tackling technology together Andria Birch, DAIN Manager

1. tackling technology together Andria Birch, DAIN Manager

2. What is DAIN? An ESF ITM project Innovation Transnational & Mainstreaming project

3. Project Aim: To develop, test and deliver approaches to challenge the digital divide and help widen participation in employment and learning across the East Midlands (England). DAIN encourages people to use technology with the help of volunteers (Digital Activists).

4. What is innovative about DAIN?We rearrange existing pieces to fit new situations ... and create new pieces where needed, with a focus on both process and product.

5. What have we been doing? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdgyy0K5es http://europa.eu/volunteering/en/relay/26

6. Update on results so far 6 85 Digital Activists (volunteers) completed training 400+ DA ‘tackling technology together’ outreach and drop in sessions held so far 1000+ community members engaged 300+ Community ICT courses (usually 20 hours long) 3800 enrolments and 1500+ learners 3 transnational study trips (research focused)

7. Method: .

8. SROI Developed as part of our evaluation strategy with a particular focus on the SROI relating to the transnational dimension of DAIN http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/news/news_stories/090512_sroi.aspx

9. Critical friend: John Belljohn@curvedthinking.com John Bell brings many years of experience with the European Social Fund to his work with ESF-Works, Tribal, and Curved Thinking. As a researcher, an evaluator, and as director of the support units for the Employment, Adapt and Equal programmes. John has been the critical lead in developing and guiding the SROI evaluation of DAIN’s transnational work and has been doing an excellent job of guiding us through the process.

10. Why we are doing this? • SROI is of growing importance as a means to evidence impact and in particular influence policy makers looking for solutions and actions to support • Collaborative development and exchange between different partners of pilot and experimental work is an established process, but lacks ‘hard’ evidence of impact • In the context of ESF and EU funding, transnational exchange has been common in the past, but more under pressure now – there is keen interest from the funders in evidencing its specific contribution with a view to informing its future role • The transnational work of DAIN offers a well defined intervention which can be used to test SROI ideas in relation to collaborative, international exchange and how it might impact on practice

11. What we are looking at • We want to understand the impact that using a well prepared, intensive study trip method, using digital methods to record, reflect and disseminate findings, has on the project and participants • And to test the value of using a SROI methodology • The exercise focuses on a study visit to Belgium in November 2011 • The hypothesis is that by delivering such an exercise there will be an identifiable impact on the ability of the project to achieve its goals • That this impact will be over and above what would otherwise have occurred • And that it will be possible to ascribe a value to the net benefit accrued, enabling us to assess the return achieved for the investment made

12. Our process and key elements  We are using a standard SROI process, involving: • Identification of and engagement with stakeholders to establish the nature of their involvement and to identify the inputs, outputs and potential outcomes of the exercise • Identifying other factors to be included in analysis, for example alternative explanations of observed changes in outputs and outcomes • As in all SROI exercises, the key issue is ascribing values to the different elements. Inputs will be relatively straightforward, outputs and outcomes less so

13. Next steps • The next steps will involve tracking further development in the project derived from the transnational work • These will be tracked over time with a view to being specifically clear as to what has been done, the consequences, and assessment of the extent to which this intervention can be identified as causal • The final stage will be to work with stakeholders to ascribe values to observed changes We recognise that this is very much a pilot exercise, seeking to apply a technique with embedded rigour to an intervention which is intended to lead to largely qualitative changes and indirect impacts We therefore expect the results to be used to stimulate debate and further questions, and provide source material for more robust future work to assess the value of transnational work, and to provide evidence in support of future project planning and investment

14. We aim to listen and learn We would be particularly interested to hear from colleagues as to their experiences of assessing social return on investment in the context of: • Transnational exchanges, good practice identification, transfers of skills and experience • Interventions aimed at enhancing professional and volunteer practice, particularly where these derive from externally sourced experiences • Interventions with indirect impacts on organisational capacity and reputation, particularly measures which have proved useful in assessing how organisations and partnerships absorb and exploit new learning and ideas

15. Grazie mille! e: abirch@wea.org.uk www.dainproject.org