As a housing association, you’re an anchor in local communities. You put a roof over families’ heads, improve their quality of life, and contribute to places where residents want to spend their time. The whole premise of your work is about changing lives for the better.
So social value is something you’re no stranger to. It’s how you quantify your impact, demonstrate your value, and ensure you’re helping as many people as possible. But wouldn’t it be better if capturing, analysing, and reporting all of your value was just… simpler? If you could achieve the same level of oversight with less of the tedious admin?
This is exactly what social value software does. It streamlines the tasks you and your team tackle all the time. Not convinced? Let’s look at three specific areas where you can expect to see a change if you invest in the right choice for you.
Connecting with tenants
To have the greatest impact, you want to hear directly from the people you’re helping. Rather than designing services behind closed doors, you want the input of your tenants and beneficiaries to shape your approach. That’s how you ensure your time and resources are adding the most long-term value.
It’s why we love surveys. They allow your tenants to feedback on your services, as well as giving them a say in how you support them in the future. Also, they double as powerful evidence to weave through your reporting.
But connecting with tenants and beneficiaries in this way can be a time-consuming process. Creating the survey itself is one task. But then you’ll also have days of organising and analysing data afterwards to uncover any actionable insights. Not to mention if you have to follow up with tenants to remind them to actually complete the survey.
Instead, look for social value software that incorporates intelligent survey functionality. A way to connect with each and every tenant or beneficiary, with less of the back and forth.
Simply decide on the questions you want to ask and let the technology do the rest. Automated reminders can help encourage more responses. And all responses are automatically analysed and compiled into easy-to-understand insights you can act upon.
Data capture and management
Your day-to-day activities all add up. Every energy-efficient boiler you install. All the volunteer hours your staff log at local nonprofits. Each family you provide with shelter. Everything matters – including the data from these actions. It helps you make a stronger case for future investment and allows you to demonstrate your value to government bodies and housing regulators.
But capturing all of this data also eats into your staff’s time. How many hours could they spend designing new services, liaising with local partners, or building relationships with tenants instead? Rather than wasting it on inputting data, performing conversions, or creating reports? We’d guess a fair bit.
By automating data capture and analysis, social value software removes so many of these daily headaches.
It puts the data side of social value on autopilot, ensuring you’re always acting from the most up-to-date information. And not only will it free up their time to focus elsewhere, but it will also be more reliable and accurate than manual processes.
Forecasting future impact
Being smart with time and resources is nothing new. But throw in the current economic uncertainty and it’s become even more important to ensure you’re putting your attention in the right places.
By helping you to forecast the impact of future interventions and services, social value software helps you make more informed, data-driven decisions on what is and isn’t worth exploring.
Rather than trying a bit of everything and hoping for the best, you can be more targeted and risk-averse in your approach. It means less time and resources spent on trial and error. And it lowers the chance of initiatives underperforming or having adverse effects.
Social value is a critical aspect of your housing association’s work. But the tedious, complex task of capturing and analysing all the necessary data is yet another plate to spin. It can distract you from other core aspects of your role. Social value software could be the solution you and your team need to streamline your daily workload.
Impact is a framework-independent platform that streamlines and simplifies your entire social value process. Decentralised data capture, automated conversions, and intelligent survey functionality make it easier to continue changing lives. To find out more, schedule a demo or get in touch with the team on 0161 532 4752.