The Social Value Awards
Submissions are now open!
20th May - 30th August 2024
This year, the focus of the Social Value Awards will be in recognising and promoting the contributions that organisations and individuals have made towards the Social Value Economy under the theme of ‘Social Value in Action’. Our focus will be on delivery, case studies of what is working well and building our collective knowledge. In particular, the judges will be looking at how organisations are delivering against the 4-Step Commitment that the Social Value Taskforce identified as essential to achieving success.
The 4-Step Commitment
Make Core - Every organisation across all sectors has a social, environmental, and economic impact which means they have a role to play in a Social Value Economy. We are asking every organisation to make a fundamental strategic commitment to maximising their positive impact and to actively manage how they can best generate Social Value and contribute to the Social Value Economy.
Be Accountable - Every organisation should ensure that strategic intention translates into measurable real-world social and environmental impact. This requires meaningful engagement with key stakeholders inside and outside the organisation, linking needs with clear targets, measurement and being transparent about delivery.
Create Capability - Social Value is a collective endeavour, and organisations should broaden their knowledge, and build the skills and capacity needed to ensure Social Value is considered and generated where possible throughout their operations. This includes engaging with and supporting their wider supply chains, especially with regards to smaller and medium-sized businesses.
Radically Collaborate - Collectively we cannot achieve the scale of change required if we do not collaborate in a radically different way – we need to work better across silos, share more knowledge about what works on the ground, build sector-specific expertise, and drive learning and improvement openly and without exclusivity or judgement.
How to enter
The Social Value Awards are free to enter and there are 11 available award categories to apply for this year, as listed below. While the category criteria are different for each award, the submission process is the same, requiring you to upload a Word/PDF document (along with any additional evidence such as images, videos etc.) detailing your nominee's contribution to Social Value. Read through the category criteria carefully before clicking ‘Apply’, after which you will then be redirected to the awards submission platform. Please read the guideline information on the platform carefully as there are important details on word limit and format.
This year’s award categories
Social Value Champion Award
For an individual in any sector who is leading the way in delivering the Social Value Economy through their own work or the work they are doing within their organisation. This will include making Social Value core, being accountable, creating capability and demonstrating how they have collaborated across multiple stakeholder groups to achieve this. The nominee will need to demonstrate:
How they have inspired others (individuals or organisations) to change behaviours.
How they have worked collaboratively across sectors; public, private and civil society.
How they have worked to represent the views of under-represented groups of people.
How they have shown commitment to accounting for Social Value in a way that empowers stakeholders, transparency and independent verification of the results.
Public Sector Leadership Award
For a public sector organisation that has made a significant contribution to the Social Value Economy through how it is delivering its services. The judges will be looking for innovative approaches to solving the challenges being faced through Social Value. Leadership may be evident across the organisation as a whole or within a particular part. The nominee will need to demonstrate:
How they have made Social Value core to their business activities, particularly when it comes to commissioning, procurement, planning and grant-giving.
How they are being transparent and holding themselves accountable.
How they are working closely with their supply chain to build capability, making it as easy as possible to deliver.
How they have collaborated across multiple stakeholder groups to achieve their goals.
Private Sector Leadership Award
For a private sector organisation that has made a significant contribution to the Social Value Economy through how it is delivering its services. The judges will be looking for innovative approaches to solving the challenges being faced. Leadership may be evident across the organisation as a whole or within a particular part. The nominee will need to demonstrate:
How they have made Social Value core to the business in their employment strategy, approach to procurement, and their own CSR/ESG/Sustainability/Social Value strategy.
How they are being transparent, showing that they are measuring and reporting Social Value as well as holding themselves accountable to targets.
How they are working closely with their supply chain building capability and capacity.
How they have collaborated across sectors and multiple stakeholder groups to achieve their goals.
SME and VCSE Leadership Award
For a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisation that is making a significant contribution to the Social Value Economy through what they do and how they are working. In addition, the judges will be examining how this nominee has made a notable impact on the needs of the communities where they operate. The nominee will need to demonstrate:
How they have made Social Value core to the organisation.
How they are being transparent, measuring and reporting Social Value, and holding themselves accountable to targets.
How they have collaborated across sectors to deliver goals.
