Social Value UK

Category: Member Opportunities & Jobs

We are looking for Members to participate in a Pilot Program!
We’re excited to announce the imminent launch of our new online self-paced learning course: ‘The Power of Social Value’!

We are looking for a handful of member volunteers to pilot the course, at a discounted price, and to feed back to us on how it can be improved before we launch it in August 2024.

👥 Who is this for? Anyone eager to understand and promote social value within their organisation.

📚 What will you learn?
- Understand, share, and explain social value.
- Influence activities to deliver better outcomes.
- Grasp the importance of “Social Value” and communicate it effectively.
- The Principles of Social Value and how to put them into practice.
🎓 Course Includes:
- Introduction to Social Value.
- Level 1: Getting Started in Social Value (this aligns to the Level 1: Social Value Associate online examination and provides you with the technical understanding needed to pass).
⏰ Time Commitment:
- Roughly 20 hours of self-paced content
- Reflection, exercises, and application
💡 Why Participate?
- Complete the course for a reduced fee of £50+VAT (RRP £100+VAT).
- Provide feedback to help us ensure that the course is high quality and good value.
🖊️ Interested? Complete the Expression of Interest form below, deadline is 19th July 2024.

🚀 Empower your organisation with social value! 🚀

Applications to join the Pilot Program have now closed.
15/07/2024
New Opportunities to Work with Social Value UK

By Natasha Jolob, Member Services Director

Are you passionate about creating social value and making a real impact? We have exciting news for you!

Our Member Services team is growing, and we’re on the lookout for dedicated members to join us in our mission to skill up and grow the social value movement. We’ve been hard at work, reflecting on our past offerings and strategizing for the future to ensure we remain agile, collaborative, and responsive to the needs of our members and the broader social value market.

Why Join Us?

Our goal is simple yet ambitious: To collaborate with our members so that we can achieve our high aspirations, inspire others to join the movement, and to collectively create a more significant impact. Our vision is a world where organisations make decisions informed by their social value, and we need your help to make this vision a reality.

Exciting New Opportunities

We are thrilled to announce several new opportunities for accredited members to co-produce and co-deliver our services. Here’s how you can get involved:

1. Bespoke Support

Join us in delivering tailored workshops for clients across all sectors (private, civil society, academic and public sectors). These workshops will cover a range of social value themes, from navigating the social value landscape to social value in procurement processes. We are seeking accredited members to meet the growing demand for these vital services.

2. Navigating the Social Value Landscape

Building on the success of our pilot course, we are looking for a member to help us to refine and enhance the “Navigating the Social Value Landscape” course. This course aims to guide learners in finding their way and appraising and implementing the right social value methods and tools within their organisations.

3. Peer-to-Peer Support

We are trialling a new peer -to-peer support model that includes benchmarking and action learning sets. This initiative allows our more experienced members to mentor those just starting and learning, thereby accelerating their learning and improving overall their social value performance. We are specifically looking for members that are Level 1 accredited practitioners with extensive experience in impact management to share their knowledge and skills.

4. Quality Assurance

Our Quality Assurance services are in high demand, both in the UK and across the globe. As one of the most advanced joint member network with Social Value International, we need to expand our internal capacity to provide technical support to our Quality Assurance team related to the Professional Pathway and the Social Value Management Certificate.

Join Us for an Information Session

To learn more about these exciting opportunities and ask any questions you might have, we invite you to our Member Information Session on June 13th at 10 am. Click here to register.

Ready to Make a Difference?

If you’re ready to collaborate with us and help us to increase the skills and knowledge in the the social value market, find out more by visiting our Work With Us page.

Together, we can make a difference and shape a future where social value drives decision-making across all sectors. Join us in this inspiring journey!

31/05/2024
New environment-focused Thought Leadership Group launched

Bridging Horizons: TLG – Unveiling the synergy between environmental and social Value

Are you a professional working in the social value and environmental space? If so, don’t miss out on our new Thought Leadership Group (TLG) – Translating Environment into Social Value.

This TLG, led by our esteemed members SUEZ Recycling and Recovery UK and Ridge & Partners, aims to bridge the gap and enhance understanding of the environmental pillar of sustainability in the context of social value.

This is crucial because our Principles advocate for the incorporation of social, environmental, and economic value in decision-making. Our wellbeing is intricately linked to the natural world, necessitating a better acknowledgment that social value is interdependent with environmental value. We must ensure that decision-making takes this interdependence into account and responds appropriately.

