Want to make a lasting impact in the community? Think outside the tick box
By Amy Cambridge, Head of Social, Structure Tone UK
We all want our projects to make a lasting impact in the community, but how do you actually build that legacy?
Taking a place-based, needs-led approach to social value, focused on the local community and the organisations supporting them, turns commitments into evidenced outcomes and enables lasting impact.
Creating roots, not routes
Our process starts with going out into the community and speaking to local residents, charities, and grassroots organisations to get first-hand insights about their specific needs.
Social value targets in construction often prioritise training and opportunities on-site. Having a deeper understanding of a community’s needs means we can look for opportunities beyond the boundaries of our construction sites to create impact, whether that is through outreach, volunteering, practical support, or targeted fundraising and local spend.
Outcomes before outputs
After the initial research stage, we build our strategy around desired outcomes. We develop a phased programme that considers the journey to each outcome, rather than just listing individual, unconnected activities.
For example, if a desired outcome is improving employment rates, we won’t just go into a school and do one presentation about careers in construction and leave it at that. Our phased approach would consider the ongoing steps that are required to meet the outcome. Recently, we worked with colleges in King’s Cross over a couple of years, providing CV and interview training, mentoring, and work-experience placements.  Through this process, two young people secured permanent employment with companies in our supply chain, and many more were supported more holistically in their career journey, which I’m incredibly proud of.
Measures of success
Throughout my career, I’ve learnt that strong relationships and open communication are fundamental to understanding local needs, while clear, measurable commitments provide accountability and a tangible way to evidence progress and delivery.
Recording results and tracking progress regularly allows us to see the areas of success and feed this back to the community. A certain amount of agility also needs to be factored in, for example if the community’s needs change over the course of a project, or if the approach needs to change where certain KPIs aren’t being met.
When we started working with Age UK in Camden, our initial conversations focused on their need for volunteers at their day centres. During our volunteering sessions, we got to know the local staff and service users and found out more about their needs. Building this meaningful relationship over time has brought about more opportunities for positive change and helped us shape our outputs for greater impact. For example, we delivered practical upgrades that improved accessibility and safety for older residents, and ensured our fundraising was donated to local branches rather than being given as unrestricted funds to the main charity.
Being aware of what maximises impact (and what doesn’t) is critical to shaping our approach going forward on the next project.
Lasting long-term stewardship
Our work doesn’t stop when a single construction project ends. The beauty of our approach is that we really get to understand what is needed in the community and we pass this knowledge on to our clients, the building operators, or the developers to take forward. And when we return to a borough for our next project, we can return to the local community and continue to support them.
Listening to the community + connecting resources = greatest difference
What we have learnt through our work in King’s Cross, is that social value has so much potential if you commit to it from the outset. I get truly excited talking about the future of social impact, more than I could fit into one article!
Legacies are rarely built solo, so if your organisation wants to do more with your social value strategies or test out new engagement ideas, we would love to continue the conversation.
