How social value can work for VCSE organisations

For organisations in the voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) sector, there is a constant challenge: the struggle to clearly demonstrate the impact and unique value their work brings.

Funders, staff, boards, and beneficiaries all want to demonstrate tangible evidence, a way to understand the real difference their organisations make.

This is where social value comes in, offering a powerful tool to translate the often-intangible benefits of VCSE activities into a compelling narrative.

In this guidance Conor McGale, Evaluation & Impact Manager from Rose Regerneration introduces the principles of social value and how it can help demonstrate an organisations impact.

What is social value?

Social value refers to the positive impact that a project, initiative, or action has on society and the community. It's about looking beyond just financial profits, but also about considering how something contributes to the well-being and improvement of people's lives. For example, when a company supports local education programmes, it creates social value by helping students get a better education and potentially improving the overall quality of the workforce in the area.

Social value takes into account factors like environmental sustainability, community engagement, job creation, and overall improvement in people's quality of life. It's a way to measure and understand the broader benefits and positive changes that come from different activities, beyond just the economic aspect

Social Return on Investment (SROI) is the framework used for measuring and accounting for an organisation or project’s Social Value

Understand the landscape influencing social value

The grasp of social value within the VCSE sector varies considerably across the UK. While legislation in England, Scotland, and Wales mandates consideration of social value in public sector procurement from as far back as 2012, its only in the last few years that it’s been implemented within Northern Ireland with public sector contracts having to allocate a minimum of 10% of the total award criteria to social value.

When scoring social value within these contracts, an outcomes-based framework has been devised which has four broad themes:

• increasing secure employment and skills
• building ethical and resilient supply chains
• delivering zero carbon, and
• promoting well-being

Under each of these themes are a number of indicators, units of measure and target beneficiary groups,  that gives bidding organisations an insight as to what they must deliver against to score highly and meet the Social Value requirement of the contract.

How effective has this been? That still remains to be seen but in early May 2024, the Finance Minister was asked to highlight the impact of Social Value on the public sector procurement process when asked during a NI Executive plenary session. You can find the answer here.

How Social Value can help your organisation maximise impact?

Social Value can help your organisation in a number of ways,

• It helps you identify what works within your project/organisation and understanding why – what positive or negative change is happening in people’s lives as a result of your work?
• It enables you to develop a ‘moving picture’ of the distance travelled by your beneficiaries/stakeholders – knowing what outcomes are being achieved over a sustained period of time rather than you just counting outputs and meeting targets.
• It provides a more rounded view of the work you do – taking into consideration a range of economic, social and environmental impacts of your activities;
• It ensures that you can direct resources at projects/programmes that most benefit society and improve people’s lives.
• The process creates a formal dialogue with stakeholders that enables them to hold your organisation to account and involves them meaningfully in service design
• Raises your profile by demonstrating your impact to all audiences.
• Helps improve your case for new or further funding and making your funding cases more persuasive. For many funders and public bodies who specifically focus on the Treasury’s Green Book which outlines how government departments should make funding decisions, the Social Value methodology syncs with that approach.

Where should you start?

Starting your Social Value journey isn’t as complicated as you think. Here are some key steps to consider when undertaking this type of work:-

1. Understand if you are wanting to forecast or evaluate a project. Forecasting is when you are predicting your outcomes, evaluating is when you are looking back at what has already taken place, and have data in place.  
2. Establishing the analysis scope and identifying your key stakeholders that you will be gathering evidence from. What is the time-period of the analysis,  who will be involved in the process and how?  
3. Mapping outcomes. Through engaging with your stakeholders you can develop an impact map, or Theory of Change, which shows the relationship between your inputs (finance, staff time, volunteers), outputs (your activities) and outcomes (the change you expect to happen as a result of the activities).  
4. Data! Social value should not be seen as an additional administrative burden, but it does need to be meaningful. Are you collecting the right data to (a) accurately highlight the work you are doing and (b) tells the story of how the work is impacting on your beneficiaries. Much of the data required for social value measurement may already be held by your organisation, so with some minor adjustments you can capture the broader social impact of your activities.  
5. Focus on storytelling: Data is powerful, but it’s the story behind the data that truly resonates. Whilst Social Value grabs the attention as it give a financial figure, try to develop a compelling narrative that showcases the social value your organisation creates. Use your data and case studies to illustrate the positive change you are making in the lives of beneficiaries and within the community (beyond financial)

If you follow these 5 steps, then you are well on your way to starting your Social Value journey. And there is a lot to be gained from embracing social value for your organisation. You can validate your existence, prove your impact, and ultimately, attract more resources that benefit the people you support.

If you would like to learn more about  Social Value, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch: Conor.mcgale@roseregeneration.co.uk.

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• impact