Chni Fareshare Sroi Report
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CHNI FARESHARE food sharing network An evaluation produced for Council for the Homeless NI (CHNI) and SROI REPORT FareShare IOI, by Gauge NI, with support from The Food Standards Agency NI and The Public Health august 2014 Agency NI. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This report is a Social Return on Investment evaluation of Council for Homeless NI (CHNI) FareShare, a progressive project with its origins stemming from CHNI FareShare UK. Council for the Homeless NI is the franchisee partner of FareShare in Northern Ireland. The project helps people experiencing food poverty in Northern Ireland by redistributing quality surplus food from the food industry to a growing network of 68 community organisations (Community Food Members) that support homeless and other disadvantaged people. CHNI FareShare has been established for 3 years and within that time has provided 627,619 meals using quality surplus food donated by food producers, supermarkets, food processors and fruit and vegetable growers. The aim is to improve access to good quality healthy food for low-income, vulnerable individuals while also supporting the food industry to reduce the environmental impact of food waste. The level of child poverty is recorded at 120,000 children living in households with an income below the poverty line1. It is well documented that living in poverty puts people at risk of poor dietary intake and increased health inequalities. The NHS suggests that around one in three people admitted to hospital or care homes in the UK are found to be malnourished or at risk of malnourishment2. CHNI FareShare’s unique mission helps to fight hunger and promote a balanced diet by redistributing surplus food from suppliers to Community Food Members 3 across Northern Ireland. By ensuring good food is not wasted, CHNI FareShare helps provide a variety of foods for inclusion in hot meals for vulnerable people daily. The Social Return on Investment (SROI) model adopted in this study uses monetary value to represent the social outcomes of the programme. Gauge utilised the SROI principles and methodology to develop the evaluation report of the work of CHNI FareShare, covering a study period of April 2012 - March 2013. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used to collate relevant information to carry out the evaluation with stakeholder engagement at the centre. The study’s results were projected over 5 years to reflect the longer term impact and change experienced by stakeholders. This study identified CHNI FareShare’s main inputs, outputs and outcomes, as they relate to the identified stakeholders, and are further outlined in the Input/Output model in Figure 1 below: . Inputs (What stakeholders invested in CHNI FareShare over the period of the analysis) . Activities (What was delivered by CHNI FareShare) . Outputs (What was achieved through these activities) . Outcomes (The impact of CHNI FareShare on the stakeholders and the change that they experienced; this includes changes that are positive, negative, intended and unintended) INPUT ACTIVITY OUTPUT OUTCOME IMPACT Figure 1: Input / Output Model 1 NERI - Quarterly Economic Facts -2013 www.nerinstitute.net/download/pdf/qef_spring_2013_part_5.pdf 2 NHS Your health, your choices – Malnutrition: www.nhs.uk/conditions/Malnutrition/Pages/Introduction.aspx 3 Community Food Member - Charitable organisations which work with vulnerable/disadvantaged groups throughout NI while also holding memberships of CHNI FareShare Community Food Network. Those material stakeholders involved in this study included service users as well as Community Food Members, Food Industry Partners (suppliers) and Volunteers. Service users stated that the CHNI FareShare Community Food Network offers healthy meal options daily using a wide variety of healthy produce which in turn impacts positively on mental health and physical wellbeing. The outcomes were identified and a financial value was placed on those outcomes in the impact map which can be found in Appendix one. The SROI ratio for CHNI FareShare was found to be £1:£7.53. So, for every £1 invested between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013 approximately £8 of social and economic value was returned. The £216,343 invested in the period generated £1,628,927 (£879,580.28 in the last year 2012/2013) of social value over 5 years equating to a Social Return on Investment ratio of approximately £1: £8 The table below offers a breakdown of how this social value is accrued by each stakeholder group in the last year 2012/2013. It illustrates that the most significant group of stakeholders are the service users that ultimately access the food distributed from CHNI FareShare. Impact Value of Outcomes for Year Stakeholders 2012/2013 % of Total Impact CHNI FareShare Service Users £493,815.45 56% CHNI FareShare Volunteers £273,245.59 31% Community Food Members £90,361.19 10% Suppliers £17,627.10 2% Environmental Awareness £4,530.96 1% Total £879,580.28 100% Table 1: Impact value per stakeholder group for Year 2012/2013 . 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 5 1.1 Overview of CHNI FareShare .................................................................................................... 5 1.2 Aims & Achievements of the Project ........................................................................................ 6 1.3 Context .................................................................................................................................... 8 2. Methodology ........................................................................................................................... 10 2.1 Social Return on Investment .................................................................................................. 10 2.2 Stakeholders .......................................................................................................................... 11 3. Results ................................................................................................................................... 14 3.1 Overall Results ....................................................................................................................... 14 3.2 Impact on CFM Service Users ................................................................................................. 15 3.3 Impact on CHNI FareShare Volunteers ................................................................................... 18 3.4 Impact on Community Food Members ................................................................................... 20 3.5 Impact on Food Industry Partners .......................................................................................... 23 3.6 Impact on Environment ......................................................................................................... 24 4. Calculating Impact ....................................................................................................................... 25 4.1 Project Inputs ........................................................................................................................ 25 4.3 Discount Rates ....................................................................................................................... 29 4.4 CHNI FareShare SROI Calculations .......................................................................................... 31 4.5 Sensitivity Analysis ................................................................................................................. 32 4.6 Limitations ............................................................................................................................. 34 5. Conclusions & Recommendations ................................................................................................ 35 5.1 Conclusions............................................................................................................................ 35 5.2 Recommendations ................................................................................................................. 36 6.0 Appendices ................................................................................................................................ 38 Appendix One: Impact Map ......................................................................................................... 38 Appendix Two: List of Community Food Members ....................................................................... 44 Appendix Three: SROI Principles and Guidelines .......................................................................... 47 Appendix Four: List of Tables & Figures........................................................................................ 49 4 1. Introduction 1.1 Overview of CHNI FareShare CHNI FareShare tackles food poverty in Northern Ireland by collecting surplus food from industry retailers and producers, and redistributing it to charities that are providing meals to vulnerable and disadvantaged groups including low income families, senior citizens, people with disabilities, victims of domestic violence, at risk children, young people and homeless people. The United Kingdom’s homeless charity Crisis first established Crisis FareShare in 1994 with its first depot in London. Over the next 20 years CHNI FareShare developed as an independent charity opening 17 depots across the UK, using a social franchise model. In 2010, FareShare won ‘Britain’s Most