The TLG will delve into how to translate and connect the environment into social value. The work of the TLG is likely to include a comprehensive review of current practices, gap analysis and forward-looking recommendations. Additionally, it will provide a facilitated space for peer learning.

The outputs of this TLG will also contribute to international conversations and be shared with SVI’s Methodology Subcommittee, which is actively producing new guidance on how to account for environmental outcomes in Social Return on Investment (SROI).

More details to be released soon, including on how to get involved.

22/02/2024
New training launched amid chance to shape future SVUK courses
SVUK seeks views on the courses you’d like to see offered and co-delivered going forward

Social Value UK is delighted to announce the Getting Started with Social Value course to meet the needs of new-members and those wanting to learn more about impact management.

Engaging with stakeholders is the first of the Eight Principles of Social Value and consistent feedback has led SVUK to respond with a beginners course that will also prepare attendees for the Associate Practitioner exam.

Further, SVUK has doubled the number of places available in March for Social Value and SROI Training, meeting the growing demand for our flagship course.

See our training page to secure your place now.

As the UK’s professional member body for social value and impact management, we are always on the look out for ways to work with and for members to deliver specialised, accredited training.

This is why we have launched a survey aimed at understanding what training and support members and non-members would like to see SVUK offer.

Submit your views here.

SVUK is further looking to collaborate with members to design and deliver our activities.

New course: Getting Started with Social Value

Book.

There are all sorts of definitions, tools, measurements and financial proxies attached to the term social value.

At Social Value UK, we are interested in understanding how decisions impact people and their wellbeing.

Our more technical definition is: Social value is about understanding the relative importance that people place on changes to their wellbeing and using the insights we gain from this understanding to make better decisions.

But what does this mean for you, as a trainee practitioner or an organisation wanting to embrace the potential benefits of managing your social value creation?

Well, this Spring Social Value UK will run the first Getting Started with Social Value Course, led by Advanced Practitioner Yulia Romaschenko.

Open to members (discounted) and non-members, the course serves as the perfect introduction to social value management, outlining Social Value International’s Eight Principles and the thinking behind them.

The course is perfect for those wishing to become a social value professional, covering everything needed to pass the Professional Pathway Level 1 Associate Practitioner exam.

But, more than this, it is the ideal opportunity for managers, human resource professionals, accountants and business leaders to identify why social value is equally important with financial and environmental concerns.

Measuring and reacting to the data collected in a social value report can be the difference between the success and failure of a project, achieving community and/or staff buy-in.

It can uncover those unintended outcomes, both positive and negative, giving you the opportunity to reflect and make informed decisions on how to progress more effectively.

Our members’ regularly express improvements in staff retention, recruitment and productivity.

Getting Started with Social Value is for you if:
- You have no knowledge or skills in social value and you want to know the basic principles and standards to get started.
- You want to start on a professional journey in social value.
- You want to get on the right track so that you can advocate or support others in social value.
Price:
- Members £240
- Non-members: £300
Exclusive Offer for Members: Book your Associate Practitioner online exam at the same time and receive an additional 20% off the usual price.

Book your place here and discover the course modules

NOTE: You must be an SVUK member to take the Associate Practitioner course through us. The online course will run as two 2.5 hours sessions over consecutive days or as a five-hour session on one day.
12/02/2024
Call for Volunteers. Join the SVUK Thought Leadership Group: Social Value in Education
Dedicated Thought Leadership Groups for specific areas of interest are excellent vehicles for our members to challenge legislation or develop data to encourage more widespread adoption of social value practice.

Our new education-specific group aims to raise awareness of the Principles of Social Value and expand the capability of schools and universities to measure their impact, leading to better decisions being made. It further aims to develop a broad knowledge of the sector and to produce a set of sector-specific social value practices, alongside other support materials, to enable providers to unlock the benefits of moving beyond traditional accounting.

Early priorities of the TLG:
- Audit the current understanding and practices of social value in a wide range of educational settings, with a central list created for all members.
- To encourage a wide range of Social Value UK members to join this working group and pool their knowledge and understanding of social value in education from their own perspective.
- To develop a framework and process for collating resources, ideas and objectives for the group.
Member wanting to be involved should reach out to SVUK Membership Manager Laurentine Insonere: laurentine.insonere@socialvalueuk.org

Meetings are to be held monthly on different days to accommodate flexible working.
18/09/2023
Could you be our newest Sector Lead?

We are looking for an experienced Social Value Practitioner who can lead on sector work. This is an exciting opportunity for a dynamic individual who can help us achieve our strategic goal of working with organisations to develop better impact measurement and management.

