WWD6
Supporting Charity Shops
What we do
Supporting Charity Shops
Charity shops are generally retail outlets selling primarily donated goods to raise funds for their associated charities. They originated in the mid-20th century. Since then, they have become a crucial part of our society in the UK. Nowadays, they serve as places where hundreds of thousands of people work, volunteer, and shop, all while supporting their communities and the environment.
The Charity Retail Association (CRA ) serves as the main membership body for charity shops in the UK. It boasts over 450 members, which include both national chains with several hundred shops and local charities with a single shop. Collectively, these members operate more than 9,000 charity shops across the UK.
In 2022, a cost of living opinion poll by CRA revealed that 38% of UK adults reported purchasing items from charity shops, while 44% mentioned donating items to these shops within the past three months[1].
[1] https://www.charityretail.org.uk/cost-of-living-opinion-poll/
Key Value
A monetised social value of £2400
Monetised social value of the outcome ‘giving back (to others)’ per stakeholder who is supporting charity shops through work, volunteering, or shopping over the course of a year.
Our value, and associated measurement options, for the value of charity shop use is based on ‘The value of giving back – the social return of charity shops’ report commissioned by the Charity Retail Association which aims to understand the social value of charity shops in the UK. It aligns with the Social Value Principles as defined by Social Value International and follows the SROI framework published by the UK Government’s Cabinet Office . The analysis adopts a stakeholder-informed approach, incorporating the perspectives of those most significantly impacted—staff, volunteers, customers, and donors—to identify the outcomes generated by charity shops. It also involves these stakeholders in estimating the outcomes’ quantity, duration, value, and causality.
This study used the valuation technique of wellbeing valuation coupled with a value anchoring approach. The relative importance of the outcomes as expressed by stakeholders themselves in survey responses was anchored to a wellbeing valuation of the outcome ‘feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others’ where stakeholders have expressed if they felt that they were ‘giving back’ to others and by how much.
Outcomes used in the report are as follows:
- Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others
- Feeling that charity shop staff meet me with friendliness and compassion
- Feeling part of a community
- Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet
- Excitement from the shopping experience
- More empathy
- More self-confidence
- More financial choice and independence
- Feeling less distress (from H&S concerns)
- Feeling adequately compensated financially for work
The table below presents the financial value of the sub-total of outcomes for all stakeholder groups—staff, volunteers, customers, and donors—after accounting for causality factors such as displacement, drop-off, attribution, and deadweight. This analysis is an evaluation of 1 year of UK charity shops from Jan – Dec 2022 and the duration of the outcomes varies between 0.94 – 2.64 years. For the purpose of this value the duration is representative of 1 year of experience for each person.
For more information, please read ‘The value of giving back – the social return of charity shops’ report.
| Stakeholders | Outcomes | Average Value per Stakeholder in 2022 | Average Value per Stakeholder in 2023 |
| Staff | Sub-total | £2,664 | £2,827 |
| Volunteers | Sub-total | £3,176 | £3,371 |
| Customers | Sub-total | £2,107 | £2,236 |
| Donors | Sub-total | £1,157 | £1,228 |
| Average | £2,415 | ||
The average value is calculated as number of people experiencing the described outcome (quantity) times the value, less deadweight, displacement and attribution divided by the number of people in the group. The MeasureUp headline value is the average of the average values in 2023 prices for the four stakeholders (staff, volunteers, customers and donors).
Headline value is £2,415. An overall rounded value of £2400
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Multiply the number of your participants you expect to use charity shops by £2400.
If you are unable to capture information about the type of stakeholders and outcome, or this is a plan for a future project, then you can use this value as a proxy for charity shop use.
Example:
Let’s say we are planning to open a charity shop, and expect around 50 people to support the charity shop in the first 6 months.
- Number of people (could be a mixture of staff, volunteers, customers and donors) expected to support the charity shop: 50
- Monetised social value per participant: £2400
Consider how long you are estimating the value for. In this case we are forecasting for the first 6 months of being open, so will x the value by 0.5
Total Monetised Social Value = 50*2400 = £120,000 x 0.5 (half a year) = £60,000
Silver
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Consider realistically what stakeholders and activities you will be able to affect. Therefore, you can calculate a more accurate value for the charity shop’s use.
Consider which stakeholders and activities are targeted. You can calculate a more accurate estimate of the improvement with more information.
| Stakeholders | Outcomes | Average Value per Stakeholder in 2023 | Rounded Monetised Value |
| Staff | Sub-total | £2,827 | £2,800 |
| Volunteers | Sub-total | £3,371 | £3,400 |
| Customers | Sub-total | £2,236 | £2,200 |
| Donors | Sub-total | £1,228 | £1,200 |
Example:
Let’s say we are planning to open a charity shop and expect around 50 people to support the charity shop in the first 6 months.