Making Core Award
The first step along the journey of delivering a Social Value Economy is for organisations to embrace and then ‘make core’ the principles behind said Economy. This award is looking for organisations that have made a notable shift in their culture and a discernible change in their governance that supports transformation. Examples may include how a business has adapted its ESG strategy to embrace Social Value, how a voluntary organisation has successfully adapted to meet the requirements of the Social Value Act, or how a buyer has overcome significant internal challenges to deliver Social Value. This award is open to any organisation regardless of sector or industry that can demonstrate the following:
A clear articulation of the goals and objectives.
A description of the barriers that were overcome and how this was achieved.
Examples of changes in how the business works and outcomes that have been achieved as a result.
Accountability and Reporting Award
For any organisation that is going one step further in holding itself accountable to its key stakeholders, including how it has engaged and communicated with local communities. The judges will be looking for innovative approaches to the following:
How the organisation sets targets and links these with community needs (i.e. double materiality).
How the organisation measures Social Value and how it has managed to progress to improve its performance.
How the organisation is committed to being open and transparent about its targets and performance, while also going the extra mile to avoid ‘social washing’
How the organisation demonstrates its commitment to transparency through, for example, annual Social Value or impact reports.
Creating Capability Award
An award that recognises the contribution that an organisation has made in building knowledge and capability to deliver the Social Value Economy. The award is looking specifically at how an organisation is supporting the upskilling of its own internal teams and secondly, how they are engaging with and building capability across their supply chains. The contributions will be judged on both their innovation and also breadth and depth of impact and may be through a learning management system, or through better supply chain engagement or even the development of a knowledge hub. Judges will be looking for the following:
A description of the innovation, project or initiative.
A description of how the project was implemented.
A description of the outcomes that have been achieved including evidence of success.
A description of lessons learned.
Radical Collaboration Award
This award recognises the importance of collaboration to deliver the Social Value Economy. It will be awarded to an organisation or cross-sector team that has delivered an amazing Social Value outcome or innovation through the power of radical collaboration. This may be through a project, technology, or innovation or even a networking group. Judges will be looking for the following:
A description of the innovation, project or initiative.
A description of how the project was implemented.
A description of the outcomes that have been achieved including evidence of success.
A description of lessons learned.
Enabling Technology Award
This award will be given to an enabling technology, business system or process that has been designed to enable the successful delivery of a Social Value Economy. Judges will be looking for a clear description and evidence of how the enabling technology addressed or proposes to address a market failure, as well as evidence of the outcome delivered.
A description of the enabling technology and how it works.
A description of the outcomes that the technology delivers for its users.
A description of what makes the technology unique or innovative.
Examples of success and customer feedback.
Excellence in Planning
Embedding Social Value into the planning process is the new frontier and this award is for a planning team that is leading the way in this respect. The planning team may be changing their local plan or updating their planning requirements. The award winner will have found a way of unlocking additional value from development teams either through a Social Value action plan or Section 106 and have the evidence to show this. Key issues that the judges will be looking for:
Clear evidence of the actions taken to embed Social Value into the planning process.
A description of the challenges that have been overcome, including any innovative approaches taken to getting approval.
Evidence that the actions are beginning to have or have had an impact.
Key lessons learned and advice to other local authorities wishing to replicate your success.
Excellence in Real Estate
This a collaboration award for a real estate team, including developers, professional services teams, contractors, and property managers, that has demonstrated the extra steps required to embed the principles of Social Value into the design, construction and occupation of a building or masterplan. The award covers any phase of a project, from inception to re-use. It may be still on the drawing board or completed, but will need to show clear evidence that consideration of Social Value has impacted decision making and outcomes. This might include how community engagement has impacted project design, how specification and procurement has helped build the local economy, or how a building management team has helped unlock value for communities during occupation. Specifically, judges will be looking for the following:
Clear evidence of the ‘collaboration’.
A description of how the collaboration was delivered, including outcomes.
Insight into the longer-term impact of the collaboration.
Insight into lessons or benefits, so the wider industry can to improve its collective knowledge.
Dinner and Award Ceremony
Like in previous years, we will announce the winners of the Awards as part of our Social Value Conference. The evening dinner and ceremony will be held at the Eastside Rooms, Birmingham on the 17th of October.
Details on how to purchase dinner tickets will be available
