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
Local Needs Analysis Data Source
Before using this MeasureUp value, we encourage you to assess the local need in relation to the activity or outcome.
Here is the most useful initial data source for assessing local need in relation to this value.
To assess local needs for the value WWD6 ‘Supporting charity shops’, use the Find a shop indicator provided by Charity Retail Association. This measure helps to find locations of charity shops.
Bronze
Effort
Accuracy
Monetised value:
Multiply the number of your participants you expect to use charity shops by £2400.
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.
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.
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’.
| 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. |
| 2020 Social Value Models: |
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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. |
| 2025 Social Value Models: |
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What's this?
PPN 06/20 was superseded by PPN 002 Taking account of social value in the award of contracts, published in February 2025 in line with the Royal assent of the Procurement Act 2023. This PPN outlined the requirement to use the new 2025 Central Government Social Value Model. The Model applies to all Central Government procurements commencing on or after 1 October 2025 under the Procurement Act 2023. Out of scope procurements can choose to apply the model but are not required to do so. The updated model is structured around 5 government missions and 8 outcomes, with 17 Model Award Criteria, and a mandatory minimum 10% weighting of the total evaluation score assigned to 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.
