Integrate Space: Creating a Social Impact Framework

Integrate Space is a facilitator between the real estate sector and the third sector. Integrate works with real estate owners to make their vacant or under-used spaces in prime commercial buildings available to charities on a temporary basis.

Integrate asked RealWorth to create a Social Impact Framework for them that will help to guide their approach to the delivery, monitoring, collation, analysis and reporting of social impact. The Framework covers multiple themes, question sets and broader considerations that can be templated and applied to all future charity occupation projects.

The Framework also includes a guidance document for Integrate to hand to each charity it partners with to help them track their impact, as well as a reporting template it can hand to each landlord it works with to help them capture and report on the social impact created.

Peabody: Holloway Park

Our evaluation for the Holloway Park development focused on assessing the pro-social contributions embedded within the project’s design and delivery. From the outset, we worked closely with Peabody and key stakeholders to understand the social value planning that had taken place and how it could be enhanced further. Our work involved reviewing past community engagement, existing research, and development strategies to establish a clear understanding of the project’s social impact to date.

The evaluation resulted in a series of recommendations outlining opportunities to optimise social value while mitigating potential constraints. We provided a structured assessment of how the development could generate additional lasting social impact and ensure alignment with Islington Council’s Social Value targets.

Everton in the Community: Impact Evaluation

As Everton Football Club’s official charity, Everton in the Community (EitC) is one of the UK's top sporting charities, considered one of the Premier League’s leading community schemes due to the quality and reach of its various programmes.

Since its work on the new stadium in 2019, RealWorth has been retained as EitC’s social value consultant, measuring its impact on a bi-annual basis to evaluate and demonstrate the social value EitC is creating across Merseyside.

EitC has used RealWorth’s social value reports to show a range of stakeholders (including project partners and, government departments, and funders) how EitC benefits the people and communities it operates in.

The Level Initiative: A Social Value Forecast and Evaluation

LEVEL: Equity Buildings (LEVEL) has been awarded a grant to develop a pilot scheme that illustrates how low-income people can progress to owning their own homes. The pilot (located in McKees Rocks, Pittsburgh) will show how housing located in under-invested parts of urban areas can be rehabilitated and sold to low-income occupants for both their benefit and the benefit of the surrounding community. The dual driving forces behind the LEVEL programme are the improvement of people’s lives and the potential to bring impoverished and under-invested neighbourhoods back into productive health.

To measure the success of the programme, RealWorth has been employed to measure and report the social value that the Programme creates for homeowners and neighbourhoods. To achieve this, RealWorth has been tasked with producing a Social Value Framework and carrying out a predictive assessment of the social value that the project will create.

Vinnova: Developing a Social Value Model for Sweden

RealWorth was part of a Swedish team commissioned to develop an approach to optimise and measure the social value of regeneration programmes across Sweden. There was specific emphasis on community cohesion and how role of planning and design could be used to deliver local lasting impact. The project included four Swedish case studies in Malmö and Lund to test the approach in the field.

Manchester City Council: Forecasting the Social Value of St Michael's

St. Michael’s is a mixed-use development featuring a world-class hotel / residential tower and 180,000ft2 of sustainable workspace. The scheme creates a vibrant new public square comprising new bars and restaurants alongside the retained Sir Ralph Abercromby Pub.

RealWorth was appointed by Manchester City Council to identify the social value that is likely to be created by the development. We worked with the Developer, the Local Authority and the Design Team to describe and quantify the social impact that the scheme will have on the neighbourhood and the wider City Region.

The evidence provided in the report helped gain the support of the Manchester City Council for the scheme’s advancement.