Social value at Ufi

When a care worker uses a digital learning platform to gain new skills and progress towards a more senior role, the immediate benefits are improved knowledge, confidence and career development. But there are also wider benefits: increased earnings, improved career prospects and greater economic participation. Their employer benefits from a more skilled workforce, while the people they support may receive better care. The benefits extend far beyond the learner.

These wider benefits are often described as social value, and we see them every day in the work we do at Ufi. From helping adults access training and employment opportunities to creating more inclusive routes into learning, our work creates benefits for individuals, employers, communities and society that are broader and deeper than the immediate project outputs and outcomes.

Social value frameworks help us better understand, evidence and communicate that wider value. By assigning financial proxies to social outcomes (such as helping people move into employment, developing skills and experience for future work, or creating equal employment opportunities for all) they help organisations understand and communicate the wider benefits their activities create.

This does not mean reducing human stories to pounds and pence. Rather, it provides a shared language that helps organisations, funders and policymakers understand the scale and significance of the value being created. We also recognise that not every valuable outcome can, or should, be captured through a social value framework. Some forms of impact are better understood through evaluation, learning, stories and qualitative evidence. Social value gives us another useful lens, not the whole picture.

Strengthening our impact story

As we develop our approach to social value, Ufi is building a better understanding of the impact created through our funding, investment and partnerships. It is also helping strengthen the evidence base for the role vocational technology plays in improving skills for work.

Our focus on social value provides an extra layer of detail to our existing evaluation and impact activity. Evaluation helps us understand what is working and the outcomes being achieved. Social value provides an additional lens, helping us understand the wider benefits that can arise from those outcomes. Together, they provide a richer and more complete picture of our impact.

Supporting our partners and the wider sector

As funders, policymakers and the public increasingly expect organisations to show not only what they do but also the difference they make, demonstrating impact has never been more important.

As part of our work, we encourage the organisations we support to consider social value within their own approaches to measuring and communicating impact. This includes grant recipients, portfolio companies and strategic partners. We are interested in relevant, practical evidence – not asking every organisation to measure everything. Developing an understanding of social value can help organisations better communicate the difference they make and strengthen future opportunities for growth, funding and partnership beyond their work with Ufi.

We also believe there is an opportunity for the wider skills and vocational technology sector to place greater emphasis on social value. By building a stronger understanding of these wider benefits, and sharing good practice when we see it, we can help create a richer picture of the sector’s contribution to people, employers, communities and the economy.

Ultimately, social value is about recognising and evidencing the wider benefits that already exist. By capturing those benefits more consistently, we can better understand our successes, celebrate the difference being made, and strengthen the case for continued investment in skills for work and vocational technology.

Further information

Guidance, tools and examples of social value in practice.