Meet our Trustee: Catherine Manning

Recently appointed to a new term as an SVI Trustee, Catherine Manning has made vast and varied contributions to the social value movement writ large, and to Social Value UK and Social Value International specifically.

Catherine currently works as the Social Value Lead at Impact Reporting, which offers software for managing impact data covering CSR, sustainability, social value, impact, ESG or other framing.  “I lead on the understanding of and integration of best impact management practice through informal to formal support for our clients, partners and network.”

Before that, Catherine spent nearly six years at Social Value UK, where she served as Operations Director and Interim CEO. Among her proudest accomplishments at SVUK were leading on the development of the Social Value Management Certificate, an assurance seal that assesses the standard of an organisation in managing the social value that it creates (and destroys), and the SVI Professional Pathway, a three-tiered, internationally recognised professional qualification in social value and impact management.

Catherine is at home in technical debates and is a passionate advocate for assurance, accreditation and verification (Principle 7: Verify the result). “This whole area of the practice includes thoughtful, dedicated, technically skilled people so can be challenging, but is always rewarding,” she says.

She also brings vast experience of social value in procurement, commissioning and contracting. She sits on the UK’s National Social Value Taskforce Steering Committee, and has advised government on social value policy and legislation; as well as reporting and external disclosure regulation in the UK and internationally. She herself has worked in UK government, in the Department of Health as well as in the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Catherine is based in the UK but has worked internationally in Asia and Africa and relishes the time spent with the global social value practitioner community, fondly recalling the Social Value Matters Taiwan 2019 and Social Value Matters Turin 2022 conferences. And she embraces our worldwide mission: “The environmental and social challenges we face globally and our need for collective action to change course means that SVI and the work of the network has never been more needed.”

When asked what she would like the world to understand about the Social Value Movement, she replies: “Social value is not about the big number that might be claimable at the end of an analysis.  It is about listening to people, respecting and believing them, and bringing visibility to their experiences and what they value. It is then about doing something with that information and changing our decision making.”