Number of people are distributed to the activities as follows:
Staff: 2
Volunteers: 5
Customers: 33
Donors: 10
Consider how long you are estimating the value for. In this case we are forecasting for the first 6 months of being open, so will x the value by 0.5
Total Monetised Social Value = 2*£2,800 + 5*£3,400+33*£2,200 + 10 *£1,200 =£107,200 x 0.5 (half a year) = £53,600
Gold
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
At Gold level you are looking to build on your silver estimations by engaging with the person or people affected.
Therefore, at the Gold level, you should survey users about their actual experience of supporting charity shops rather than using the proxy value.
The original report states that those engaging with charity shops in the roles of staff, volunteer, customer, and donor, were surveyed about the outcomes they experienced. The report states that both whether the person experienced the outcome in question, and how much of the outcome was experienced were asked about. However, in the published report the scales for how much of each outcome are not published.
Therefore the best option for engaging directly with your stakeholders in line with this value is to ask a binary set of questions for each sub group of stakeholders of whether they experienced the outcome or not:
| Stakeholder sub group | For each of the following outcomes please let us know if you experienced this through your support of charity shops or not: | Response options | |
| Staff | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | Yes / No | |
| Feeling part of a community | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | Yes / No | ||
| More empathy | Yes / No | ||
| More self-confidence | Yes / No | ||
| More financial choice and independence | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling adequately compensated financially for work | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling more distress (from H&S concerns) | Yes / No | ||
| Volunteers | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | Yes / No | |
| Feeling part of a community | Yes / No | ||
| More self-confidence | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | Yes / No | ||
| More empathy | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling less distress (from H&S concerns) | Yes / No | ||
| More financial choice and independence | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling adequately compensated financially for work | Yes / No | ||
| Customers | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | Yes / No | |
| Feeling that charity shop staff meet me with friendliness and compassion | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | Yes / No | ||
| Excitement from the shopping experience | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling part of a community | Yes / No | ||
| More financial choice and independence | Yes / No | ||
| Donors | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | Yes / No | |
| Feeling that charity shop staff meet me with friendliness and compassion | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | Yes / No | ||
| Feeling part of a community | Yes / No | ||
| Excitement from the shopping experience | Yes / No | ||
| More financial choice and independence | Yes / No | ||
To further improve on this measurement directly with stakeholders, users of this value could look at measuring amount of change experienced by each person. Users can develop their own scales or to be most aligned with this report use the same options as used in developing this social value analysis.
The report states that the full qualitative and quantitative surveys are available on request through contacting the Charity Retail Association, as well as there being further resources available for those that are members of this membership body.
Following table shows the monetised values for each stakeholder group and the outcome that they experience.
| Stakeholder | Outcomes | Average value in 2023 prices |
| Staff | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | £805 |
| Feeling part of a community | £723 | |
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | £620 | |
| More empathy | £340 | |
| More self-confidence | £247 | |
| More financial choice and independence | £97 | |
| Feeling adequately compensated financially for work | £62 | |
| Feeling more distress (from H&S concerns) | -£66 | |
| Volunteers | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | £1,077 |
| Feeling part of a community | £954 | |
| More self-confidence | £523 | |
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | £448 | |
| More empathy | £230 | |
| Feeling less distress (from H&S concerns) | £80 | |
| More financial choice and independence | £42 | |
| Feeling adequately compensated financially for work | £16 | |
| Customers | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | £577 |
| Feeling that charity shop staff meet me with friendliness and compassion | £428 | |
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | £426 | |
| Excitement from the shopping experience | £399 | |
| Feeling part of a community | £204 | |
| More financial choice and independence | £203 | |
| Donors | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | £429 |
| Feeling that charity shop staff meet me with friendliness and compassion | £268 | |
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | £261 | |
| Feeling part of a community | £117 | |
| Excitement from the shopping experience | £106 | |
| More financial choice and independence | £47 |
The average value is calculated as number of people experiencing the described outcome (quantity) times the value, less deadweight, displacement and attribution divided by the number of people in the group.
At Gold level if you have some evidence that helps you identify more specific outcomes for the members of your group then you can use the more specific values for each person and the outcomes that are happening for them.
To remain as aligned as possible to the original research it is necessary to also estimate the deadweight, displacement and attribution of your Gold level values.
