CDF have just published the summary of a social return on investment project carried out by nef which apparently shows that for each £1 invested in community development activities, £2.16 of social and economic value is created. And that for every £1 a local authority invests in a community development worker, £6 of value is contributed by community members in volunteering time.
I'm reminded that back in 1992 John Bell and Gabriel Chanan came up with a figure of 14.9 hours of voluntary action generated per hour of community development. Work reported in the Netherlands in 1989 suggested a ratio of 15.8:1.
We couldn't do much with that data now, and this new study is obviously timely. Community development workers and their allies acrosss the country need to get their hands on the figures from this study, and use them to minimise the damage caused by uninformed funding cuts that threaten to remove the catalysts for genuine empowerment, co-production and civic involvement.
