Social Value UK

Tag: member blogs

  • Anglian Building Products become members!

    Anglian Building Products have joined Social Value UK as organisational members. Anglian Building Products, the large projects division of Anglian Windows Ltd, specialises in the supply and installation of windows, doors and external wall insulation. Operating across England, Scotland and Wales, we serve both the public and private sectors, our clients include social landlords, military, education, developers and main contractors. Early on in their social value journey, Anglian Building Products hope to benefit from membership by getting ideas on how they can identify and measure social value so they can ensure their projects are maximising value.

     

    “It’s a great step forward for us becoming a member of Social Value UK. ABP work predominantly within the social housing sector and we are keen to learn how we can maximise our social value impact.”
    Paul Gavin, Managing Director, Anglian Building Products

     

    Anglian Building Products

    Sabina Rospedzihowska, Marketing Manager, Anglian Building Products

    E: ABP@Angliangroup.com

    Social Value UK

    Christina Berry-Moorcroft,  Communications and Campaigns Officer, Social Value UK

    E: christina.moorcroft@sv-test.wp-support.team                       T: 0151 703 9229

    About Anglian Building Products

    Anglian Building Products, the large projects division of Anglian Windows Ltd, specialises in the supply and installation of windows, doors and external wall insulation. Operating across England, Scotland and Wales, we serve both the public and private sectors, our clients include social landlords, military, education, developers and main contractors. With over 40 years in the industry, we fully understand client’s needs and our strong project management skills, together with our passion for customer service, ensures that projects are delivered on time and to budget.

    About Social Value UK

    Social Value UK is the national network for anyone interested in social value and social impact. We work with our members to increase the accounting, measuring and maximising of social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s activities, through our Social Value Principles. We believe in a world where a broader definition of value will change decision making and ultimately decrease inequality and environmental degradation. To achieve our mission, Social Value UK provides training and assurance services, as well as hosting regular meetings and events, creating new tools and resources, and running campaigns. Through supporting and working with our members, and as a National Member Network of Social Value International, we are creating an international movement for change.

  • Is your workplace a fair place to work?

    Is your workplace a fair place to work?

    THE fairplace Award® COMES TO  SOCIAL VALUE UK

    What effect does the management of your workplace have on you, your colleagues and on all the other people in the building–including  contractors’ staff you may never see? What positive contribution does your workplace make to the local community and the planet? What does your workplace say about your company’s values and ethics?  So is your workplace a fair place to work?

    Newest Social Value UK organisational member the Ethical Property Foundation is a registered UK charity dedicated to promoting its vision that buildings should be managed for the benefit of people and planet, not just profit.The Foundation’s  accreditation the fairplace Award® has been developed in partnership with the property industry, civil society and CSR profession. It is a rigorous transformational process which evidences an organisation’s commitment to people in the workplace, the community outside its front doors and the environment, in a single comprehensive measure of excellence. Each Award lasts 3 years, assessed by top property professionals and providing recommendations for improvement.

    The fairplace Award® is also a great business improvement tool, because it  brings together colleagues from across the business, gathering evidence and sharing ideas. Current award-holders include the workplaces of RICS, Sodexo, RBS, EMCOR UK and leading aid charity CAFOD.

    “ It’s a tranformatonal process, Fairplace is the opposite of a box ticking exercise – to gain the award you need to look carefully at actual on the ground practices, not just policies. We have all learned a lot at RBS. We’d recommend any business to go for fairplace.”
    Mike Lynch, Sustainable Workplaces department at RBS

    Now for the good news. The Ethical Property Foundation is offering a 25% reduction on fairplace Award® licence fees to all current Social Value UK member and associates who apply for their work place before 1 July 2018.   

    The Ethical Property Foundation is delighted to be part of Social Value UK and wants to hear from you –  kindred spirits who already understand the power and potential of social value for your business. The fairplace process helps you capture how you create this in your workplace – and indeed by encouraging your suppliers to apply for fairplace too, you can ensure they are also offering their people a fair place to work. More good news is that all fairplace income is ploughed back into the Foundation’s charitable work: supplying free property education and advice to local small voluntary groups. To date the Ethical Property Foundation has supported 3500+ organisations and is currently sole referral partner to the Charity Commission for land & property advice.

