We caught up with Steve Butterworth from Neighbourly to talk about the evolution of Social Value and how organisations can deliver local impact at scale with greater rigour.
How has Social Value evolved over the years?
The rise of Social Value in the commercial world has been there for quite some time. If you think about how it’s evolved, when PPN 06/20 came in, that really added weight to the scoring process around public sector bids.
At that point, it was still very new, and corporates were on a learning journey. Neighbourly had already been operating in the corporate social responsibility space since 2013 as a corporate giving platform, which was much more associated with CSR and ESG.
The rise of Social Value has brought into the consciousness of corporates the need to be more purposeful and much more deliberate in how they deliver it. Finding a delivery partner like Neighbourly has really helped with that.
The Procurement Act means Social Value now has to be validated. There’s much more rigour around what’s been promised, what’s been committed to, and then what needs to be delivered. That gives us a real place in supporting corporate partners in creating meaningful impact at a local level, particularly around the boundaries of a contract.
The key area for us is the localisation, which can be full of friction. Neighbourly helps businesses remove this friction by delivering social and environmental impact at a local level, and at scale. The Procurement Act now gives commercial leverage to ensure Social Value remains important, and brings the conversation into the boardroom in a way that it previously hadn’t.
Why is it important to measure Social Value?
There’s always a debate around profit and purpose, but I genuinely believe the two can live hand in hand.
The Social Value element puts a number on impact, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. For people who don’t live and breathe this world, there’s often a “so what?” question that gets asked.
Organisations can have a proper social impact strategy and look at their purpose and say, “this is what we want to do”. But being able to put a number around that impact is helpful in how those things get communicated.
For me, Social Value creates a language that can be interpreted across an organisation, particularly by commercial teams who deal in numbers. That’s a really important part of the conversation.
We’ve seen finance teams become more engaged, and commercial teams become more engaged. Ultimately, changing Social Value from being a tick-box exercise to an integrated part of the conversation.
How is Neighbourly delivering Social Value?
There are three core programmes through which we support corporate partners.
We have nearly 50,000 vetted local charities and good causes on the platform. We help organisations like the JD Foundation and the B&Q Foundation donate community grants to local causes in hundreds of locations across the UK.
If you want to give £1 million to one big charity, that’s arguably an easy thing to do. What we help organisations do is distribute hundreds, if not thousands, of micro-grants to local charities. Finding them, vetting them, making the donation, and then being able to measure the impact is a really important part of what we do.
The second programme is volunteering. For organisations like Hays Recruitment, we’ve helped mobilise over 2,000 employees to go out and volunteer over a couple of weeks. That’s brilliant for local impact, but it’s also amazing for employee engagement.
The third area is surplus product redistribution. We manage daily store-level food surplus redistribution for organisations like Aldi, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, M&S, and Pret. That’s millions of meals every year being donated to local charities.
It’s an environmental play in terms of reducing food waste, but it’s also about making sure that food goes to people who need it most. I’m incredibly proud of the team and what we’ve achieved, supporting causes in almost every postcode across the country.
How has Neighbourly turned Social Value goals into tangible impact?
A real highlight for us as an organisation was hitting our target of delivering £1 billion of Social Value by the end of 2025, which we achieved right at the beginning of 2025.
It’s been a real celebratory moment, and we’ve now set ourselves an ambitious goal of delivering £10 billion of Social Value by 2030.
It’s a big step up, but we sit in a niche at this very localised level, where we’re able to help organisations make impact at scale.
What is the importance of events like the Social Value Conference?
These events are important on multiple levels.
For individuals working in Social Value, it can be lonely. You’re often a small part of a very big organisation, fighting the good fight week in, week out, month in, month out, making small but incremental differences.
Coming together allows people to share stories, learn from their peers, and celebrate what’s being achieved. It’s almost a bit of a therapy session as well.
It gives people confidence to go back and do it all again next year.
It’s also really helpful to compare notes across sectors and geographies. You might be in retail or financial services, but the challenges can be similar. Having the Social Value Conference pull the industry together once a year is incredibly valuable.
How have you found the Social Value Conference 2025?
It’s been a brilliant day. The first two days were virtual, but it’s been great to be in person.
The panel discussions have been strong, and those messages have been reiterated through conversations throughout the day. I was involved in a panel on rebuilding trust, which led to a really interactive and engaged discussion with both the panel and the room.
For me, the highlight is being in a room full of people who genuinely want to make a difference. That puts you on a high and gives you energy for the weeks, months, and year ahead.
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