What Is Social Value?
Social value is about understanding the relative importance that people place on changes to their wellbeing and using the insights we gain from this understanding to make better decisions. By taking this relative importance into account we can ensure that the decisions we make focus on what is valuable to people, and through this we can start to increase the positive and reduce the negatives effects and ultimately increase the overall value of our work.
“Social value is about understanding the relative importance that people place on changes to their wellbeing and using the insights we gain from this understanding to make better decisions”
The potential of social value goes further than just creating more value. By embedding a mindset where impact and social value are part of an organization’s culture, we can all work to optimize the value of our work – where decisions take account of a broader definition of value than just financial impacts, where the effects on people and planets are valued and included in how we make decisions, and where our activities can create the changes we need for a more sustainable planet and just society.
So, in short, social value is about respecting people, listening to them, and using the insights to optimize value for both people and the planet; social value is about being more accountable to those people whose lives are affected; and social value is about making better decisions on how we allocate our resource.
The Principles of Social Value guide how we do this – and this is perhaps what is most powerful about the ideas of social value. Embedded within The Principles is the commitment that when applied, they serve to amplify the voice of the stakeholders affected by decisions, by ensuring that stakeholders can inform us about the changes they have, or will, experience as a result of what we do, and how important these different changes are to them.
By asking those people affected how important the changes they experience are, we can understand the social value that our activities create, or destroy, for people. This means we can engage meaningfully with our stakeholders, so their voices are heard and ensure that they are empowered to influence decisions that affect their lives. It also helps decision makers to better understand where can use their resources to create more value.
“By embedding a mindset where impact and social value are part of an organization’s culture, we can all work to optimize the value of our work”
Social value is about a movement of committed professionals around the world who can see a better future – one where social and financial value is accounted for – where people matter – and we focus on what is important to all of us!