    So, put your workplace ethics to the test and apply for your fairplace Award® today!  For more information contact mail@ethicalproperty.org.uk. Full details on the website www.fairplaceaward.com

     

    Press Contacts

    Ethical Property Foundation

    mail@ethicalproperty.org.u

    Social Value UK

    Christina Berry-Moorcroft, Membership and Communications Coordinator, Social Value UK

    E: christina.moorcroft@sv-test.wp-support.team                       T: 0151 703 9229

    About Ethical Property Foundation

    The Foundation works specifically to empower charities and community groups to make the most of the property they occupy and manage, and to improve the environmental and social performance of the commercial property sector. The Foundation is part of the wider Ethical Property Family which includes the Ethical Property Company and Ethical Property Europe. The Ethical Property family is committed to making the best use of property for society and the environment. We work to define what Ethical Property means, to demonstrate it in action and inspire others to put it into practice.

    About Social Value UK

    Social Value UK is the national network for anyone interested in social value and social impact. We work with our members to increase the accounting, measuring and maximising of social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s activities, through our Social Value Principles. We believe in a world where a broader definition of value will change decision making and ultimately decrease inequality and environmental degradation. To achieve our mission, Social Value UK provides training and assurance services, as well as hosting regular meetings and events, creating new tools and resources, and running campaigns. Through supporting and working with our members, and as a National Member Network of Social Value International, we are creating an international movement for change.

  • Boo Coaching & Consulting Join SVUK

    Boo Coaching & Consulting Join SVUK

    Boo Coaching and Consulting have joined Social Value UK as organisational members. Boo Coaching & Consulting Limited is a world class organisation providing internationally recognised executive coaching and learning solutions. Founded in 2012, with a vision to deliver enjoyable and professional programmes, Boo has developed a reputation for delivering solutions tailored to its customers needs whilst living its values. With a wealth of expertise, Boo provides challenging, enjoyable and transformational development for learners on subjects including strengths based approaches, building confidence, leadership development, wellbeing, coaching and mentoring skills.

    Boo produced their first Impact Report in January 2017 based on available information about their Social Impact in 2016. After receiving overwhelmingly positive feedback from those who participate in their coaching programmes and from their 1:1 coaching clients, they were able to gain an understanding of the kind of impact they have. As a growing business based in Bolton, they wanted to extend this positive impact further in to their local community. The report reflects the connections they have made within the local business and voluntary sector community, as well as some of the fundraising work they have done to support Cardiac Smart, their charity of the year.

    By joining Social Value UK Boo hope to gain technical support in conducting SROI analysis, to learn from other members, and to be part of a network of like minded, values based organisations.

    Boo’s vision is to inspire great leaders to become amazing. By taking a holistic approach to leadership which is strengths based and has a major focus on wellbeing, they feel they generate social value through their core business. North West Ambulance Service are one of Boo’s long standing customers and they are about to conduct an SROI analysis of their impact on this particular organisation. This will help them to be clearer about measuring their social value and will be a platform for extending this measurement to all of their work. In doing so they hope to create culture change and maximise their social value.

    By joining Social Value UK Boo hope to gain technical support in conducting SROI analysis, to learn from other members, and to be part of a network of like minded, values based organisations. Karen Smith of Boo said “We are really pleased to become a member of Social Value UK. We are looking forward to accessing the support that is available and are excited to network with other businesses who like us, are driven by their values.”

     

    Press Contacts

    Boo Coaching and Consulting

    hello@boo-consulting.com
    Social Value UK

    Christina Berry-Moorcroft, Membership and Communications Coordinator, Social Value UK

    E: christina.moorcroft@sv-test.wp-support.team                       T: 0151 703 9229

    About Boo Coaching and Consulting
    Boo Coaching & Consulting Limited is a world class organisation providing internationally recognised executive coaching and learning solutions. Founded in 2012, with a vision to deliver enjoyable and professional programmes, Boo has developed a reputation for delivering solutions tailored to its customers needs whilst living its values. With a wealth of expertise, Boo provides challenging, enjoyable and transformational development for learners on subjects including strengths based approaches, building confidence, leadership development, wellbeing, coaching and mentoring skills.

