors. It examines the outputs of the project, i.e., the expected tangible and measurable products while also focusing on the outcomes, i.e., the changes experienced by the beneficiaries, with the aim of calculating the social value created by a specific intervention.

Intense stakeholder engagement, combined with a review of the available SROI literature and secondary data, maje it possible to identify the most relevant and significant changes that can be generated by VARCITIES and to hypothesize the number of subjects who will experience these benefits. The study then calculates the social value of these changes through a process of approximation to financial values (proxies), which allowed attributing monetary values to outcomes for which there is no defined market price. Finally, the obtained social value is refined through discount rates provided by the SROI that account for what would have happened regardless of the intervention or thanks to other external realities and factors present on the territory.

SROI analysis in Castelfranco Veneto

In the pilot area of Castelfranco Veneto, VARCITIES, intends to enhance the historic garden of Villa Bolasco and allow citizens, especially vulnerable groups (the elderly, people with disabilities, and their caregivers) to use the garden in a more interactive way, thus, experience its benefits in their health and well-being.

The research had the following objectives:

• to estimate what will be the social and economic changes that the Visionary Solutions carried out at Villa Bolasco garden will be able to generate for the key stakeholders of the project, also by calculating the ratio between benefits produced and intervention costs (called “SROI ratio”)
• to offer useful insights for an improved design and management of activities, that accounts for stakeholders’ actual needs and expectations
• to contribute to the dissemination of the results derived from engagement activities, aiming to share the findings with the subjects involved in the research and receive feedback on the results obtained

The citizens of Castelfranco Venetor were involved in six collective discussion activities (focus groups and workshops) to give their opinion on what changes VARCITIES can produce for different types of visitors to the Villa Bolasco garden. The research also conducted engagement sessions with the project partners as well as in-depth interviews with key representatives of the Municipal Administration.

The SROI Analysis in Castelfranco Veneto has been carried out by Human Foundation under the coordination of VARCITIES’ partner Eurac Research

The social value generated by VARCITIES in Castelfranco Veneto

To calculate the estimate of the overall social value of the intervention, the number of stakeholders expected to experience significant change thanks to VARCITIES has been multiplied by the monetary value (proxy) associated with each outcome. The sum of these data, corrected with discount rates and projected over a time frame considered realistic, represents the set of social benefits generated from VARCITIES on the territory of Castelfranco Veneto.

Recommendations

Based on the insights provided by the participants during the SROI analysis, two main types of recommendations emerge, on the one hand structural, and on the other socio-cultural, which offer useful ideas for strengthening the intervention, especially in terms of the full fruition of the park and active participation of citizens in its activities:

Structural recommendations

• Structural interventions that could guarantee more free and continuous access to the park were mentioned: especially for fragile categories and their caregivers. Among these, the presence of sufficient parking spaces for private means of transport (bikes, cars, and vans for people with reduced mobility) and the strengthening of connections to the park for those coming from outside Castelfranco Veneto
• For those who have high psycho-physical limitations that prevent them from visiting the park directly, digital use of the villa has been suggested by spreading more of the images and sounds transmitted on the screens foreseen by the VS6. By implementing this initiative in nursing homes, hospitals, and significant places in the city, it would be possible to spread well-being to a greater number of people, while enhancing the park and the project results
• The extension of visiting hours and days has often been invoked as a necessary measure to bring citizens closer to Villa Bolasco park. More continuous use of the garden by both fragile and not fragile visitors could not only favor the creation of social ties between its visitors, but also lead to greater awareness and recognition of existing social diversity.

Socio-cultural recommendations

• The skills and social capital of the local Third Sector could help, on the one hand, to organize specific processes of involvement of citizens in the Local Landscape Observatory and, on the other, to carry out social, educational, and cultural activities and interventions within the park. More structured activities could strengthen the potential of VARCITIES in generating results such as the activation of the citizens, the creation of social ties, the inclusion of fragile subjects, the reduction of loneliness, and the re-appropriation of the park by the local community.
• Finally, the need to empower initial project solutions with the involvement of the “human factor” as an indispensable resource for achieving the expected results. In particular, the experience of visiting Villa Bolasco could be further improved by including the presence of professional guides and/or volunteer citizens dedicated to providing assistance and information about Villa Bolasco for those who need it, especially for users having forms of vulnerability.