Archived external evaluations of SSE’s impact
As a charity, evaluating our impact helps us prove that SSE makes a difference to society. It also helps us to learn and improve, if things haven’t gone as we expected.
We internally evaluate all our courses. Every few years, we also invite external organisations to evaluate our work. This gives us a completely unbiased view of SSE’s work.
We like to be completely transparent about the impact of our work. This page features recent and older external evaluations of our impact.
Evaluation of the Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland Social Entrepreneurs Programme (2021)
Independent evaluation firm, ERS evaluated our biggest UK programme, run in partnership with the School for Social Entrepreneurs and jointly funded by The National Lottery Community Fund. This report presents interim findings following the first three years (2017-2020) of phase two of the programme.
Evaluation of the Community Business Trade Up Programme (2019)
Power to Change Trust and Renaisi evaluated our biggest programme supporting locally rooted community organisations. ‘Trading Up: Match Trading® for Community Businesses as a powerful incentive for regeneration post-COVID’ provides robust evidence of the impact on reducing grant dependency, increasing trading income and creating sustainable community organisations.
Evaluation of the Building Resilience Programme, funded by Arts Council England (2017-19)
Evaluation of the Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland Social Entrepreneurs Programme (2019)
The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) evaluated the first five years of our biggest UK programme (2012 – 2017).
Download summary report
Download full impact evaluation report
Social Impact Review: Lloyds Bank and Bank of Scotland Social Entrepreneurs Programme, in partnership with SSE (2016)
CAN Invest and Numbers for Good evaluated our biggest UK programme, during the mid-point of its first five years.
A Report on Social Enterprise Training in the UK (2013)
In 2013 we contracted Mark Richardson, of Social Impact Consulting, to carry out research examining the training needs of social entrepreneurs in the UK. The key findings, which we have used to shape our course offering, are available in this summary report.
Scaling to Success Evaluation (2011)
Completed by Rocket Science, this evaluation looks at Scaling to Success, a 2010/2011 pilot training programme delivered by SSE. The programme has since evolved to become ‘Replication and Social Franchising‘, which is still delivered each year.
Impact Evaluation Report (2011)
New Philanthropy Capital completed an organisation-wide impact evaluation, looking at SSE’s impact from 1997 to 2011.
SSE Cultural Leadership Programme (2008)
The New Economics Foundation evaluated the efficacy and transformative effect of the SSE approach and methodology. It looked at students of our Cultural Leadership Programme 2007/2008, and their organisations.