    About Social Value UK

    Social Value UK is the national network for anyone interested in social value and social impact. We work with our members to increase the accounting, measuring and maximising of social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s activities, through our Social Value Principles. We believe in a world where a broader definition of value will change decision making and ultimately decrease inequality and environmental degradation. To achieve our mission, Social Value UK provides training and assurance services, as well as hosting regular meetings and events, creating new tools and resources, and running campaigns. Through supporting and working with our members, and as a National Member Network of Social Value International, we are creating an international movement for change.

  • Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    This is a guest blog by member Clare Hammond on her social value work with The Yard Scotland. Clare works for Rocket Science UK Ltd. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    We have been working with The Yard Scotland and their community since June 2016. The Yard provides safe play spaces and respite for young people with disabilities and their families. During our time with The Yard, we conducted a Social Return on Investment and Cost Benefit Analysis to be able to evidence and quantify the impact their service has on families and how much they save other service providers such as the Local Authority.

    For Rocket Science, the voice of the service user should be present, loud and clear, and the central driving force for any impact analysis. Social researchers the world around can talk to you about sampling sizes, interview techniques, and running a great focus group to get that voice. However, social impact research gets slightly more complicated when service users are less able to engage with the more traditional research processes.

    Engaging extensively with The Yard’s young people and families as part of this research has been very important to both Rocket Science and The Yard Scotland. To do this we have had to use less conventional methods of social research – and we have learnt a few things along the way: We’ve learnt a few things along the way about how to approach impact analysis using less conventional methods:

    • Co-design with The Yard of all research activities was vital. As consultants, we brought expertise in evaluation disciplines, analytical processes and robustness. However, it’s The Yard that knows its client group inside and out. Bringing together this expertise was vitally important, particularly in designing and delivering the research activities with their young adventurers.
    • Abandoning the traditional – for the young adventurers we knew we couldn’t use traditional research techniques. Instead we embraced what made The Yard so great – play! We kept it simple– we had two questions we needed answering. Then we developed a range of play activities that young people could engage with…ever conducted an interview on a go-kart? It’s exhilarating.
    • Understanding the impact of the service on families was much harder than we expected. Parents and families of these young adventurers are so used to constantly being the advocate for their child. They are some of the most selfless people we have engaged with. For our research – getting parents to think about themselves was difficult. We overcame this in two ways:
    1. We needed to make it clear to parents that this was a space for them to talk about themselves as well as their children. Using colourful post-it notes we put all messages relating to their children on one wall, and messages relating to themselves as individuals on another wall. As expected, the wall of messages about their children filled up fast, while their own wall remained largely empty. We then set them the challenge of filling their wall to be as colourful as the wall about their children. Highlighting their selflessness visually, and colourfully proved to be very effective.
    2. Once again, we embraced The Yard’s motto – fun! We needed to convert outcomes such as friendship and relaxation into monetary values. We chose to use Choice Modelling – which, I promise, is as dull as it sounds if done with no humour. So with fun, laughter and a joke or two we had groups of parents and carers giving us their honest views of what was important to them as individuals as well as their family.

    Our time with The Yard has been rewarding, enlightening and a lot of fun. There aren’t many researchers that get to say they got to play with paints, bikes and swings for work! The Yard are now armed with robust evidence of their impact to use with the policy makers and funders. With this information, they intend to influence the design of services and expand their services further across Scotland.

    For more information on Social Value, and the Social Value Principles see here.

  • Social Value and Procurement

    Social Value and Procurement

    This is a guest blog by organisational members HACT on social value and procurement. This is part of the Member Exchange Series. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

     

    HACT launches toolkit

    Housing associations have long been committed to improving the communities they work in, providing opportunities for residents in the form of employment, training, skills and broader health and wellbeing activity. As community investment budgets are increasingly scrutinised, housing providers will look to core activities to drive social value. Procurement is central to this, but established models – heavily reliant on apprenticeships – are unsuitable for all contracts, nor are housing associations satisfied that the social value promised at tender stage is monitored or measured to validate delivery. Likewise, contractors committed to delivering social value are often uncertain what housing providers wanted – how is ‘social value’ defined, and what outcomes are of most interest?

