A practitioner interview with Dee Baybutt on making Social Value match priorities and last

A Social Value match might provide funding, equipment, professional advice, a repaired building or a few hours of specialist support.

Dee described a move away from short-term contributions towards support that can help community organisations build capacity. This might include improvements to community buildings, HR or organisational advice, financial guidance, knowledge-sharing or practical expertise.

It can also mean a business becoming a contact that an organisation knows it can approach when another need emerges.

A group may need funding for one project, equipment for another and specialist advice several months later. A relationship gives both sides a better understanding of what the organisation does and what the business can offer.

Giving the council a clearer view

Another major change for Wigan has been visibility.

Before Match My Project, Dee said the council did not always have a clear picture of the Social Value activity taking place across the borough.

The platform now gives council staff, including senior managers, a live view of projects, matches and completed contributions. Reports can also support conversations with contract managers and suppliers.

The information helps the council see where activity is happening and where further support may be useful.

It can also highlight connections between projects.

If two community organisations in the same area are working towards related goals, council teams can help bring them together. If a major project is taking place in a particular neighbourhood and there are few relevant community requests, staff can speak to local organisations about what would be useful.

The information therefore becomes a starting point for conversations with communities, not simply a record of what businesses have already done.

Making Social Value part of council-wide work

Wigan’s earlier approach was relatively disjointed.

Social Value could appear in tender documents, but contract managers did not always have a clear way to check whether commitments were being delivered.

The council carried out internal work to address this. Staff were given a clearer understanding of Social Value and how they could connect businesses working with their teams to community opportunities.

This helped move Social Value beyond one department.

The Communities Team works closely with procurement, the business team and other parts of the council. Each has a different role, but the work connects around a shared purpose.

For the community team, this means understanding local needs and helping organisations access support.

For procurement and contract management, it can include supplier commitments, delivery and reporting.

The information available through Match My Project helps bring these different perspectives together and gives senior managers a wider view of activity across the borough.

It also makes it easier to recognise that different neighbourhoods may need different forms of support.

Measuring what changed

Monitoring Social Value cannot stop at recording hours, donations or resources.

These figures show what has been delivered, but they do not necessarily explain what changed for the organisation or the people it supports.

Wigan therefore places value on feedback from businesses, community organisations and residents, including videos showing the difference a project has made.

A community building that needed more than one project

During the interview, Dee shared an example that brought several of these ideas together.

A community building in one of Wigan’s more deprived areas housed around six voluntary, community, faith and social enterprise organisations. They provided bereavement support, health and wellbeing sessions, mental health support and after-school clubs.

It was an important local resource for the people using the building, but the building itself was deteriorating. 

There was a leaking roof, windows needed replacing, and other essential repairs were required. The condition of the building was beginning to put the organisations’ work at risk.

The groups have been asking for help for years, but the scale of the work was difficult for any one small organisation to fund.

When Match My Project was introduced, the organisation became one of the first groups Wigan worked with to test the platform. It posted around 10 or 12 separate projects.

Dee said the requests were matched within days.

The support included replacement windows, flooring and taps, alongside advice on volunteer policies and procedures. The work addressed immediate problems with the building while also helping the organisations strengthen their internal capacity.

Most importantly, it helped protect a space where several organisations could continue supporting local residents.

The project also created relationships with the businesses involved, giving the organisation potential routes to further support when new needs emerged.

What Wigan would say to other councils

When asked what advice she would give to public sector organisations looking to move away from generic, supplier-led Social Value, Dee returned to the same principle: Start with the community.

This means speaking to residents, building relationships with local organisations and understanding the differences between neighbourhoods.

It also means looking beyond activity data to understand what the support has changed.

“Community organisations know their communities better than anyone,” Dee said.

This knowledge can make Social Value more targeted and relevant for councils. For businesses, it provides a clearer route to useful contributions, and creates a way for community organisations to ask for the resources that will help them deliver their work.

About Match My Project

Match My Project connects community organisations with local businesses to deliver Social Value. Every project is verified by the contracting authority before it goes live. On average, it takes community organisations eight minutes to add a project to the platform. Get in touch at hello@matchmyproject.org to find out how your organisation can get started.