The role involves leading on sector-specific activities and supporting multi-stakeholder projects embedding the principles of social value in the public and civil society sector. We are looking for someone who is highly organised, motivated, and can be part of an exciting team as we look to scale our activities.

Closing date May 3rd

More information

12/04/2023
INVITATION TO TENDER: Event Organiser for SVUK

The Social Value UK are currently looking to recruit an Event Organiser to assist in the planning and running of our annual Members Exchange conference.

MemEx is a place for our members to come together, learn, network and discuss best practice.

It is open to all from professionals interested in social value from large private sector businesses to small civil society organisations and independent consultants.

If you’re interested in getting involved, be sure to send your proposal to clare.bentley@socialvalueuk.org by April 28th.

More information

31/03/2023
Contract for Change NEW CASE STUDIES

For those of you following our Contract for Change Programme, we have some new Case Studies to share following contributions made at our annual MemEx Conference.

The first looks at local authority practice, and the Social Value Engine (SVE), led by East Riding of Yorkshire Council and Rose Regeneration. SVE is an impact measurement software tool – the only UK software tool with Social Value International accreditation issued by SVUK. The accreditation shows its alignment with the eight Principles of Social Value. The SVE is widely used by 150+ users from the public, private and third sectors.

The SVE team have found the world of social value measurement is reaching a tipping point where a local authority developed, and managed solution is in demand and very appealing

The Case study lays out the recent Action Learning set process working with Local Authorities to inform the practice behind the SVE and their plans to launch the product nationally across local government..

READ HERE: A Collaborative Approach by Local Authorities

The other resource we are sharing is from another member – Sodexo.

Sodexo recognise their success as a large global company is very much predicated on the success of their eco-system – from colleagues to clients to supply chain to local charities.

This has driven them in their journey to better understand charities’ priorities, resilience status and capacity challenges. In doing so, they have set out providing Pro-bono support to local charities, offering their skills, technical and professional expertise free of charge to support.

“Involvement of socially responsible organisations such as Sodexo providing skilled volunteering creates immense social impact for charities / people they serve; tangible impact is felt across communities and economies.” – Ed Mayo, CEO, Pilotlight

READ HERE: Achieving Impact Collectively

If you’d also like to contribute to our growing number of resources to share with the Contract for Change community, we welcome contributions!

Please email info@socialvalueuk.org for more information.

Posted 7th March 2023

07/03/2023
Contribute to the Social Value Database and Simulator

Over the past four years, the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre on Investment for Health and Well-being (WHO CC) at Public Health Wales, have been working to develop a pioneering programme of work towards measuring and understanding value and impact. As part of a wider organisational and global drive, they have been looking to apply a Social Value approach towards building a ‘Value-Based Public Health’ and an Economy of Well-being in Wales, the UK and beyond.

They launched their Social Value Database and Simulator (SVDS) for Public Health in summer 2022. An innovative tool for collation, storage and manipulation of health economics evidence, the database currently includes Social Return on Investment (SROI) evidence. The database has been informed by and developed in collaboration with experts in Social Value and SROI; researchers and health economists; and colleagues across Public Health Wales, the NHS and the Welsh Government. It provides essential information to help inform public health and wider decision-making, investment prioritisation and programme improvement in order to maximise value for money and support a more sustainable and resilient NHS and economy, placing population health and well-being at its heart.

If you have been involved in an SROI study which reports health or well-being outcomes and you would like it to be included on the database, or if you are interested in learning more about our work, please get in reach out to them via international.health@wales.nhs.uk

Posted 7th March 2023

07/03/2023
GVE (Global Value Exchange) Redevelopment Project – Launch of GVE Advisory Group

18/02/2023
Share your feedback on the Partners’ consensus view of impact management

Social Value International is a Partner of the Impact Management Platform, a collaboration between the leading providers of sustainability standards and guidance that are coordinating efforts to mainstream the practice of impact management. The ‘actions and landscape of impact management’ is the Partners’ consensus view of impact management and how their resources can support its practice. This guidance can be found on the Platform website to support all types of organisations, investors and financial institutions.

To ensure that this content meets the needs of practitioners and stays in line with the evolving landscape of standards and guidance, the Partners have released a survey to gain insights from those that use the website. It will take less than 10 minutes to complete, but will inform improvements planned for early 2023.

Click here to access the survey and be part of the Platform’s first round of content iterations since it launched in November 2021. The survey will close on 31st October.

Posted 26th October 2022

26/10/2022