    To address this, the Social Value and Procurement toolkit was created by HACT, supported by Trowers & Hamlins LLP and echelon Consultancy Ltd. To ensure the final guidance responded to challenges and answered critical questions, we convened a working group of housing providers and supply chain organisations (Affinity Sutton, North Hertfordshire Homes, Riverside, Thrive, Wandle, Mulalley, AkzoNobel, United Living, Wates and the Northern Housing Consortium). This vanguard supported and shaped the development of the toolkit, ensuring it was relevant, practical and easily applicable.

    The toolkit provides end-to-end guidance for both housing providers and contractors on how to most effectively and efficiently generate social value through the procurement process, alongside legal guidance and a plethora of practical tools, from example wording for tenders and contracts to templates and checklists.

     

    What next?

    With the toolkit now published, what’s next? There are four areas we’ll be focusing on:

    First, and testament to the toolkit’s usefulness, beyond the original supporters a good number of further organisations have adopted it: Catalyst, Circle (now part of Clarion Group), Fusion 21, Genesis, Liverpool Mutual homes, mhs Homes, Places for People, Viridian, Keepmoat and Mitie.

    Second, HACT is delighted to have these organisations on board and we are continuing to promote the role of procurement in generating social value. HACT staff have taken part in a number of events recently, and we were delighted to be invited to speak with members of Social Value UK at the 2016 Social Value Members Exchange. Additionally, HACT has hosted a series of well attended masterclasses for contractors and housing providers, which will continue in 2017.

    Third, although much of the previous engagement on social value and procurement has been around repairs and maintenance, following publication there has been significant interest in applying the toolkit to a wider range of goods and services. Further, a number of exciting discussions are underway, exploring opportunities for implementing the toolkit beyond housing. These avenues of further work offer great potential to begin firmly embedding social value across a range of housing and non-housing procurements.

    Lastly, over the next year HACT will continue working with organisations, individually and collectively, promoting the importance of effectively delivering social value through procurement, providing packages of support to unlock the full potential for social value generation.

     

    Want more information? Contact rob.allen@hact.org.uk or william.howard@hact.org.uk.

  • Social Value – A nice-to-have or building blocks?

    Social Value – A nice-to-have or building blocks?

    This is a guest blog by member Emma Back on social value in start-ups. This is part of the Member Exchange Series. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    It is a rare event for Day One of operation for a new charity or social enterprise to coincide with Day One of its social value strategy. The much more common scenario is for consideration of social value to be piecemeal and sporadic, like writing about it for a funding application or while at a workshop. Many people I’ve met who are starting social ventures don’t even know what it is and for those who do know, the motivation to measure and to analyse impact is low priority – a nice-to-have but a non-essential. This is understandable – resources are very tight and ‘the impact of social impact’ is not immediately visible if you’re still in the early stages of your venture.

    At the Social Value Members Exchange in November, I heard a lot of stories about organisations which had increased their income, designed new services and deepened their impact purely as a result of paying attention to social value. It’s still too easy for these stories to be lost or ignored by emerging ventures. However, I believe social value is a powerful strategic and operational toolkit which creates its biggest influence while ideas and services are still taking shape – early stage companies and charities are missing out.

    I’ve noticed in my online and offline tours of social enterprise start-up resources that social value information is always cordoned off into a separate section (“so now that we’ve considered your business plan, your competition, your finances and your customers, let’s talk about social value”). This feels wrong and off-putting. The various tools and stages of social value fit very naturally into the chronology of starting a business. Instead of being its own thing, with its own set of separate, intensive resource requirements sitting on top of the normal tasks involved in setting up a business or charity, what if we ask the question, how can social value slot into the normal activities of a start-up?