Example:
Let’s say you are planning to open a charity shop, and you expect around 50 staff to work in the charity shop.
| Stakeholder | Outcomes | Average value in 2023 | Number of people experienced the outcome |
| Staff | Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to others | £805 | 40 |
| Feeling part of a community | £723 | 15 | |
| Feeling that I am ‘giving back’ to the planet | £620 | 10 | |
| More empathy | £340 | 20 | |
| More self-confidence | £247 | 5 | |
| More financial choice and independence | £97 | 30 | |
| Feeling adequately compensated financially for work | £62 | 10 | |
| Feeling more distress (from H&S concerns) | -£66 | 5 |
Total Monetised Social Value= 40*£805 + 15*£723 + 10*£620 + 20*340 +5*247 + 30*£97 + 10* £62 – 5*£66 = £60,480
For more information please visit Gold: Surveys and measurements of actual results.
Support in developing your Gold survey approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
Gold+
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
At the Gold+ level, you are building on your Gold value calculation by assessing the value against the counterfactual, or ‘what would have happened anyway’.
To do this you should identify options to estimate the different causality factors for your calculation of value created through support of charity shops. This could be through a control group suitable to assess in line with your intervention, in order to more accurately attribute any changes to your intervention.
The original reports used direct stakeholder engagement to estimate deadweight and attribution using the following questions, firstly asking about attribution and then deadweight:
“For each of the changes you have selected and said you experienced, could it be down to something else or someone else contributing to this change?”
- Response of 100% = “All of it is down to charity shops (and nothing or no-one else contributed)”
- Response of 0% = “None of it is down to charity shops” and someone else is to be attributed the whole change experienced
“Even if nothing or no-one else contributed to these changes, do you think they could have happened anyways if there were no charity shops?”
- Response of 100% = “I would have found another way to experience the same change” = it would have happened anyways and 0% was down to charity shops
- Response of 0% = “I would not have experienced this change at all” = 100% was down to charity shops
Displacement was estimated using the qualitative data collection with an overall 35% displacement applied across all value calculations.
Drop off of the value for years in the future beyond the initial year of value estimation was applied at a flat 50% rate per year.
For more information, please read ‘The value of giving back – the social return of charity shops’ report.
Support in developing your Gold+ counterfactual, causality and discount approach is available through the Measure Up partners, so please do reach out to Impact, State of Life or PRD.
| Value Type: | Activity |
What's this?
This is the type of value. Some values are outcomes, which means many different interventions might lead to them, others are specific interventions that have a set value. |
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| UN SDG Categories: |
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What's this?
The UN Sustainable Development Goals are global goals adopted in 2015 for all signed up nations to achieve for us to have a sustainable global future by 2030. There are 17 Goals that address the global challenges we face, including those related to poverty, inequality, climate change, environmental degradation, peace and justice. The Goals are all interconnected, and in order to leave no one behind, it is important that we achieve them all by 2030. |
| PN06/20 Categories: |
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What's this?
PPN 06/20 Taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts introduced the Central Government Social Value Model in 2020 which all Central Government contracting authorities must use in their in scope procurements. It consists of 5 themes, 8 policy outcomes, and 24 Model Award Criteria which outline key priority areas to achieve more social value. |
Evidence
Measure Up focuses on empowering you to numerically measure the impact you’re having. We recommend that numeric reports are backed up with stories and other types of evidence to help illustrate, in human terms, the impact that’s being made on individuals.
We recommend seeking consent from one or more participants in your intervention to collect and tell their story. This should include a little background on the participant, a summing up of life before the intervention, the human impact of the intervention, and the longer term (if known) impact on the person’s life outside of, and after, the intervention.
Providing photographs, audio recordings, video interviews or even artifacts from the intervention (for example, writing, paintings, music, etc from creative interventions) can add more colour, and convey the emotional impact of interventions more directly.
In some cases it’s appropriate to anonymise or abbreviate the personal information of case study participants. No story should be published or shared without the recorded consent of the individual(s) it concerns. Individuals continue to own the rights to their stories and if they request you stop sharing the story or making it available online you should do so promptly and without need for justification.
Feedback
Measure Up is an open, collaborative and transparent. If you have any suggestions or feedback on our pragmatic, recommended approach to measuring Life Satisfaction please get in touch so we can share and discuss this at our next Advisory Group meeting.
More help
We want to empower anyone to perform and improve their impact measurement – without needing a degree in economics.
If you need any more help, or just someone to do the legwork for you we can help signpost you to software, training and consultancy to help you get to grips with the impact you’re having.
