Kinovo plc have worked hard to build its social value offering over the last three years, and now they get to bring their stakeholders along for the ride. Their smaller partners and suppliers are benefiting from their guidance – and their more social value-savvy clients can rest assured that delivery and measurement is in capable hands.
Kinovo plc provides services that ensure properties are safe, energy-efficient and compliant with housing regulations, so there has always been a sustainability slant to the work they do. Working closely with clients including housing associations and councils means they are well acquainted with social value requirements – but in 2021, they decided to make social value central to their brand.
In taking this leap, they’ve found they can offer so much more to the increasing number of clients seeking a strong social value partner for projects. And they’re noticing they can help smaller companies who are just starting on their social value journey too.
Joining forces for better social value outcomes
As expectations for social value delivery become increasingly complex and demanding, clients are looking for contractors with a track record for social value delivery.
“The larger organisations are looking for a safe pair of hands,” explains Pippa Pang, Kinovo’s Head of Social Value and Marketing.
“They want to know that you understand what social value is and that you can deliver it. They breathe a sigh of relief to know we have a social value lead, because they know they won’t need to be chasing delivery – we’ll make sure it happens.”
“It makes the whole process more joined up. As well as having the contract managers from each organisation working together, we can have social value leads working together as well, for really aligned outputs.”
Having the right tools for the job helps too. Kinovo keeps an oversight of what they’re promising clients so they can effectively manage delivery and keep everything running smoothly by using Thrive software, and measure outcomes using the Impact Evaluation Standard.
“Kinovo uses Thrive to streamline and enhance several aspects of our social value reporting,” Pippa explains.
“Firstly, Thrive provides a robust centralised platform for recording all of the organisation’s social value activities. This allows us to have a single source of truth for all our metrics. We’ve also found it very useful having multiple data collectors across the different teams that report against the same metric, as this ensures that all activities at team level are captured and reported in one place.
Using Thrive, Kinovo can collect and analyse data to show areas of success and areas for improvement.
Social value delivery that goes the extra mile
Having social value expertise means Kinovo are always on the lookout for ways they can enhance their clients’ social value initiatives to facilitate more impact. One of Kinovo’s major clients, Peabody, requested a donation to their food bank as part of their social value contribution. But Kinovo knew they could offer more.
By providing staff volunteers for Peabody’s food hub as well as a financial contribution, Kinovo have supported their client’s initiative and increased their social impact in the community as a result.
Now they’ve developed a relationship with the food hub coordinator, Kinovo can supply volunteers directly, and spot other areas where help is needed – for example accessing commercial fridges at a cheaper rate to store food.
Pippa says that Kinovo are always keen to find ways they can enhance their clients’ existing offers in this way:
“One client was refurbishing IT hardware, so we donated to that. And we then shared on LinkedIn, which means more people are aware of the scheme and more good can be done. It’s about finding out what they’ve got going on and thinking about it strategically – how can we use our resources to make these efforts go further?”
As well as improving relationships with clients, Kinovo have found that being more visible on the ground improves relationships with the community too.
“We’re not just giving financial donations – the community can see we’re out there helping, person to person.”
Using Thrive and the Impact Evaluation Standard to capture and measure social value also makes it easier for Kinovo to decide where to deploy resources for maximum possible impact. The proxy values included in the Impact Evaluation Standard are especially helpful for guiding them on where their efforts are best placed.
“By integrating the Impact Evaluation Standard within Thrive, we can systematically measure and evaluate our social value impact,” says Pippa. “It provides a framework with vast metrics to report against and gives a benchmark of proxy values to use which can be shared with clients to demonstrate how the social value impact is calculated.”
Helping smaller clients on the journey
For smaller suppliers or housing associations that aren’t as far along on their social value journey, or who don’t have a dedicated social value lead, Kinovo’s expertise is proving invaluable.
“As we’re starting to become more recognised, our growing expertise is something we can share with our partners,” says Pippa. “You can help them figure out what they can deliver, and offer support. It means we’re all working towards a common goal.”
Support from Kinovo includes active collaboration with their supply chain to enhance community initiatives.
“For example, during the recent launch of the Darwin Court Food Hub, a social value project developed in partnership with Peabody and Purdy, we received generous donations of LED light bulbs from our suppliers, Eyre & Elliston and AP Electrical Ltd. These energy-saving bulbs were distributed to local residents as part of our ongoing commitment to the community.”
Kinovo have also helped 70 of their suppliers with their carbon survey and will go on to support these companies with their carbon literacy and social value offering.
“We’re always looking to expand what we do and get more of our supply chain involved,” says Pippa.
What’s next for Kinovo?
As momentum grows, Kinovo are keen to increase their social value resource and are currently looking for a social value coordinator to support Pippa’s role. It should allow them to keep expanding and enhancing the social value they provide, and spot even more opportunities to support the efforts of their partners.
“We’d like to use the work we’ve done with Peabody as a blueprint, and support other clients to do something similar,” says Pippa. “Helping them set up community resources, and supporting them by providing what we can.”
The more Kinovo are known for being social value collaborators, the stronger their reputation for social impact becomes. If this is what they can achieve in three years of prioritising social value, we can’t wait to see what the next three will bring!
Mary-Louise Fellowes
Marketing and Analytics More articles by Mary-Lou >