    Here are some conversation starters:

    Social value as business model

    Of course, the theory of change plays a starring role here. Designing mission and goals using the theory as your framework has, in my experience, been the most succinct way of pinning down just exactly what I want the service to do and to achieve. It is a short-cut to creating a results-oriented business plan which doesn’t waffle.

    Social value as motivator

    I’m right at the beginning of my business idea. This can be lonely and tough at times. My understanding of social value means I’m recognising stakeholder impact as it occurs even though the service hasn’t ‘started’ yet. I’ve moved from seeing the problem and my future solution to seeing what changes for people, whoever they are and whatever stage the business is at.

    Social value as quality management tool

    KPIs versus outcome indicators. Need I say more?! What’s lacking is a demonstration of how it can double up to serve existing certifications, for example, ISO9001 or Investors in People, or simply as your monitoring framework for funders. More usually, advice on your social value indicators focuses on sitting alongside a broader system, not integrating with it.

    Social value as service designer

    Has anyone else noticed the deep affinity between the world of service design and that of social value? Both use ‘Engage stakeholders’ as their core mantras and both have a predilection for mapping – for finding the hidden linkages between service goals, activities and real outcomes. By combining techniques from both, some very powerful stories can emerge.

    For example, we could combine customer journey / experience mapping with the theory of change and an outcomes value map. Take a look at the Intuit experience map and the smily faces – this reminds me of intermediate outcomes… Stick values onto these stages together with the numbers of customers who reach them and you get the start of an accessible SROI analysis – one which offers great visibility for improving the positives and minimising the negatives in your service.

    There are so many business elements where social value has something to offer (marketing, financial management, competition analysis etc). The difficulty start-ups face with social value is not to do with resources. It’s to do with the way the story of social value is being told at the moment. It’s still viewed as a bolt-on, an optional extra worth 5% of a commissioning exercise or an additional section in your business plan. It’s more work. But how wonderful would it be we could demonstrate a way for social value activities and tools to be woven into the natural activities of any new social enterprise or charity? Social Value Principles and methods could become the DNA of our future organisations, not the extra box on the form.


    This is part of the Members Exchange Series, for more information, see here.

  • Collaboration for SROI

    Collaboration for SROI

    This is a guest blog by member Lynn Sbaih on collaboration between smaller organisations. This is part of the Member Exchange Series. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    In November 2016 I attended the Social Value Members Exchange by Social Value UK, whilst here I hosted a round table table on collaboration between smaller organisations on SROI’s and funding bids. This discussion came about as a result of a some of us exploring, at a regional meeting, how small community groups are attempting to use SROI to acquire funding. We identified that many community groups are keen to identify their group’s SROI, and how this can be articulated in terms of a financial value. This can then provide commissioners and other funders with evidence of why it is worth investing in them, as a group. However, a number of attendees also identified that arriving at and articulating a SROI value may become problematic, particularly if group members cannot provide detail of how they arrived at their identified SROI value.

    The round table discussion touched on some of these issues, and attendees were also able to share some of their insights into working with small community groups. Insights included: how small groups can and should seek funding; how groups can collect information to help tell ‘tell their story’; the value of ‘the story’ and the ways in which funders view social value. In particular, the role of the stakeholder was discussed, and how important stakeholders are in enabling a group to collect meaningful information that may help them articulate their value to funders. This then raised some questions about who are the stakeholders, for small groups, and how do they get to meet and talk with them. This was viewed as particularly problematic for those groups that spend most of their time delivering services to local people and communities. It was observed, that, for such groups, they may have little time or energy to consider the wider issues of achieving SROI and funding. This led to a discussion about how small groups could come together in a community collaboration, where they can use their combined skills and knowledge to identify and manage all the aspects of what is needed to recognise and articulate their social value to funders. This then raised the question of learning and training and how this can be made possible for small community group members.

    Overall, we had a comprehensive and wide ranging discussion, with a range of shared stories and experiences from Round Table attendees, about the challenges facing small community groups as they adopt SROI approaches. Many of our questions where not answered. However, I think we all left our round table with plenty to think about. What are your thoughts?

    This is part of the Members Exchange Series, for more information, see here.