Fertilising The Soil for Greater Social Impact

Universities can play a vital role in enhancing social value for the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector. This report outlines four main ways for supporting social value by: building two-way relationships between universities and VCSEs, meaningfully involving VCSEs in research and teaching, supporting VCSE organisations in procurement processes, and strengthening civic leadership and accountability.

Call for Action

For universities working with the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector

• Adopt co-production relationships with VCSEs, based on mutual respect and reciprocity.

• Provide VCSEs with proxy measures and training (on both calculating value and data collection) to help demonstrate the social value they are generating.

• When commissioning services from VCSEs, be clear about what change the commissioned service will achieve.

• Break down larger contracts into more manageable contracts for smaller organisations.

• Discuss with VCSE delivery partners what evidence they already collect and the best method of measuring the impact of the contract.

• Avoid taken-for-granted academic terminology and jargon when communicating with VCSEs.

For universities as anchor organisations

• Ensure senior staff, including pro- and vice-chancellors, have responsibility for the delivery of social value.

• Review university procurement processes to include a consistent social value weighting.

• Put in place university-wide processes to track engagement of VCSEs in teaching and learning, and in research activities

• Understand the longer-term impacts of commissioning decisions on the local economy and the importance of maintaining a healthy mixed economy of suppliers.

• Consider where benefits may be created for other commissioning bodies and negotiate how benefits for the wider community can be achieved and paid for.

For VCSEs engaging in the production of social value

• Start with a theory of change setting out programme goals and steps to achieve them.

• Collect robust and consistent data tracking all activities down to numbers accessing services and support sessions provided.

• Understand what changes for beneficiaries and collect data measuring these outcomes – it is important to engage beneficiaries in identifying and capturing what change looks like.

• Use multiple forms of evidence but ensure necessary ethical guidelines are in place when engaging vulnerable people and when generating and storing personal and sensitive information.

• Select a measurable outcome using an existing method and consider the different ways that beneficiaries’ evidence of change can be translated into selected measurements.

• Do not reinvent the wheel: use existing proxy values to place a monetary value on the change that each beneficiary has experienced.

• Communicate additional contributions: recognise how, and to what extent, services add value to what is required in a grant or contract, collect evidence of this and inform the commissioner.

Meet the Authors

Ayad Al-Ani, Managing Director, London Central Academy

Johannes Read, Senior Policy and Data Analyst, City-REDI, University of Birmingham

Nicky Stevenson, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Law, Anglia Ruskin University

Steven Griggs, Professor of Public Policy and Director of the Centre for Business, Innovation and the Regions at the University of Staffordshire