Community Infrastructure
Cheshire Community Action
Rural community development, measured and valued
Cheshire Community Action used the Social Value Engine to quantify the impact of its rural development and community infrastructure work, producing credible SROI evidence for local authority and trust funders.
Cheshire Community Action (CCA) is a rural community development organisation, part of a national network supporting community buildings, infrastructure projects, and policy initiatives across key sectors such as housing, digital inclusion, and healthcare. The organisation is deeply involved in both strategic policy work and hands-on project delivery, including vital services that help people transition from hospital to home.
"The Social Value Engine has helped with the continuation of a couple of services. It's also opened up important conversations with commissioners about what social value really means; are we measuring cash savings, or are we measuring people's lives?"
Mark Reading
CEO, Cheshire Community Action
The challenge
Cheshire Community Action delivers a wide range of rural community development services, from maintaining community buildings to supporting hospital discharge. Funders and commissioners across housing, health, and digital inclusion were increasingly requiring social value evidence, but the breadth of CCA's work made it challenging to apply a consistent measurement approach without significant staff time investment. The organisation had previously tried the HACT model and the TOMs framework, but found these too narrow or inappropriate for a third-sector provider operating across such a diverse range of activities.
The solution
CCA adopted the Social Value Engine to create a consistent SROI measurement framework applicable across its diverse programme portfolio. The platform's validated proxy library, covering housing, health, and community outcomes, was particularly well suited to CCA's work, allowing the team to measure social value across very different programme types using a single, accredited methodology. The cloud-based system made it accessible across the organisation, and the support provided by the SVE team gave Mark Reading, Chief Executive Officer, the confidence to defend the resulting reports in meetings with hospital and local authority leaders.
Key outcomes
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