The Sheffield Social Enterprise Network to Lead New Project to Strengthen Social Impact Measurement Across South Yorkshire’s Social Enterprises

The Sheffield Social Enterprise Network has been awarded funding from the Communities Innovating Yorkshire (CIY) Fund to lead a pioneering 12-month project that will transform how social enterprises across South Yorkshire measure, understand, and communicate their social impact.

The project, Enhancing Social Impact Measurement Across South Yorkshire’s Social Enterprise Sector, will work with at least 50 local social enterprises to strengthen their capacity for collecting, analysing, and sharing impact data. By building a consistent, collaborative approach to measurement, the project will give enterprises new tools to evidence their contributions to community wellbeing, inclusive growth, and local priorities.

Delivered in partnership with the University of Sheffield, Data for Action, Impact Reporting, Sheffield City Council, and local social enterprises, the project will combine academic rigour, digital tools, and participatory co-design. A sector-wide licence for the Impact Reporting tool will enable organisations to access a powerful, affordable system for tracking social value, while training, peer learning, and one-to-one support will ensure the approach is embedded and accessible.

Importantly, the project will align impact reporting with the open-source MeasureUp framework, ensuring that social enterprises use metrics that are recognised nationally while also developing new indicators where gaps exist. This creates a shared measurement language that is both locally grounded and nationally credible. By doing so, the project will not only improve transparency and consistency across South Yorkshire but also contribute validated new metrics to the wider sector, strengthening how social value is evidenced and influencing policy and funding decisions beyond the region.

A key focus of the initiative is aligning measurement with the Sheffield City Goals and embedding inclusive practices so that underrepresented communities are reflected in the data. The project will also produce dashboards and storytelling tools to make insights actionable and transparent for communities, funders, and policymakers.

The CIY Fund, managed by the Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP) and part of the UKRI-funded Local Policy Innovation Partnerships programme, aims to support collaborative projects that advance inclusive growth, sustainable living, and community-led data innovation across Yorkshire.

Terry Murphy, CEO of The Sheffield Social Enterprise Network, said:
"This is a landmark opportunity for our region’s social enterprises. For too long, the incredible value they create for communities has been under-recognised because we haven’t had the infrastructure to capture and evidence it consistently. With the support of the Communities Innovating Yorkshire Fund and our outstanding partners, we can now build a shared framework that reflects our values, strengthens our sector, and influences how resources are invested locally and nationally."

Partner quotations:

• Dr Jon Burchell, University of Sheffield

  "This project offers an excellent opportunity to bring the region's social enterprises together to establish a solid baseline for reporting the amazing value they bring to their local communities. At a time when resources and investment are scarce, it is vital that these organisations have an effective framework to be able to capture their impact clearly and accurately without it taking up too much time and resources."   

• Tom French, Director, Data for Action

  “We’re delighted to be supporting this work in partnership with our fellow social enterprises in South Yorkshire. We believe strongly in bringing people together to tell compelling stories of their social impact through meaningful - and actionable - insight, bringing about the necessary change to narratives and systems at all levels of society. We’re excited by the opportunity to explore, design and facilitate the individual and collective ways in which we can do this at both a hyper-local and regional level.”

• Ben White, Managing Director, Impact Reporting

  "We’re proud to support South Yorkshire’s social enterprises in building a stronger, shared approach to impact measurement. Too often, organisations doing vital work for communities don’t have the tools or recognition they deserve. By bringing together the Impact Reporting platform and the open-source MeasureUp framework, we can give local enterprises the confidence to evidence their value in a way that is both credible nationally and rooted in the region's priorities. Well done to the teams in ensuring social value is seen and celebrated where it matters most."

• Louise Branch, Sheffield City Council

  “This is a fantastic opportunity for the council to learn from and work with social enterprises to demonstrate the impact they have for communities in South Yorkshire. We look forward to taking the learnings from this project to inform how we measure impact and social value for procurement and commissioning with the wider community sector.” 

Expected outcomes of the project include:

• Consistent and credible impact data from at least 50 organisations
  

• Strengthened skills and confidence in social impact reporting
  

• A shared regional framework aligned with Sheffield City Goals
  

• Validated new metrics added to the open-source Measure Up framework for wider adoption
  

• A replicable, sustainable model for other regions
  

This work will establish South Yorkshire as a national leader in place-based social impact measurement, positioning the region at the forefront of innovative, data-driven policymaking.

The project is funded by the Communities Innovating Yorkshire Fund - a commissioning programme delivered by the Yorkshire Policy Innovation Partnership (YPIP). YPIP is a regional project focused on academic, policy and community collaborative research on place based inclusive growth and sustainable living for informed decision-making.